It’s taken a while, in excess of ten years, but I think I have completed AV Corner to a working situation. All the hot technology sits in a corner underneath shelves and has a somewhat restricted airflow. I have bought two or three small fans in the past to try and encourage circulation of air but they have ALWAYS been too noise and stupid. Let me tell you that any desk fan, USB powered, that claims to be silent – is not. I recently purchased some shelves that worked really well in creating separation between the units and the last thing I wanted was a QUIET fan just to help circulate the air.
I must have been bored at work when I searched for AV Fans. I’m not sure why I hadn’t used that search term before but I had always gone for “silent USB fans”. I found a company that makes fan units for AV cabinets and they had some options that would work for me. That company is AC Infinity. So, the thing is that the options they had that would work for me were less than GBP20 and so well worth giving it a go. I ordered the Multifan S7, from Amazon and waited for it to turn up. I am fully aware that I could have made something like this using some PC components but this one was delivered working and there are somethings I don’t want to do. I did consider using my Raspberry Pi as a fan controller and that is still an option but it would require more time than I have at the moment.
The double fan unit turned up and once unpacked I tested it. The fans were indeed very quiet. I was impressed. All I had to do was decide where to place them and how to power them. I have gone for a fan which draws air from the Amp upwards towards the PS4 with the hope that it will be both a little cooler than they have been and then the second fan is placed as a general circulation device to the right of the system.
Both fans are powered from the NVIDIA Shield Pro USB port. This means that when the TV is on the fans will be on. It is very rare that the amp is on by itself and the Shield turns the TV on so even when playing on the PS4 the Shield is powered up. There is an option to keep the USB port power on even while the Shield isn’t powered up but that’s not necessary. The fans are indeed quiet and with the TV playing at normal volume you can’t hear them. When playing the PS4 it doesn’t matter what the TV volume is the PS4 is running at the noise level of a RB199. I might take the PS4 apart and give it a good clean. I’m curious to see whether it is clogged up or not.