At last - a quiet PC

[Pob]

One of the great things on the 780G motherboards is that they have built-in fan controllers. The CPU and system fan headers are four-pin, and use PWM -Pulse Width Modulation - to control the fan speed according to the temperature.
I did not even know of this feature when I ordered the mobo, and it was a complete flook that the CPU heatsink and fan I ordered was a 4-pin PWM model. PWM case fans allow you to daisy-chain upto five system fans from one header, so they all change speed with the temp. I think this is a great feature for HTPC's - at last your PC can be moved into the living room! I really cannot hear the PC when on, apart form the clicking of the hard drive. I have seen some people raise concerns though about using PWM to control speed, saying it may cause interference? Have not noticed any ill-effects yet though...

[thisisnotadrill]

i find it easier to just use low power parts and run as much passive cooling. right now my htpc only has two fans: one low-speed 120mm fan as an exhaust and the 80mm fan in the power supply that i do want to replace at some point since its the loudest of the two by far.

[Deusxmachina]

HTPCs shouldn't get overly hot anyway, but such a feature is always welcome. I wish my workhorse/gaming PC had it more than my HTPC had it since the HTPC only really has one job and that job doesn't tax the power supply nor the video card.

I was going to get a fan speed controller to turn them down since 80mm are usually a bit buzzy, but instead I just rewired them from 12 volts down to seven volts and now you can't hear them but they still move decent air. The power supply fan is definitely the loudest one in there now.

In the "not really related but all in good fun" category, if you want to see some fan control, yesterday was the first day the weather started getting on the hot side, and while firing up a game on the ATI 2900 used to bring some mild noise, now firing up a game brings on the leafblower. ...and that was at only 50% fan. 100% fan can scare the cat. She doesn't lay on top of the PC much anymore.

[pBS]

not all pwm case fans have 5 outlets...just that one...
they are sweet cuz tho they adjust all fans...a great buy...
but only if your bios runs them well...some are impossible to figure out the meanings of the settings and no help anywhere really..
most run fine on defaults tho...

some power supplies also have temp. adjusted fans inside...i like those...
use power supplies with 120mm fan!
super quiet and less likely to clog...and look for high-efiiciency..it'll run cooler by default...[and use less power overall]

i used to use a ps that had a knob on back to adjust the 120mm fan on it..
sweet and quiet, but don't accidentally hit the knob! plus it doesn't adjust for high usage...

and most intel stock cpu heatsink/fans have either pwm or internal temp sense if only 3 pin...

[stustunz]

nothing worse than a fan ramping up and down if you ask me
lucky the new cpu run real cool(well my amd dual core does anayway )

[Etacovda]

heh, i have two fans in my htpc running, one in the psu and one 80mm on the graphics card at 5v. My hard drives are by FAR the loudest thing, i need to suspend them + make an aluminium hdd rack with heatsinks to cool them.

[thisisnotadrill]

use power supplies with 120mm fan!

that is the odd thing, i have one of the antec htpc cases (nsk-2400?) that was designed for quiet performance and its very good for that purpose, except for the 80mm psu fan. im not sure why they didn't use a psu with an 120mm fan