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Thread: which case

  1. #17
    Senior Member Brewster0101's Avatar
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    Re: which case

    Thermaltake have a new V9 case series coming soon, these look like updated Antec 900s but with better layout and room.

    Maybe a thought

  2. #18
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    Re: which case

    LOL @ Webby, that was a good joke, i did laugh though, sort of like "pfff..."

    @ Brewster, i just had a look from their website, Thermaltake V9 looks very stylish, at $139.99. I wouldnt' buy it though lol->money.

    I wish i can buy steel and design then build my own case lol, that would be awesome!

  3. #19
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    Re: which case

    The case came this afternoon and the box looked masssive, the case itself is bigger than the picture in the box and i love it! Thing is it is pretty heavy, 11.2kg just itself!

    I will post some pics tomorrow since i haven't done any cable management and i will get a new psu (tomorrow!) since the cables are not longer enough to go around and there are not enough connections.

    I will play with the fans ( 6 intotal!) since it's a bit noisy for my taste but it has good air flow, my average temp has dropped from 53 to 45. I think the main problem is the fan on the side panel, it makes a noticable amount of noise. Im considering getting a fan controller...more money to spend lol.

  4. #20
    Senior Member Pob255's Avatar
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    Re: which case

    Nice, post thoes pic

    And I fully agree with you on the Fortress it's lovely looking, the only thing that stops me getting one is the price tag.
    I know it's probably worth every penny of that £158 but personally I cannot justify spending that much for a new case which in all honesty I don't need.
    Even if I was sans case then I would spend half the amount on one of the antec or cm cases.

    PS you say the side pannel fan is noisey? check to see if it's viberateing the window.
    fan sound generally comes down to 3 factors in my experence
    1- fan speed, the faster it is the more air it moves but the more sound it makes.
    2- fan grill, some grills are better than others, sometimes they can add quite a bit of sound ie the fan is quiet but the air being sucked through the grill makes more noise than the fan does.
    3- Frame vibration, this effects cheap fans more than expensive ones, flimsy frame and unbalanced fan blades can cause a lot of vibration in the frame which will be transfured into the case when screwed down.
    When I first converted that old server case I'm using I got some very cheap fans from scan which while moveing an ok amount of air where very bad for vibration, just holding one in my hand while on made it very quiet but I could feel the vibration and if I stood it on the floor it would actually "walk" about.
    I've since replaced all the fans in my case now, the differnce between a Scythe S-FLEX and thoes cheap ones is so noticeable by just the feel, the S-Flex is far heavier the frame is very solid and doesn't twist or flex, which the cheap ones did. It's a real noticeable differnce between a £12 fan and a £2.50 fan
    That said you don't need to go to the high end many of the fans around the £6 mark are very good but please check the vent sound before you go spending cash, if it's the vent makeing the added noise then an expensive fan will not help.

    I've wandered a bit here but my basic message is check the fans fully before spending more cash, check for vibration, quality, speed and vents.

    Finally you can quite often get away without a side fan, unplug it and check the temps (esp graphics card) if there's no real differnce then you might want to consider just removeing it.

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  6. #21
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    Re: which case

    @Pob225:

    Wow, thanks for the extensive advice!

    What i have in mind is to get a new psu today, Corsair 520W HX modulars, it has good review on spcr and everyone seems to recommend it.

    Then I need to sort out cable management (or attempt to!). When that done, I will use fan one by one and combine them to see which setting give me best air flow with noise level. Tbh, i don think i will need to use all 6 fans.

    I got a 8600gt came with a passive cooler ( a big heat sink) and it's the hottest component/peripheral in my pc. Nice thing is that the side panel fan faces like at 90 degree to it so it does help.

  7. #22
    Environ'mentalist Zadock's Avatar
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    Re: which case

    I own an Antec 900, fantastic case... its a menacing looking thing to. Lots of space for expansion and good air flow although if you do decide to get one the front is all mesh so you may need to make yourself some dust filters, your mum's old tights work a treat lol!
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    System 1: Case: Antec 900 Motherboard: Asus Z77 CPU: Core i5 3570K @3.4GHz RAM:8Gb DDR3 1600Mhz GFX: XFX AMD Radeon 6950 2Gb (Cayman) HDD: Samsung Spinpoint 500GB O/S: Windows 7 64bit Home Premium

    System 2: Lenovo Ideapad S205: AMD E350 APU (1.6Ghz), 2Gb 1066Mhz DDR3, Radeon HD6310 (integrated), 250Gb HDD, Windows 7 64Bit Home Premium

    System 3:Asus Eee 901: 12Gb Ubuntu 10.10 Gnome Desktop edition


  8. #23
    Folding Flunkie Webby's Avatar
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    Re: which case

    Zadock, did you rad the thread or just the first post? He has bought a NZXT Tempest and should have photos up soon

    Cd, is the case to noisy from fan noise, air turbulance or rattling? If yuo susspect that it is air turbulance or general fan noise then the easiest option (if the fans have 3 pin connectors) you might want to consider a fan controller like this http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=683697 or http://www.chilledpc.co.uk/shop/prod...roducts_id=522 of course the alternative is to buy 6 new quiet fans but as Pob mentions if it is from a fan grill then changing the fans will not help as much as you may like. My personal feeling is that you might want to take off the side panel fan first if that solves the noise issues then you will need to decide if its the fan or fan grill thats causing the problem, not sure what the fan gill construction is like for that window so if you get a chance a photo would be nice

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  10. #24
    Senior Member Pob255's Avatar
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    Re: which case

    Quote Originally Posted by Webby View Post
    Zadock, did you rad the thread or just the first post? He has bought a NZXT Tempest and should have photos up soon
    Indeed we should.




    Oh and any thread we post in is rad.

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    Re: which case

    sorry guys, no photos as yet, i was held up in london today, thx to tfl and by the time i got back to the station, i missed the bus so i havne't got time to play with the case ( just got in 30mins ago)

    I however got my power supplier . The psu is big also...why everything must be big these days!? LOL

  12. #26
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    Re: which case

    ok, so i have fitted the spu and attempted cable managment ( dont take my word for it! ), but i think it is still erm wrong lol.

    And i have taken some photos too, here go:







    At one instance, i used only 1 fan and as you could guess, there was vibration, when i put my hand to the case, i felt it! And that fan wasnt the side panel fan, that one was at the back of the case.

    Im having 3 fans on atm so its pretty noisy. I dont know what next, fan controller or aftermakers fans or both!

    Thanks for the advice so far, i used the (thank) button to do that as i just found out about it few mins ago! lol.

    P.s. I said side panel fan was noisy but perhaps because it was closer to me than others. Imho, they are all pretty noisy to me!

    @ Pob255:

    You mention 4 factors: vibration, quality, speed and vents

    Vibration: yes, it is there
    Quality: cant decide
    Speed: not too sure, i say it contributes to noise level since when i turn on pc, it's reasonbly quiet (not 100&#37 then gradually it gets noisier
    Vents: not idea, how do i go on about checking vent noise?
    Last edited by cd_rom; 08-10-2008 at 10:41 PM.

  13. #27
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    Re: which case

    The fan speed contributes to the noise because of 2 things first more air is being moved and you can hear it moving (turbulance) the second thing is the faster the fan is spinning the more noise it makes from its bearings.

    Good quality fans have better bearings and so are quieter at higher speeds however you do not eliminate the turbulance noise.

    What Pob meant about vent noise is that the added turbulence generated from the mesh or grill can make more noise than you may expect.

    One other thing you can try is to get vibration dampers to mount the fans but these often come with the better fans and having better quaility fans will make significantly more difference than any silicon mounts.

    The fan that you took a picture of has a 4 pin (molex) connection if you get a fan controller you will need to replace the fans as well as most if not all fan controllers use a 3 pin fan connector (or 4 pin PWM)

    If you want a nice quiet case then a fan controller and some new fans may be in order, Yate Loon D12SL http://www.chilledpc.co.uk/shop/prod...products_id=48 £4 each plus a fan controller, so about £50 for the lot. You could get away with less fans couple on the top and one on the front will probably be sufficient.

    As to the wiring you should be able to route the main power cables up behind the motherboard tray and come out of the holes to the right of the motherboard, eqaully you could route some of the other cables this way as well.

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  15. #28
    Senior Member Pob255's Avatar
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    Re: which case

    ARRRRRGH I was almost finished on a long responce when I opened a new tab to double check a fact and firefox crashed So I'll break it up this time


    Well the first thing to do is becareful of camera shake, that's why your first two pic are blurry, most digital cameras have an option on them to take multiple shots, ie every time you take a picture it actually takes 2 or more always handy as one will often be better than the others.

    You need to keep working of the cables, it is a bit of a mess there, try takeing off the both the side panels then you should be able to run the power cables for the motherboard behind the motherboard tray and feed them back through the holes in the tray so they are not snakeing up over the motherboard.

    You can safely fold a ribon cable through 45 degrees and more than once along it's length, with a bit of planed ribbon cable origami you can generaly get them laying flat along the sides of the case which can help keep things neat.
    Just don't fold, unfold and refold in the same place as then you can break the wires, so plan before folding.

    Once folded you can then use bits of double sided tape to hold them down.

    If you have two drives next to eachother off one cable (a master and slave) you can tuck the excess length inbetween the two drives to keep it out of the way.

    If you have excess length you can fold the ribbon cable back over it self (so it looks like a flatterned S from the side) you can secure the fold and keep it flat by wrapping tape around it.

    I've found once you learn how to fold ribbon cable it can then be far eaiser than round IDE cables simply because round ide cables are not very flexable.

    Zip ties are good for tieing cables together in bunches or tieing them to the case to keep them neat, if you don't have any to hand then don't worry too much a simple bag tie work just as well (and you should have a few kicking about from all the packageing )

    One main thing is that I find cable tidying is a more of an art form than a science, you may have to uncable half or more of it and start again and do it more than once to get it right.

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  17. #29
    Senior Member Pob255's Avatar
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    Re: which case

    Now on to the 2nd part and I see webby has already made a reply
    Quote Originally Posted by Webby View Post
    The fan speed contributes to the noise because of 2 things first more air is being moved and you can hear it moving (turbulance) the second thing is the faster the fan is spinning the more noise it makes from its bearings.
    Actually there is a third thing, balance and vibration.
    Higher quality fans are made with denser less flexable plastics and tighter tollerences on the molding on the fan blades, sometimes they go through 2nd balanceing process where material is shaved off the blades to thurver improve the balance.
    The more unbalanced a fan the more it wobbles as it spins and a weak frame alows for more twisting which adds to the wobble and this is transfured into the frame of the fan as vibration.
    One simple and extreem experiment you can do here is to break off one blade of a fan and you'll notice that the vibration and sound greatly increases (don't do this on a fan you want to keep as breaking off a blade does effectively destroy it)

    Good quality fans have better bearings and so are quieter at higher speeds however you do not eliminate the turbulance noise.
    I find that bearings are a bit deceptive, the differnce between a quality and budget bearing isn't as great as you may think, in terms of sound anyway.
    Bearing type often plays a greater part in the sound level, but not as much as balance and frame strength does. (also note that unbalanced fan bladed put a greater strain on there bearings thus reduceing there life span)
    Higher quality bearings tend to show more in there lifespan than there sound levels, again it's down to better materials and tighter tolerences

    There are two main types of bearing, sleeve and ball
    A sleeve bearing is 2 tubes one inside the other, often with a single grove running around the middle of each to act as a fluid resurve for the small amount of grease used to stop the two tubes rubbing together. They are more quiet than ball bearings, simpler and cheaper to produce, but have a lower lifespan and when they go the tend to just suddenly sease up.
    A Ball bearing is basically the same thing but the groves are deeper and little balls are placed inside them (this is where the name ballbearing comes from) the two tubes rotate on these balls.
    They generate slightly more noise than a sleeve bearing and are slightly more expensive to produce, but have a longer lifespan and tend to slowly fail, they slow down and start makeing a grinding noise before totally seaseing up.

    What Pob meant about vent noise is that the added turbulence generated from the mesh or grill can make more noise than you may expect.
    Yep right on the money, air being sucked through a grill or mesh can create added turbulence and/or vibration in the mesh/grill

    One other thing you can try is to get vibration dampers to mount the fans but these often come with the better fans and having better quaility fans will make significantly more difference than any silicon mounts.
    Umm a silicon compound is often used as an alternative to rubber in vibration dampers as it has a longer life span and is less effected by heat
    I do agree that vibration dampers can help to reduce vibration going into the case especially over screws.
    I think what you mean is rubber plugs instead of screws with silicon grommets or washers, which is correct.

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  19. #30
    Senior Member Pob255's Avatar
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    Re: which case

    Part 3

    Fan testing and the hunt for noise. (by hand and ear)

    First thing to mention here is Beware of fast spinning fan blade and your fingures. I have gained a few cuts in my hunt for trouble fans.
    A premptive fabric plaster on a fingure tip can be very handy.

    You can safely plug and unplug fans into your pc while it's on (although molex connectors can be very stiff and a right bugger to do) also a 3pin extention cable can be very useful here as it makes it eaiser than trying to reach the motherboard around card and cables.

    To test Fans on a molex connector only a good trick is to use a spare PSU or remove your current one and jump start it ( All it requires is a paperclip ) then you can connect your fans to the molex connectors while it's out of the case and easy to get to +the only other fan running is the one on the PSU (I still have an old Qtec psu which is used to test molex fans)

    The measure fan speed the eaiest way is to have a monitoring program running (eg speedfan or even just go into the BIOS it'll be under "PC Health Status") and plug the 3 pin connector into your motherboard and see what it reads the fan speed as. (although these numbers sometimes lie)
    You can gain a rough idea as to how much sound and air is moved if a fan is slowed by very carefully putting your fingure onto the top of the central "hub" and pressing down slightly useing the friction so slow the fan, don't worry if you stop the fan it will not damage it, unless you use so much force you physically break something, but you should stop the fan long before reaching that much force. (a sticky plaster on the fingure can also come in handy here to protect you from a friction burn)
    Remember that your fingure tip rubbing over the fan hub is makeing sound, but lissen carefully, it'll be a differnt pitch, your lissening to the fan noise.
    Keep an eye on your monitoring program to see how much you are slowing the fan by. 50% of it's normal speed in generally as much as a fan controller can do.

    To test vibration, you seem to have gotten off to a good start here, feel the side panels and case around each fan to try to work out whic are the worst offenders (note one bad fan can cause the while thing to vibrate) then unpulg fans or unplug all but one and work your way through them untill you find the bad one/ones.

    Remove a fan from the case and simply hold it by the frame will also give you a good feel for the vibration and howmuch the sound will be reduced by if you use vibration damping on it.

    To test a grill/mesh remove the fan and see how loud it is the hold it up to the grill/mesh and see how much it effects it.

    Be methodical work through each fan in turn, good chance you'll have to take all the fans out of the case to give them a thougher testing.

    What you can do about the sound?

    Anti-vibration:
    well you can buy rubber plugs to replace the screws http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=487037 but at £4.60 a fan it's a bit pricey

    I seem to remember someone here uses whitetac to hold his fans in (it's like bluetac but slightly softer) I've never been to sure about that, I'd worry about my fans falling off.

    What I use is hair bands like this http://shopping.erol.co.uk/product/D...-18-Large.html get them from your local chemist or supermarket, the ones with out the metal joiners for prefrence but it dosen't matter much.

    Now what you do is cut the in half at the join to make one long length, you can seal the ends with a cigarette lighter, feed it through two of the screwholes of the fan vent, so you have two equal lengths of elastic sticking into the case then do the same with a 2nd hair band for the other two screwholes, now attach your fan by feeding the elastic ends through the screwholes in the fan frame. pull the ends of the elastic tight, then pull on the fan slightly untill you have about 1mm clearence between the fan and the case (you can tie knots in the ends of the elastic but I find the friction holds it in without problems.) Vola one suspended fan for the grand total of about 30p

    2nd methord is basically the same but cut each hairband into 2 lengths tie a knot in one end then feed it through the case, so instead of two double ended lengths you have 4 single lengths.
    You may need some washers to help secure it as you may find the knot will pull through the screwholes.
    Any DIY/hardware store will have washers and they are dirt cheap, just make sure the holes in the washers are smaller than the screwholes in the case, rubber washers would be best here.

    Rubber/Silicon Washer or Grommets, the idea here is simple get some rubber/silicon washers (rubber will be black and silicon clear both are a soft materal) now put one on each side of the screwholes of the case before screwing in the fan, the idea here is the both the fan and screw head are held off the case by the washer alowing it to absorb the vibration.
    A grommet is basically a double sided washer the fits in the hole it's better than washers as the sides of the screw are also surrounded by rubber as it passes through the case, the down side is the hole need to be larger than the screw so you'd have to enlarge the holes in the case.
    The down side to these is that while they reduce the vibration they don't do it as much as a rubber plug or the hair band methord. and they are rather limited with high levels of vibration.

    Slowing down the fans.
    Depending on the current fan speed just slowing them down can help alot.

    For 3pin connectors
    Sotfware, you can sometimes use software (speenfan can be setup to slow fans, but it depends on your motherboard compatibility with it to if you can or not) sometimes you can also do it in the BIOS (however from you pic's a see you have a ECS motherboard, I seem to remember they mainly make cheap motherboards so it's doubt full if it has this added feature)
    Software can be very hit and miss in my experience.

    Fan controller, a very easy way to control the speed of multiple fans, they do range from cheapish to expensive. also have the advantage of alowing you to use more 3pin fans than your mother board has connectors for.
    I myself use one of these zalman fan controllers http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=683697 for £19 it lets you control upto six 3pin fans, it's very easy to fit. It's manual control only so you have to fiddle with the knobs to adjust the speeds, you can also put you cpu fan onto this as well as case fans but I prefur to let my motherboard automatically adjust the cpu fan speed so don't have to worry about it.
    You can go up quite a bit in price to something like this http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=517726
    Which you stick inside your case and it adjusts the speeds automatically based on temptures via 4 probes you can wire up to areas of your case.
    however I'm guessing £50 is out of your budget.

    Resistor extentions
    you can get short 3pin extension cables with a resistor on it to slow a fan http://www.acousticpc.com/zalman_3pi...or_56_ohm.html
    Dwon side to these is they are not easy to find and you are limited by the number of fan connectors on your motherboard.

    For 4 pin molex connectors.
    you cannot directly use a fan controler or simular but there is a simple mod you can do to slow down the fans
    7v and 5v fan mod, basically fan run off 12volts supplied by the 12v pin of the molex connector
    (the yellow wire is +12v, the red is +5v and the 2 black wires are earth btw)
    Now what you do here is remove the pins from the molex connector of the fan and swap them around.
    simple pin removal tool
    To reduce the fan to 5v you swap the red and yellow pins over.
    To reduce to 7v you swap the black pin the fan is connected to with the red pin.
    Here's a guide http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/other/137
    There are hidden down sides to this.
    5v, not all fans will be able to run at 5v as it can be just too little voltage for them to start or keep running. (side note, this is why most fan controllers have a bottom limit of 6v)
    7v, you get this by feeding the 5v back down the 12v line to generate resistance, which is not always that healthy for the PSU. While you have been very sensible and not skimped on the PSU and got a high quality corsair HX520w so it should be able to cope and not cause any major damage you do run the risk of shortening it's lifespan.


    Better Fans
    This is probably a good option, although I'd test all the current ones first before splashing out on replaceing the lot. esp as it might only be one or two causeing issuse.
    High quality fan are very nice, (I've not used a nocturn fan but I do love the Scythe S-FLEX fans) however they are expensive £12-15 (esp if you need to get 4 or 5 fans) and you can get very good resaults from fans that cost half the price £6-7

    Some basic things to remember, the faster the louder, the slower the less air flow.
    This is a basic rule that applies to ALL fan reguardless of blade shape and number, although that said blade shape and number does have and inpact of air flow and volume.
    Other things that effect the performance are production quality and bearing type (I mentioned the two main type but there are others and veriations in all types)

    Couple of rules of thumb,
    1000rpm and below = very quiet but not much air flow.
    1200-1400rpm = quiet but reasonable air flow.
    1600-2000rpm = bit louder but good air flow
    2200rpm and above = massive air flow but does make you case sound like a vacume cleaner.
    Don't trust the numbers, take them with a pinch of salt. there is no fixed standard here and numbers are often twisted. use them as a rough guide the othe good rough guide is the price, if it's £2.50 it's not going to be any good.

    Fan's I've used
    mid price, very quite fan, not great air flow http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=615592
    mid price, good well ballenced between air flow and sound http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=590760
    both of these fans are very good for the under £6 low cost, I'm quite a fan of the Sharkoon System fans just don't go for the power one, yes it moves a heck of a lot of air but it's very loud. (it is both the loudest and most powerful fan I've used)

    If the top 140mm fans are giveing you trouble I seriously consider the 140mm Sharkoon system fans

    The Sharkoon Golfballs used to be very highly recomended on these forums, the 1000rpm ones are very quite but not a great air flow, the 2000rpm ones are a good balanced fan (the air flow and sound are below what I'd expect from a 200rpm fan) both around £7

    If you want to splash out on a S-FLEX or Noctua, then don't go for the 800rpm ones, they are next to slient as possible but don't move much air. the 1200rpm or 1600 rpm are much better and still very quiet. and cost around £12-13

  20. Received thanks from:

    cd_rom (09-10-2008)

  21. #31
    Senior Member Pob255's Avatar
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    • Pob255's system
      • Motherboard:
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      • CPU:
      • FX8350 & CM Hyper 212+
      • Memory:
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      • Storage:
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    Re: which case

    Quick question, is the side window held on by screws?

  22. #32
    Senior Member Brewster0101's Avatar
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    • Brewster0101's system
      • Motherboard:
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      • AMD FX 8350
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      • 8GB (2x4) Corsair Vengence DDR3 1600mghz
      • Storage:
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    Re: which case

    Get yourself a fan controller to control the fans and then you have the best of both worlds.

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