Choosing & Installing PC Cooling Fans As Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2013-05-07
·
817 words · ~4 min read
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on today's Tech twiki we're going to show you how to determine what kind of
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fans are compatible with your case or cooler and how to install them figuring
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out which fan is compatible with your case if you have an aftermarket case as
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a snap check the manufacturer website look on the side of the box or check the
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manual it'll tell you which mounting points correspond to which fan sizes if
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you don't know what kind you need then it becomes a little bit more challenging
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grab a measuring tape and you can either take an existing fan that's the same as
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the one you're looking for and simply measure across the fan not diagonal to
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find out what size it is they come in standard sizes 80 mm 92 mm 120 mm and
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140 mm are the most common ones or if you don't have access to a fan you can
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simply find the mounting holes in the case measure from the middle of one hole
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to the middle of another hole again not diagonally and look for a measurement
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that's slightly lower than the size of a standard fan Mount so for example a 120
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mm fan has holes that measure from Center to Center about 5 mm in general
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you want the air to flow from the bottom front of your case to the top back this
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ensures adequate cooling for all the components inside but and don't be
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embarrassed if you've wondered about this not everyone knows how to tell
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which side of the fan the air comes out of and which side is an intake so on
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most fans it's actually labeled if you look closely there's one arrow that
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indicates the direction that the blades are spinning and another one that
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indicates which way the Air's coming out but don't worry about it too much if
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your fan isn't labeled because all you have to do is find the pieces of plastic
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that are holding the middle Hub that is where the motor's situated and in
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general the fan will actually be blowing air out away from that side so if you
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wanted to use it as an exhaust fan you just have the sticker pointed towards
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the outside of the case and it would be blowing in that direction installing a
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fan is simple in most cases you're actually just going to use four fan
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specific screws they're specially threaded so they actually cut into the
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plastic of the fan you just screw those in and they're attached to the
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however there's a slight disadvantage to using screws or what's called A Hard
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Mount and that is that vibrations from the fans particularly lower quality fans
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can be transferred to your case if you don't want those vibrations you can use
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rubber isolator mounts many highquality fans come with them already but you can
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also purchase them separately that way the spinning motor of the fan actually
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is in no way in direct contact with the metal of the case reducing the risk of
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vibrations until you plug the fan into the power supply it won't get any power
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so there's a couple different ways to do that this one right here is a four pin
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Molex it has two wires one for positive
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one for negative that's it you can't monitor the fan and you can't control it
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because you're usually going to be plugging that directly into the power supply next we have a three pin fan
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connector this can be plugged into the power supply using an adapter which will
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be included with most highquality fans or you can plug it into your motherboard
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where you can use that third wire to sense the RPM and give you a warning if
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something goes wrong and you can actually adjust the fan speed using
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voltage control which is a less sophisticated way next we have a four
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pin pwm fan connector this one adds an additional pin that is dedicated to just
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controlling fan speed most newer motherboards will use these
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you next time