These Thermaltake smart fans are driving me nuts. I have 3 temperature sensors mounted to the heatsink base (only using 2 of them though) just as Thermaltake instructs but the only fan that seems to change speed is the 80mm fan. Both 120mm fans idle along at about 1400 RPM no matter what. The front intake 120 has it's sensor under a heatsink on my video card... meaning that I can actually open the case and get at that sensor while it's all running. So I did the unthinkable. I grabbed a lighter and held it under the sensor. It took at least 30 seconds before the 120mm fan started to speed up. Not good... to further prove this point I grabbed the good old meat thermometer and held my lighter under it at the same distance for the same amount of time. I'm guessing the 120mm fans don't start to speed up until the sensor sees a temperature of 120 - 140 F which is 48 - 60c and is not exactly the 20C to 55C low to high speed range Thermaltake claims IMO. I'm not seeing any abnormal temperatures I guess so maybe I should just let it be. I tried to get it as hot as possible (image lost) but you can see in that screenshot that the temps are fine and I never saw any higher while I was letting the AI N.O.S. overclock the CPU and throttling the system. You can also see the 80mm (chassis2) is at 2057 RPM - well above it's idle of 1400 RPM. I'm kind of glad that the rear intake is 80mm and blowing towards the CPU cooler. If it were a 120mm fan it wouldn't be speeding up at all.
Speaking of the AI N.O.S. overclocking - it works quite well but UT99 hated it! I would get stuck in maps and have to move all around to free myself. I wonder if overclocking manually/permanent will be different.
Some more temperature readings (PC idling, not at load) from the meat thermometer:
Front 120mm intake: ~70f / 21c
Rear 80mm intake: ~75f / 24c- right below the PSU exhaust but isolated
PSU exhaust: ~85 / 29c
VGA exhaust: ~90f / 32c - below the rear intake and not isolated
top blowhole: ~85f / 29c - fan disabled, just a vent, don't want negative case pressure so one 80mm fan exhaust via the PSU is fine. I might even block the hole off.
With the front intake measuring about 5 degrees cooler I'd rather that fan would speed up instead of the rear intake I think. Even so the sensors' wires aren't long enough to attach the front fan to the CPU heatsink. Putting it on a video card heatsink is the best I can do without an extension cable.
Overall I'm VERY happy with the cooling situation now (I've come a long way from the initial 140f PSU exhaust about 2 weeks ago) but I'm left wanting a little more if I can get it :) I'm nearly positive that the loudest fan in my system is now the fans in the Ultra Xfinity 600 watt PSU. They aren't very loud but I can hear something that sounds like an electric motor whine and it seems to be in the PSU area.
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