When I built this computer a few years ago, I got an Antec Sonata tower. This is a great case, designed to be very quiet.
A month or two ago, the machine quit booting. It wouldn’t even boot to the BIOS. I pulled the CMOS battery and reset the jumper to clear it, all to no avail. I tried this and that and everything I could think of, but I couldn’t get it to boot for anything.
So I went down to Mapletronics to see my buddy Keith, and I bought a new power supply. It didn’t seem like a power supply problem, but I needed to try something and a bad PSU was certainly a better prospect than a bad motherboard!
I plugged in the new power supply and the computer booted right up. So I had found the problem. However, this tower being designed for silence, the original PSU had a fan-only lead for the chassis fan. It would run the fan at very low rpms unless the machine started running too hot, in which case it would speed the fan up as needed.
This new power supply didn’t have a fan-only lead like this, so the fan ran full speed all the time. Way too loud.
Here’s the old fan.
I contacted Antec and they agreed to send me a new replacement PSU upon receipt of the bad one. Several weeks later I got the new unit, and discovered that they don’t make the original unit for this case and they’ve replaced it with another one! Which, guess what, does not have the fan-only lead.
I called them up and explained what was going on. They then sent me a 3-speed chassis fan. It seems a little goofy, it has a hi-medium-low switch to control the speed. Not quite like controlling the rpms automatically, but I guess it should beat sounding like a cropduster flying through my office.
Putting in the new fan. I like to have soup close by on my workbench to keep up my strength.
Another obvious drawback is that you have to open up the case to change the fan speed.
There’s the 3-speed switch.
If you want one you can get it pretty cheap from endpcnoise.com. I got mine free though.
What a horrendously messy desktop! Both of them.
5 Responses
December 7th, 2007 at 12:47 am
Tom, you mentioned earlier that you have a Asus A8V-E Deluxe motherboard… I’m fairly certain that motherboard has a 3 pin header for a case fan. If you hook your case fan to that header, you can usually set certain BIOS settings so the fan will speed up and slow depending on the data collected by motherboard heat sensors.
Here are a couple good 120mm fans with the 3 pin connector:
Fan 1
Fan 2
December 7th, 2007 at 9:59 am
How long did it take you to “pose” your desktops for the photo?
To avoid having to open the case to manipulate the speed switch, simply drill a hole in the case and let the switch hang out for easy access. It likely would be handiest to do this on the front of the case.
And don’t forget to use that nice fat checkbook to pay that yellow-highlighted bill.
December 7th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
You mean you haven’t upgraded to an LCD monitor yet? Sounds like a great Christmas present idea for Mrs. Iced Tea Forever!
December 7th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Great tip areel.
Mark, about 1 second. I’d have liked to run it out front somewhere (this case has a door over the drive bays) but the switch wire is only 6-8 inches or so. I’ll try not to forget.
I’ve been seriously wanted to get a LCD widescreen for a couple of years now. And I don’t think I’ve gotten any closer to getting one! I don’t think I would get away with getting one for my wife, she never uses this computer.
December 8th, 2007 at 7:44 am
Beautiful tractor on your screen…