Corsair Link Cooling kit and similar, any recent experience?

Control: management of fans, temp/rpm monitoring via soft/hardware

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mkk
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Corsair Link Cooling kit and similar, any recent experience?

Post by mkk » Mon Oct 07, 2013 10:50 am

I'm looking for some internal fan controlling kit for like four or more fans that allows for shutting off fans completely, preferably with software/USB stearing. One such seems to be Corsair Link Cooling kit, but perhaps there are others as well?

I've read from reviews and user comments that while otherwise pretty great, the Corsair Link Cooling Kit manages voltage regulation in a PWM way with 3-pin fans as well that induces ticking motor noise, but that they were looking into solving the problem. For what I can gather right now that was possibly just a blanket statement of alluding to be able to improve something that is simply inherent of the design, but perhaps someone has tried it recently or is even running with it now?

I'd be prepared to buy a relatively costly soluition to get the functionality to have fans vary and also turn off automatically according to a temp reading (something simple like CPU socket temp would be good enough), but I don't want to build anything and don't need to have anything accessible from the outside like a control bay or so. I could even accept having to run with PWM fans if only the controller would just allow for complete shutdown of a fan, which PWM controllers typically can not do.

I'm currently using a motherboard with ASUS Fan Xpert 2 and it certainly got me hooked on being able to turn off fans, but I'd like a solution that was separate from the motherboard.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Corsair Link Cooling kit and similar, any recent experie

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Oct 07, 2013 11:21 am

mkk wrote:One such seems to be Corsair Link Cooling kit, but perhaps there are others as well?


Maybe the HFX bigNG could work for you.

At any rate, if you drop the software requirement, I think that also some good fan controllers may work for you (an example: Scythe Kaze Server 5,25).

Abula
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Re: Corsair Link Cooling kit and similar, any recent experie

Post by Abula » Mon Oct 07, 2013 11:36 am

Not sure if this will be what you looking for, or if it will work completly as you are binded still to the PWM bios fan control of the motherboard,

Sunbeamtech Rheosmart 6 Fan Controller, is a smart and manual fan controller that can take the 4pin PWM signal and control up to 6x 3pin fans, it can stop fans, but will depend on your bios and then fans you are using. Check the following video, Sunbeamtech Rheosmart 6 PWM Fan Controller BIOS Setting Tutorial.

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mkk
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Re: Corsair Link Cooling kit and similar, any recent experie

Post by mkk » Mon Oct 07, 2013 2:27 pm

quest_for_silence wrote:Maybe the HFX bigNG could work for you.
I think it could, unfortunately the original part manufacturer T-Balancer is no longer around and I read some user note about software support being poor in 64bit Windows from back when these things were designed. They have a mini version that is pure hardware controlled that might be worth experimenting with, even if making adjustments requires taking the unit out and turn little potentiometers and set jumpers. Not quite 2013 though. ;)
At any rate, if you drop the software requirement, I think that also some good fan controllers may work for you (an example: Scythe Kaze Server 5,25).
Seems like it is more or less just on/off on auto mode, blasting fans at full speed when reaching a temperature rather than using a curve. I guess I'd prefer not to have anything with protruding knobs either, even if it's usually possible to fit such bays inside a case or recessed.

Edit: Gosh, Google is fast today. Looking around for more about the Link Cooling Kit I saw this thread as a high up result.

Blood
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Re: Corsair Link Cooling kit and similar, any recent experie

Post by Blood » Mon Oct 07, 2013 2:43 pm

There are 2 other options.

1) Aquacomputer Aquero 5 LT uses voltage control (I am using this kit. It takes some time to setup, but works very well).
2) Koolance TMS-205 has one channel of voltage control (if memory serves me right), and a dozen more PWM channels.

Blood
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Re: Corsair Link Cooling kit and similar, any recent experie

Post by Blood » Mon Oct 07, 2013 2:45 pm

Aquacomputer is a German based company, so (since you are in Sweden) it's probably more cost effective for you. I had to pay Germany -> US shipping.

mkk
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Re: Corsair Link Cooling kit and similar, any recent experie

Post by mkk » Mon Oct 07, 2013 3:16 pm

The Aquaero 5 LT looks very interesting, and I even found one firm stocking it here in Sweden. Costs more than Corsair's but not extremely expensive either. (The more I read on Corsair Link the more I'm convinced it's really only for PWM fans) Their website aquacomputer.de which includes their forum is presently down so I'll wait for it to come back up and read more about it before taking a shot at it, but it could be just what I've hoped to find. Thanks. :-)

Edit: Ordered one. Could take a bit over a week before I recieve it.
Last edited by mkk on Tue Oct 08, 2013 12:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

faugusztin
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Re: Corsair Link Cooling kit and similar, any recent experie

Post by faugusztin » Mon Oct 07, 2013 4:42 pm

Aquaero 5 LT is what you are looking for. If you need software temperature sensors, you can use Open Hardware Monitor, otherwise you can use hardware sensors. You can combine multiple sensors into virtual sensors, which do stuff like min/max/average if needed. Then you set up your fan voltages, and after that you can set up the controlling logic itself (what fan speed should be used at what voltage for which fans). It has support for some other sensors made by them, but i didn't need any of that stuff. I just used OHM, used the CPU and GPU core temperature as software sensors, made a max temp virtual sensor from those two and i control all my fans according to that.

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