I am buying a Thermalright Shaman for my HD6970 and I need to find a way to make the fan as quiet as possible. I'd like some ideas on how to do this. The problem is that every single fan header on my motherboard is already in use (there's 5 of them). I'm currently using 5 separate Zalman Fan Mate 2's to slow down the 5 fans I already have inside my case. How can I take care of this?

You could use a 3pin splitter cable to have one FanMate control two similar fans, as long as the power limit of the FanMate and the motherboard connector is not surpassed. Usually for relatively low speed fans it will not be a problem. Personally I prefer to also use a 4pin molex converter in such setups to avoid any risk of overloading a motherboard connector.

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You mean a splitter cable like this?

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1090/ ... itter.html

It seems like a good idea. Two nexus real silent 120mm fans shouldn't overload the header even at 12V, right? (not that I would blast them at 12V)

Thanks. I'm not sure though, I think the 6 fans in total (including the Shaman) will be all the fans I will ever put inside my case, so basically I just need a way to include that one more fan.

Exactly. Those fans don't draw much even at 12V. On the side of the Zalman FanMate one can note that it is stressed more as the voltage is dialed down(resistors run hotter), but here too these fans don't draw enough juice to make it a problem. If memory serves me right they should handle four fans like those, but two is good enough.

I recently installed one on my gtx570. I purchased a adapter from eBay which connected the thermalright fan to the 4pin connector on the graphics card and then the fan speed can be controlled with the relevant gfx card software. There is post in the graphics card section about this.