If I'm going to run just one or two of these straight off the USB slots on my PC tower, will I need a fan?
1945689
Long answer: I was lucky enough to have my USB ports on my desktop pc close to the PC's power supply fan outlet. So it actually blows a continuous stream of "coldish" air on the ASIC miner. So I don't use a separate miner. It's been running 24x7 for about a month without any issues. But it does get hot when running without a fan, and electronics generally don't like getting too hot. So I imagine the life time of the device will be shortened if it's running hot all the time. These devices are quite new and have probably never been CE approved or similar, so basically no one knows for sure. But I've yet to see any reports online about ASIC miners catching fire. That's a good thing. Also a cheap ebay or china USB fan is probably not CE approved either and not built to run 24x7 as is probably just as likely to burn :) Short answer: If you have any kind of circulation and make sure the two miners are not close to each other (causing heat to build up) I'd not be that conserned about a fan. There is a heat block on them. But if you dislike having hot things sticking out of your computer try to give them some kind of cooling.
1945690
if you want it to have a longer lifetime, yes. I only have 2 and I still use a fan. I highly reccomend it.
1945691
They do work fine without a fan, but the metal plate on the back gets so hot to be untouchable. It's enough to have a small usb fan to cool lot of them.
1945692
Yes you will need a fan they get quite hot to the touch and to avoid any problems it's best to just have some air circulating around/over top the Erupters. If you don't they'll burn out fast , your usb ports will burn out fast and you can possibly do damage to your motherboard (Probably over extensive use though).
1945693
No.I have 3 of them sitting in my closet without fans, they are powered wia USB hub and RaspberryPI, since the hub has ports far apart, there is good enough cooling to the miners, they are running 24/7 and are working great, they were built to handle the temperatures ... However if you want to have large number of them, and in USB ports close to another, get a fan. Simple as that.
1945694
Yes they tend to get very hot, and getting one fan for both of them would be fine.
8079
Yes...one cable supports 2 fans. So you can have up to 4 fans for your 2 plugs. Keep in mind they run in parallel and are treated as one fan on MOBO.
1298556
Using a power supply, but you need the mother board so you can conecct all the fans and power them
1232459
I would say yes. As long as air is getting to the heatsink, I think it would work fine without the fan.
2027525
It depends on your computer's PSU size. I have four fans on one of my computers and five fans to cool the other computer. For my guest computer, I only have two fans. This particular Antec fan is fairly quiet.
1187419
There's no need. Comes with the two 120mm fans installed with lights and the 200mm fan on the side. My PC runs cool as hell. There's no need for anything more than that. Grab the air cooled older master CPU cooler and you'll run optimal. This is the most amazing case. Build quality is superb. It looks so good.
1102343
I don't know because I haven't seen that ranking, and I don't know what "USB fan" is. It works really well, however, even though it's small, so that's why I gave it a good review. I use 2 on our screened-in porch to keep airflow going. We have a ceiling fan, but it doesn't circulate the air at seat level.
992059
I guess that depends on the resources that you would be plugging into your usb's? Primarily I use them to monitor all of my Corsair hardware. I use a Asus Impact but I run into resource issues because I have two 4 drive USB hard drive towers. But I've not daisy-chain two.
613301
I have the PC behind my monitor. I honestly can't tell you if we have 2 or 3. Anyone out there in Amazon land have quick access to the cover to count the fans? Sorry. So far no problems and cpu runs cool. I do take all precautions to always keep items away from top and side airvents.
944497
Mine does fine for a mini computer in an entertainment system cabinet, but you might need two to keep a full on tower cool
474261
It's been a while since I built that PC as a gift to a relative. IIRC, those fans have molex power connectors, meant to attach directly to your power supply, not your motherboard.
181393
yeah, that would be extremely annoying :) I have mine running a PC case fan that blows on it while its on, then the built-in fan never runs, and PC fan is MUCHO quieter.
230806
Sorry for the delay. Had to ask my son who built the computer for me. He says you can run two chassis fans off the motherboard and more from a power supply.
2054511
Depends on the power connections on your circuit board but probably yes. Most of my boards are ASUS M5A97. I can use one top fan only. Thet plus putting the power supply on the bottom, therefore allowing the heat to rise through and heat everything in the case, is stupid. Still 4 of the 15 computers in my office have this case.
1995699
If you have them in a computer on the desktop next to you running at maximum speed, they would be a bit annoying. I have 6 fans in my computer but only 1 running at maximum speed and I don't even notice them unless I specifically listen.
8082
Yes if you buy 1, if you buy 2 you could have 4 fans. Of course the two fans that shared one sleeved will run at the same speed and the Mobo only senses the speed of one if you have 4 pin fans.
2140644
Agree with Pbear's response. Love the fans -- I have installed three of them.