Powering fans

[DesertChicken]

I've got a 350w Antec PSU and currently, one of the power lines is going to my system fan to my 9800pro to my hard drive. I jsut bought a 80cm fan with a 4 pin plug for the front of my case and was considering hooking it up to the same line as the one I just mentioned. Is it hazardous to be hooking so many things in my system to just one power cord?

 

[Fern]

Well the risk with so many things daisy-chained onto one line is that the HDD or gfx card won't get enough juice and may start acting up. Do you have only one 12v molex connector with that PSU?

Fern

 

[DesertChicken]

What's a 12v molex connector? I could solve the problem by sending down an SATA power cord to my hard drive. It accepts both SATA and 4 pins. It's just taht the cords are kinda crowded.

So power sources don't dynamically alot power to each of its cords?

 

[Fern]

The 12v molex connectors are the one that go to the IDE HDD, Optical drives and gfx cards like the 9800 pro (at least I think they are 12v IIRC).

If the HDD accepts the SATA plug/connector, I'd be inclined to use it. My concern about too many things on one connector is that I'd be afraid of the possibility of corrupting the data on my HDD.

Sorry, I'm not sure about dynamic power alotment. But I have seen peeps put too much on one line and have probs, usually with the gfx card. Thier solution was to limit how many things were on the line.

If you don't feel data corruption is likely or a prob, you can try hooking up the new fan. If there are no probs in gaming etc, fine.

Seems all of my PSU's have 4 lines with the 4 pin molex connector. As a matter of practice I use one exclusively for the gfx card

 

[paadness]

its not hazardous, i always try to distribute the load, i dont like crowding it up

 

[CrispyFried]

Each connection adds a bit of resistance if daisy chained. I try to keep important stuff as isolated as possible and then stick all the cooling and bling in one huge chain on another.

But if its an unused molex, I dont think it matters.

 

[DesertChicken]

Ok, I've hooked up the fan. I pulled down my SATA cord and isolated my HDD on that. However, I've kept my video card, rear case fan, floppy drive, and the new front case fan on the daisy chain.

I loaded up Chaintech's DigiDoc program before I hooked up the front fan and got this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v232/DesertChicken/b4hookingupfanwithpin.jpg

After I hooked it up, I got this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v232/...rtChicken/afterhookingupfanwithpin.jpg

The reason I'm posting this is becuase a few of those system voltage values are above the numbers to the left. I don't know what taht means. Can any of you derive anything from it?

 

[CrispyFried]

I think thats within the margin of error.

The voltage is measured somewhere on the mobo. Im not sure where, or what power takeoff it uses.

As long as it runs, go with it, but Im pretty sure vid carrds want a dedicated line.

Do some serious burnins/benchmarks and see what happens.