Will keeping all my fans at 100% speed harm my computer?

If I use a program such as SpeedFan to keep my fans at 100% power 24/7, will it harm my computer? I don't care about my power bill but if the excess power could harm my computer I would worry. I have a 350 watt power supply so I don't think the excess power usage will harm it. Here's what I think:

Pros

Things it cools off are kept cooler
Cooler parts = faster computer
Cooler parts = slower fail rate

Cons

It just sounds wrong. I know this sounds dumb but still
Most fans are designed to do their job already
I'm either gaming or just browsing the web. Obviously gaming while keeping the fans on can be beneficial but my computer doesn't get very hot while browsing the internet.

Jon

Posted 2014-05-11T04:08:51.910

Reputation: 8 089

Noisy, sucks more dirty air through the case over the computer's lifetime. – Fiasco Labs – 2014-05-11T04:25:39.120

@FiascoLabs What if I clean the case out? And I don't care about noise. – Jon – 2014-05-11T04:26:55.453

1It's not a case of cleaning the case out, you just are drawing more dust laden air through the system. There are several cases out there with positive air pressure cooling that have air inlet filtration to prevent this. This is opposed to the negative pressure cooling currently used on most systems where you have the fans expelling the air instead of pulling it in and blowing it through the case. It's easier to filter with positive pressure systems. – Fiasco Labs – 2014-05-11T04:33:45.393

Answers

The only harm that would come to your computer should be the fans wearing down faster. If you have an insufficient power supply, this might harm it too, but it really probably won't. And the dirt and dust accumulation would require constant vigilance.

Really, I would just configure the fan speed in the BIOS if possible (you can on mine, but I built my computer myself. I don't know about OEM motherboards). It's more reliable than some random program on your OS that does whatever the hell it does to keep the fans up. If you don't know how it's keeping the fans up, could just be making the CPU crunch more numbers and heating it up so the OS reacts, for all I know. It could even be mining bitcoins for the author! So anyway, people who make computers and fans know what they're doing. I wouldn't mess with it, because it wouldn't provide a noticeable boost to speed (even if technically the overall speed is 1% higher or whatever).

Wyatt8740

Posted 2014-05-11T04:08:51.910

Reputation: 943

in some cases the thermal subsystem is not very efficient (e.g. laptops) and under heavy load the performance difference can be significant (e.g. 1GHz vs 2GHz). – Andrey – 2019-02-06T22:01:30.477

Most APCI motherboards regulate the fan speeds according to the temperature the CPU or the sensors reach, so the fan doesn't have to be always at 100% (so they don't wear out faster). Maybe you could apply a better thermal compound? Artic Silver 5 works great (it's electrical conductive so be careful with it), I've also heard good opinions on the Artic Cooling MX-4 compound. Also make shure you only apply the necessary amount to the processor, a little bit extra and it may spread out and start isolating the heat instead of dissipating it to the heat sink.

arielnmz

Posted 2014-05-11T04:08:51.910

Reputation: 2 960

-1

350 watt is low for a PSU running load, which means you'll wear it down. But that depends on the quality of the PSU and the number of fans.

Fans are not that expensive and if they break it's not a catastrophe. PSU's are another matter.

You could run fans independently, keep the intake and HDD ones running fully as well as the exhaust ones, these don't have sensors and their speeds could be tied through SpeedFan at most with HDD temps to keep them useful, but that's not really useful overall. HDD's don't heat up based on CPU load, ytou could potentially run high IO load applications while the CPU speeds and its temps remain low, thus not triggering the speeds for these HDD fans.

While the CPU and other fans you can keep at variable speeds. The CPU has sensors, that's why you can adjust speeds based on load, which in turn will help you in several ways. Noise will be reduced to only when needed, dust on and wear of CPU fans will be reduced and keeping CPU at a stable temp, not necessarily the lowest temp is healthier. This means a delta temp between idle and load at the lowest possible.

This can be achieved by keeping the CPU under low fan speeds when idling, and at load at high fan speeds, so as the average temp isn't offset too much. This will help interconnects of CPU and other parts not strain themselves from thermal expansion and contraction from the large temperature difference, as opposed to running just one speed and having a large delta temp.

JasonXA

Posted 2014-05-11T04:08:51.910

Reputation: 837

Between the CPU, dedicated GPU, motherboard chipset, RAM, hard/optical drives (earliest made in 2005), and my current USB & PS/2 devices, my system draws a max of around 185 watts. 350W is fine for low to midrange hardware, though hard to find for sale besides in OEM desktops nowadays. Fans don't typically take much current once spinning. With that said, I agree that if concerned PSU takes priority. – Wyatt8740 – 2019-02-06T16:35:29.713

You don't understand wattage rating. A PSU has a combined wattage for 3.3v, 5v and 12v. The 3.3v line is barely used, 5v can be exaggerated on those 350W PSU's to such extent that the 12v rail which is most commonly used is way underpowered. I had a 500W Xilence PSU, just 260W for 12v rail. After wear, a year or 2, it will stop giving out proper 12v when reaching high loads and cause instability. After I had a 400W Sirtec, it would not power 3 HDD and my 180W system. Right now I have a 650W Seasonic and works as intended with added HDD's and a RX580. Fans use 5-6W of power at max speeds. – JasonXA – 2019-02-06T21:41:27.120

this is fair; I'd ignored the different voltage rails having their own independent ratings. My mistake. – Wyatt8740 – 2019-02-10T08:45:30.177