Looking for advice on new case fans and controller for cooler

[sean16]

Hi there.

I'm looking for some advice on new case fans for my PC and how I could connect the controller to my existing CPU cooler. I've had my PC since November 2022 and so far everything's been great. One thing I've noticed though is the noise coming from the front and back case fans. I have a Cooler Master Masterbox TD500 Mesh V2 which came with 3 standard Cooler Master 120mm front fans. I also have a PC Specialist 120mm fan at the back. I set some fan curves which have helped a lot but if I'm playing something pretty demanding the extra noise is distracting. I'd like to buy new case fans but I'm a little unsure on what I should go for.

I've been looking at Corsair iCUE AF120 RGB Elite fans which come with a Lighting Node CORE Controller. My PC did not come installed with an RGB controller, though PC Specialist did include a Cooler Master controller in my Welcome Pack. I've not had to use this though as I'm able to control the RGB on my fans via software. The back fan is connected to CHA_FAN1 and would like to replace it with the non-RGB version of the AF120, but I'm not really sure where to get fans with a shorter cable. I've heard that Corsair fans are generally quite quiet and good for airflow, but I'm also eyeing up Corsair out of convenience as well.

My CPU cooler is a Corsair iCUE H150i RGB Elite. It's the non-Capellix version which comes with 3 standard non-RGB fans and the noise from them is pretty low. It also doesn't come with a Commander Core or any other kind of controller as it's intended to be used with iCUE, which honestly I haven't been using. The only RGB that it has is on the pump header itself but unfortunately I can't get any RGB software to recognise it. It's a minor issue and I'm not at all bothered by the RGB, it's just that it'd be nice to control all of it from one place.

Instead the cooler is connected to my PC via a USB-C Wiring Harness which connects the pump to the PSU, the CPU_FAN header and a USB fan header. There is also a splitter for the radiator fans but in February I disconnected these from the USB harness and connected them to CHA_FAN3 as I wasn't able to set my own curves. Have included a screenshot below from the manual to show how they're connected.

Would it be possible, if I bought new Corsair fans with the Lighting Node CORE Controller, to remove the USB harness and instead connect the CPU pump to the controller instead? I'm not too sure if it's compatible but I thought that if I did this I could free some extra headers on my motherboard. I could always buy another type of Corsair controller if not but thought I'd better ask online about it first.

I'd greatly appreciate any advice. I'm open to other brands of fans but thought that since I'm having a minor issue with the RGB on my Corsair cooler that it might be worth also buying Corsair front fans and connecting the pump header to the same controller.

Thanks.

Specs:

• Case: COOLERMASTER MASTERBOX TD500 MESH ARGB GAMING CASE
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D Eight Core CPU (3.4GHz-4.5GHz/100MB CACHE/AM4)
• Motherboard: ASUS® ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready!
• Memory: 32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 3600MHz (2 x 16GB)
• Graphics Card: 10GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3080 - HDMI, DP, LHR
• Graphics Card Support Bracket: PCS GRAPHICS CARD SUPPORT BRACKET
• 1st M.2 SSD Drive: 500GB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 6900MB/R, 5000MB/W)
• 2nd M.2 SSD Drive: 2TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 7000MB/R, 5000MB/W)
• DVD/Blu-Ray Drive: NOT REQUIRED
• Power Supply: CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ - MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
• Power Cable: 1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead, 1.0mm Core)
• Processor Cooling: Corsair iCUE H150i ELITE RGB High Performance CPU Cooler
• Thermal Paste: STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
• Sound Card: ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
• Network Card: 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
• Wireless Network Card: WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
• USB/Thunderbolt Options: MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
• Operating System: Windows 11 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00003]
• Operating System Language: United Kingdom - English Language
• Windows Recovery Media: Windows 10/11 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account

USB-C Wiring Harness:

 

[SpyderTracks]

I'm looking for some advice on new case fans for my PC and how I could connect the controller to my existing CPU cooler. I've had my PC since November 2022 and so far everything's been great. One thing I've noticed though is the noise coming from the front and back case fans. I have a Cooler Master Masterbox TD500 Mesh V2 which came with 3 standard Cooler Master 120mm front fans. I also have a PC Specialist 120mm fan at the back. I set some fan curves which have helped a lot but if I'm playing something pretty demanding the extra noise is distracting. I'd like to buy new case fans but I'm a little unsure on what I should go for.

IMHO, your case fans should never be adjusting with system load, they're not plugged into the right board headers if that's the case. Those case fans are CF120 which aren't designed for adjustable fan speeds anyway, I'm not surprised they're getting noisy, they're probably operating outside of their designed speeds.

They need to be in the CH_Fan headers which don't adjust speed. They just run at a static speed that the case fan is designed for.

That's my humble opinion, I may be out of date there, but I would never have fans adjusting to system temps on a case.

 

[sean16]

IMHO, your case fans should never be adjusting with system load, they're not plugged into the right board headers if that's the case. Those case fans are CF120 which aren't designed for adjustable fan speeds anyway, I'm not surprised they're getting noisy, they're probably operating outside of their designed speeds.

They need to be in the CH_Fan headers which don't adjust speed. They just run at a static speed that the case fan is designed for.

That's my humble opinion, I may be out of date there, but I would never have fans adjusting to system temps on a case.

Ah sorry forgot to mention my front case fans are connected to CHA_FAN2. The default BIOS fan curves are very aggressive and run the fans much faster than they do on idle with my custom curves. The slightest bit of activity caused them to rev up and down. Now they're a lot quieter and the sound is much more consistent. They're fine 90% of the time, most of the games I'm playing aren't all that demanding. It's newer and more beefier titles that cause them to get a lot louder, and as new games are coming out it's making me a little more aware of the noise of my system.

Would the AF120s be better for adjustable fan speeds?

 

[SpyderTracks]

Ah sorry forgot to mention my front case fans are connected to CHA_FAN2. The default BIOS fan curves are very aggressive and run the fans much faster than they do on idle with my custom curves. The slightest bit of activity caused them to rev up and down. Now they're a lot quieter and the sound is much more consistent. They're fine 90% of the time, most of the games I'm playing aren't all that demanding. It's newer and more beefier titles that cause them to get a lot louder, and as new games are coming out it's making me a little more aware of the noise of my system.

Would the AF120s be better for adjustable fan speeds?

As I said, you don’t want variable voltage on them, just set them to static in the BIOS and problem solved. Case fans aren’t designed for variable speeds.

The cooler fans as well don't want to be connected to the CH-Fan headers or they're not adjusting based on the coolant temps, so you'll lose out on performance as the fans won't be able to react to the coolant temp as they're designed to.

The one fan that is worth swapping out as will be a lot louder is the rear fan as those are quite low quality and quite noisy.

 

[B4zookaw]

Ok I’d have to disagree with Spyder on this. I’ll post more info once kids in bed.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Ok I’d have to disagree with Spyder on this. I’ll post more info once kids in bed.

I've gone back over the CPU vs Coolant temp bit that came up before with the OP, I've struck that part again, when will I learn!

Swapping CPU fans from Commander to CPU fan header on motherboard

Hi there. I have an ASUS ROG Strix B550-F Gaming motherboard and a Corsair iCUE H150i Elite RGB CPU cooler, and I want to connect the CPU fans to my motherboard in order to control them via Fan Control as they are currently controlled by the CPU commander. However, I'm a bit stumped on how to...

www.pcspecialist.co.uk

 

[B4zookaw]

So I'd disagree with Spyder's view (sorry!) that case fans should run at static speed, this is not true. If case fans were run at a static speed, you'd either have the fan running at a low speed that gives quieter acoustics, but not enough performance when temps rise, or vice versa. They are intended to adjust their speed in response to temp rises, and that why the fan chassis headers are designed to support variable fan speed curves, unlike some pump headers that just run at 100% speed all the time.

So that's that out of the way.

Now, back to OP's scenario, I have the same case (it's the V1 btw, the V2 only became available on PCS very recently) and motherboard and had similar issues with the included fans, both from a RGB and control perspective. My issues are documented here and here. But in summary, I wasn't happy with the included case fans and initially replaced them with ML120 Corsair fans for the front that matched the fans on the Corsair AIO and a BeQuiet Silent Wings 3 on the rear exhaust.

If OP wanted to stick with Corsair, I'd look to buy Corsair fans and a Commander Core XT, that way you could connect 6 corsair fans to the commander and control them all in iCUE for speed and RGB. Corsair fans are good/above average in terms of noise levels, but you are forced to use propriety software (iCUE) to control them. By sticking to all Corsair, you'd have a consistent look too perhaps, although with non RGB fans, this may be less critical.

Alternatively, you could keep the three existing AIO fans and connect them using a splitter to one of the chassis fan header, buy three front case fans (Noctua, Bequiet, etc) and connect via a second splitter to a second fan header. And then lastly connect a rear exhaust fan to the fan header to left of the CPU. I just zipped tied the cable back on itself to make it neat.

You can then use software other than icue to control the fan speeds, either Asus's Armoury Crate software sick or what I use, Fan Control.
The advantage of Fan Control is that you can set fan curves that react to both CPU and GPU temp. Traditionally fan speeds were only linked to CPU temp as that tended to be the hottest component. But modern GPUs tend to run hotter than the CPU, especially at 1440 and 4K gaming, where GPU is at 100% load but CPU <15%. So if GPU fan heats up, the case fans can react and ramp up, rather than just being linked to CPU and staying at idle. I go into more detail on my fan curve setup here.

OP, did I read you right that you disconnected the USB cable from the Pump head to the motherboard?

 

[SpyderTracks]

So I'd disagree with Spyder's view (sorry!) that case fans should run at static speed, this is not true. If case fans were run at a static speed, you'd either have the fan running at a low speed that gives quieter acoustics, but not enough performance when temps rise, or vice versa.

Why is that though? That's not my experience whatsoever. If you're buying the right fan for the right job, then it's designed to run at an optimal speed. So for those case fans, their native speed is 1800rpm as a CFM high airflow design. While that's slower than some fans, it's faster than others, Noctuas for example are as low as 1200rpm as they are optimally designed to move far more air at lower speeds.

The PWM performance on a cooler or heatsink fans obviously you need that rate to ramp up and down to combat thermals, but they're totally different fan types focussing on static pressure, so speed is not the important aspect really, it's the force that the air is delivered through the fin stack to move the hot air out into the case so that it can be carried by the airflow of the case externally, or outside the case if it's an AIO radiator.

But static pressure fans inside the case don't increase the volume of air at all, so you're still only pushing through the same volumes?

I'm not saying PWM on case fans is a bad thing in any way, but if it's at the point where the speed it's ramping to is making too much noise, just reduce the speed.

I can bet your bottom dollar, doing that won't increase temps within the case at all and if it is, it's a damn poor case!

Maybe I'm just going on really outdated info, but I've never bothered with PWM on anything other than a cooler or heatskink fan where the pressure is important

Sure, if the OP wants the additional iCue integration with Corsair fans to match the rest of their setup, then absolutely, totally makes sense. But if it's purely from a cooling vs noise standpoint, I'm saying I don't think swapping out the fans is necessary, just needs tailoring a bit better.

Just try limiting the fan to 1800rpm static (which is it's native speed), and check your thermals under load compared to now, I'm willing to bet serious money, if there is a difference it's like 1 degree or something which would be MOE anyway. The max speed is 2000rpm, the difference between that and 1800 from a CFM point of view on a 120mm fan is going to be totally insignificant. I'm guessing the noise is fine at 1800 as the fan will have been optimised for that speed, it sounds like it's when it's ramping nearer 2000 that it's getting unbearable, ergo, don't ramp that high?

According to this review the fans in that case offer a max airflow of 62 CFM which is over 1 cubic foot per second, so that's the entire case air recycled roughly once a second. So it's completely redundant having ramping up and down, there's absolutely no benefit as the whole case volume of air is replaced fully within a second. If your case thermals are rising to the point your seeing any kind of performance impact with that kind of airflow rate, it's purely down to the fact the aifllow path is particularly poor either due to poor case design or bad fan configuration causing dead spots.

Cooler Master CF120 ARGB PC case fans review – Galaxy PC Components

galaxypccomponents.com

 

[sean16]

So I'd disagree with Spyder's view (sorry!) that case fans should run at static speed, this is not true. If case fans were run at a static speed, you'd either have the fan running at a low speed that gives quieter acoustics, but not enough performance when temps rise, or vice versa. They are intended to adjust their speed in response to temp rises, and that why the fan chassis headers are designed to support variable fan speed curves, unlike some pump headers that just run at 100% speed all the time.

So that's that out of the way.

Now, back to OP's scenario, I have the same case (it's the V1 btw, the V2 only became available on PCS very recently) and motherboard and had similar issues with the included fans, both from a RGB and control perspective. My issues are documented here and here. But in summary, I wasn't happy with the included case fans and initially replaced them with ML120 Corsair fans for the front that matched the fans on the Corsair AIO and a BeQuiet Silent Wings 3 on the rear exhaust.

If OP wanted to stick with Corsair, I'd look to buy Corsair fans and a Commander Core XT, that way you could connect 6 corsair fans to the commander and control them all in iCUE for speed and RGB. Corsair fans are good/above average in terms of noise levels, but you are forced to use propriety software (iCUE) to control them. By sticking to all Corsair, you'd have a consistent look too perhaps, although with non RGB fans, this may be less critical.

Alternatively, you could keep the three existing AIO fans and connect them using a splitter to one of the chassis fan header, buy three front case fans (Noctua, Bequiet, etc) and connect via a second splitter to a second fan header. And then lastly connect a rear exhaust fan to the fan header to left of the CPU. I just zipped tied the cable back on itself to make it neat.

You can then use software other than icue to control the fan speeds, either Asus's Armoury Crate software sick or what I use, Fan Control.
The advantage of Fan Control is that you can set fan curves that react to both CPU and GPU temp. Traditionally fan speeds were only linked to CPU temp as that tended to be the hottest component. But modern GPUs tend to run hotter than the CPU, especially at 1440 and 4K gaming, where GPU is at 100% load but CPU <15%. So if GPU fan heats up, the case fans can react and ramp up, rather than just being linked to CPU and staying at idle. I go into more detail on my fan curve setup here.

OP, did I read you right that you disconnected the USB cable from the Pump head to the motherboard?

Ah cool, thanks! I'll have a looksie.

I'm not too sure yet if I'll stick with Corsair or not, if my AIO pump is compatible with a Commander Core then I'd definitely consider it. Open to other brands though if not possible. I personally use FanControl myself and it's great! I think there's a plugin for it that lets you use it with Corsair controllers so hoping I can continue to use it.

Yeh, I'm just going to keep the 3 AIO fans, I think they're okay. I don't mind either that they're non-RGB, it's just the three front case fans and back fan I'm looking to switch. Sorry, I forgot to mention that the radiator is mounted to the top of my case. Yeh I had to reconnect the AIO fans to CHA_FAN3 as they weren't controllable outside of iCUE while connected to the USB harness.

Yeh I'm a bit wary of newer games right now lol just because of how loud my fans can get. It seems okay most of the time, it's more so just for the future when I get into more demanding games.

No sorry the pump head is still connected via the USB cable, just the AIO fans I disconnected from the USB cable to reconnect them to a chassis header.

 

[B4zookaw]

Why is that though? That's not my experience whatsoever. If you're buying the right fan for the right job, then it's designed to run at an optimal speed. So for those case fans, their native speed is 1800rpm as a CFM high airflow design. While that's slower than some fans, it's faster than others, Noctuas for example are as low as 1200rpm as they are optimally designed to move far more air at lower speeds.

The PWM performance on a cooler or heatsink fans obviously you need that rate to ramp up and down to combat thermals, but they're totally different fan types focussing on static pressure, so speed is not the important aspect really, it's the force that the air is delivered through the fin stack to move the hot air out into the case so that it can be carried by the airflow of the case externally, or outside the case if it's an AIO radiator.

But static pressure fans inside the case don't increase the volume of air at all, so you're still only pushing through the same volumes?

I'm not saying PWM on case fans is a bad thing in any way, but if it's at the point where the speed it's ramping to is making too much noise, just reduce the speed.

I can bet your bottom dollar, doing that won't increase temps within the case at all and if it is, it's a damn poor case!

Maybe I'm just going on really outdated info, but I've never bothered with PWM on anything other than a cooler or heatskink fan where the pressure is important

Sure, if the OP wants the additional iCue integration with Corsair fans to match the rest of their setup, then absolutely, totally makes sense. But if it's purely from a cooling vs noise standpoint, I'm saying I don't think swapping out the fans is necessary, just needs tailoring a bit better.

Just try limiting the fan to 1800rpm static (which is it's native speed), and check your thermals under load compared to now, I'm willing to bet serious money, if there is a difference it's like 1 degree or something which would be MOE anyway. The max speed is 2000rpm, the difference between that and 1800 from a CFM point of view on a 120mm fan is going to be totally insignificant. I'm guessing the noise is fine at 1800 as the fan will have been optimised for that speed, it sounds like it's when it's ramping nearer 2000 that it's getting unbearable, ergo, don't ramp that high?

According to this review the fans in that case offer a max airflow of 62 CFM which is over 1 cubic foot per second, so that's the entire case air recycled roughly once a second. So it's completely redundant having ramping up and down, there's absolutely no benefit as the whole case volume of air is replaced fully within a second. If your case thermals are rising to the point your seeing any kind of performance impact with that kind of airflow rate, it's purely down to the fact the aifllow path is particularly poor either due to poor case design or bad fan configuration causing dead spots.

Cooler Master CF120 ARGB PC case fans review – Galaxy PC Components

galaxypccomponents.com

Well like I said earlier, my opinion on case fans isn't the same as yours, so each to their own.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Well like I said earlier, my opinion on case fans isn't the same as yours, so each to their own.

It's not opinion that I'm questioning, I've never understood this "it's only my opinion" thing, it has no impact on if something is or isn't, it's results, does having it set on PWM actually have any positive impact on thermal performance over the designed rpm? Scientifically it doesn't, but maybe I'm not understanding something about that case?

Think it's @Scott who's quite clued up on flow analysis, I may well be getting everything wrong, but I did do quite a lot of testing back in day allbeit with pretty crappy cases and never found increasing fan speeds beyond their native had any impact to operational thermals.

 

[Scott]

I agree with both points in honesty. It depends on the rest of the cooling solution though. If you have an AIO, the flow will vary with the speed of the AIO fans. With an AIO I would have the case fans set to a static speed as I want the AIO ramp to determine the positive pressure and vacuum applied. Performance wise there will be very little difference when considering the CPU, but the GPU can have a significant impact in the case temperature, so it depends on the level of GPU being considered.

On my last system I had the AIO on full choke. I had the case fans on minimum speed and I did some benchmarking/testing/GPU torture. I then ramped up the case fans to the max and re-ran the tests. For me the difference was quite minimal but there was a notable difference with a huge impact in acoustics. What I ended up doing was ramping up the case fans to an acceptable audio level, I balanced this as well as I could by actually using one as an intake along with the AIO (which was on the front as an intake). I then had 2 exhaust fans which led to a positive pressure case under load. This isn't ideal for temps but thanks to only having the GPU to consider, it made very little difference to it overall and the acoustics were bang on. I then tuned the AIO with a curve. The entire thing was static other than the GPU fan curve and the CPU fan curve.


With an air cooler on the CPU my thinking would be different though. The harder the CPU cooler is working, the more heat it's exhausting into the case and the more airflow required to dispel it. I don't have the experience with such a setup to know if the above methodology with the AIO would suffice, or if there would indeed be a benefit from the airflow ramping up to help with CPU/GPU cooling. My immediate guess is that it will help as the heat soak with an air cooler is a very real consideration and it affects everything inside the case. It would be a compound effect. That's not to say the static setting that I used above wouldn't work though, I just don't know. If it wasn't enough then I would definitely set a case fan curve as well, so that I had it running acoustically tolerable for day to day activities with it only having to ramp up the audio for extreme use (most gaming wouldn't cause this though, although CPU intensive games might).

Regardless, it all comes down to the hardware inside the box and how much heat needs to be expelled from the case. With an AIO it's typically half the requirement of an air cooler with a toasty chip.

 

[Scott]

Oh, as far as I know case fans are to be considered as a much more narrow use band than the likes of cooler fans. I think there is still a band for varied speed though, with an efficiency point of noise and performance. All fans have this though (all coolers do as well, as a package).