control fan speed with fan controller or motherboard

[nohito]

I am using a Zalman Z11 computer case and I require some help on controlling the 6 fans on it. Some of the fans can be also plugged into the motherboard and thus I can control the speeds with different software's available on the net. I have also heard that with a fan controller we can also control the fan speed, so can anyone tell me whether controlling the fan speed will be good with a fan controller or the motherboarD? Thanks

[lorenz]

Incase the fan controller that you want to use has a temperature sensor and dynamic fan speed adjustment option then I would suggest you to use it without much thinking. If it is not having that option that you can control all the 6 fan in your cabinet with the help of the motherboard. But I think that only 4 fans in any cabinet would be more than enough to cool down the system, as controlling 6 fan will be overkill.

[Abbie]

I am using the non-automatic fan controllers and find it to be a little irritating. It is very important that a PCB with different voltage lines plugging up to the standard 3/4-pin headers and after that you just need to wire it up to a molex actually. I also use a splitter but there will be more cables laying around all over the place in the cabinet. If you dont use too much power from the motherboard then it is usually the same concept.

[Brooks]

If you want to control fan via Software then it is very dependent on the mobo. You will get to control over the 4 pin PWM CPU fan with any motherboard but any other headers will be dependant on the mobo. So, you can usually get a 2 fan splitters for 3 pins fan called StarTech 30cm TX3 Fan Power Splitter Cable so that you dont overload the header. Hope this helps.