We will not be few users who have a drawer where we have been keeping fans that we have replaced for different reasons. Some for better models, others for placing LEDs, others simply for changing from 3 pins to PWM, but in any case they are as they say “picking up dust”. Why not give them a new life with a purpose, why not reuse those fans ? Today we are going to see some ideas to put them to good use.
The vast majority of ideas that we are going to present are focused on using low budget fans. It would be a shame to waste a high-performance fan for its performance and price on one of the tasks, so with that in mind, let’s begin to see how we can reuse that standing fan.
How to reuse unused fans
Cool a router, NAS or Switch
The most common thing for a fan that is stopped is to focus it on improving the dissipation of other key external components such as routers, NAS or even high-performance switches.
It seems unbelievable, especially in cases of components attached by companies such as fiber marketers, where they end up giving their customers medium or low quality products with refrigeration problems.
They are usually routers especially, where when they are turned on 24/7/365 the temperature they usually have is always high, since the component usually has poor standard cooling. A fan would come in handy and would lower the temperature, prolonging the life of the fan and also allowing Throttling to be absent.
For this we will only need our fan and a 3-pin or 4-pin PWM USB connector like the one below.
Since they only offer 5 volts, our fan will be quite silent, but completely silent (it depends on the clear model, in this case, if possible, a 5 cm fan would be perfect). Now we just have to put it by putting air through the grooves of the router or NAS to improve the internal recirculation of the air and thus lower the temperatures thanks to better cooling.
Use the fan to cool off
If our fan has a large air flow at 5 volts, another very advisable option and more in the time we are currently in is to use it as a standing fan, that is, a fan that gives us air to cool down.
For this, apart from the small USB cable above, we will need a good support for mobile phones that is capable of holding horizontally and at various points up to 12 cm in height.
This one that we propose is ideal because we can also adjust it to the exact position that we want and keeping it behind the PC tower to connect the USB to the board. In the event that we cannot connect the USB and the support near the tower, we can buy a USB extender for just a few euros.
Graphics Card Fans
It is not something new or much less, but it is a rather expensive option, although very effective. If our GPU suffers from temperatures with this infernal heat, the ideal is either to change the card for another model, which is expensive, or to buy a heatsink that supports 12 cm fans.
With this we will guarantee better temperatures and surely less noise. A good example of a heatsink without a doubt is the Raijintek Morpheus II Core Edition , which is monstrous yes, but it supports two 12 cm fans in its body.
As a base to cool a laptop
This will require either skill and materials, or a ready-made surface to support the notebooks at an angle. The idea is to manufacture a cooling base for these devices with the fan or fans, which and at the price at which the bases are currently may seem silly because we buy them ready-made, but it has a very clear advantage: we can exchange any fan if these fail.
This will only be possible if we have tools for such manufacturing, which will make the final price more expensive, but will leave us with better temperatures and even better expansion options in case we decide to include a greater number of fans.
With these simple tricks we can reuse our fans in a simple way and without leaving us too much money in the vast majority of occasions, do you know any other utility?
