Ok, well I've got a X SuperAlien case with all 6 fans in it... and recently my PSU fried so I went and bought a new antec 480 along with an SLK-900A and a tornado (92mm) and some round IDE cables... Granted my wiring is horrible heres the temps I'm getting:

CPU: 38-39 (will probably change because this is after just installing the new hs and fan but its an XP 2200+ at stock speed with AS3 and only having been on for 15 minutes)
Case: 28

None of my case fans seem to be running as fast as they used to... I can barely feel any air being pushed out from my exhaust fans and the intakes are probably the same because they are all running off of 2 molex's from the PSU that are just for fans... Could those be giving the fans less power and that is the problem?


Another comment: man that tornado is LOUD! I feel like I'm at an airport and need those earmuff's, thank goodness I hooked it up to the rheobus thing.

could it be that your new tornado is pulling in so much air that maybe your fans are having a hard time pulling air away from that tornado...just a thought

I have the exact same PSU as you do and I've got 6 120mm fans hooked up to it right now only with 2 HDD's and the rest of the usual equipment and it works flawlessly with more to spare. It might just be that you are used to feeling the blow of the Tornado, that when you reach in front of the little 80's, they pale in comparison. Another problem may be the amount of turbulence caused by the Tornado inside the case that the exhaust fans are using too much energy pulling air into their intakes, that flow rate decreases through the fan. Fans like laminar, unobstructed flow. An easy way to test this is to "feel" (not very scientific, but hey....) the amount of air being pushed by a fan on its own outside of the case, then inside w/o the computer on, and finally with everything running. Anyway, a case temp of 28 degrees is fine either way. I wouldn't worry too much about it.

I think its a combination of what you two said... The tornado is probably sucking in so much air when I have it on full 4600rpm that that it creates turblence and what not throughout the whole case so the exhaust fans are having trouble getting it out.

But Anon-- do you know if the to connectors that are for fans give out a normal amount of power or are they using the 7V trick or what? Because I can visibly see that the fans are running slower. Before my other PSU fired, when I looked at the fan blades while they were running (they are quad LED fans) it looked smooth but now its choppy like their spinning slower..

Though it could be that I messed up the wiring with the other rheostat because it doesnt seem to do anything...

No, the fan-only connectors should be giving out a steady 12V. The matter of fact they can't use the 7V trick because there isn't even a red wire on those, only the yellow (12V) and black (ground).

The PSU fans will vary in speed because of Antec's Low Noise Technology:
"The power supply fans run at the lowest speed appropriate to load and conditions"
.....but the case fans should be pretty constant.

I just dunno... The case fans are def. running slower than they used to. Today or tomorrow when I get a good chunk of time I'll open everything back up and redo the wiring again to see if I messed something up

I'll report back then.