Fan Installation

From NMTWiki

Medium difficulty requiring some technical skills, or some parts require more than basic knowledge.

You can damage your NMT if you are not careful

In General the NMT do not need a fan installed. Some none Popcorn Hour NMT models do have a fan fitted. If you must have a fan fitted then here are a couple of modifications some NMT owners have made to their NMT's. The C200 is a full size unit and as can be seen from the C-200 Thermal Images article the temperatures are well within the manufacturers limits. You can however if you wish still fit a fan.

Popcorn Hour A-110

After reading the heating issues post that yellow360f was having in his 2nd PCH, he decided to install a small 12v DC Fan which would help circulate the air around it and keep it cooler.

Credit: Yellow360f

What you need: Popcorn A-110 12v DC PC Fan.

I used this fan which i bought from Maplin for £4.99 - There is probably cheaper options out there, this was the only one i could find in Glasgow today after a few computer shops told me they didn't stock anything to this size. It needs to be 30x30x10mm as the popcorn isn't very tall and the area in where we are placing the fan isn't very wide either.

Start by taking the lid off your popcorn hour
Then get the 30x30x10mm fan out of its packaging
Now, You can see in the red circle below (Sorry it's not that clear), this jumper needs to be set to 12V. it's a black piece that sits right in front of the (center of fan).

on the motherboard it's labeled 5v and 12v Pin1: 5v Pin2: Pin3: 12v if you put the jumper across pin2 + pin3, they the fan connector will give out 12v.

Now, take the fan, and rest it down the side of the motherboard.
Join the 3 pin connector to the small white adapter point on the motherboard.

Do whatever you want with the cables. Either tie them up, tuck them away. Do what is best for you.

Now, close the Popcorn back up, and plug it in. You will hear the PCH boot up, and the fan will come on. As yellow360f has said in the original topic, this fan is quite loud, and there are other fans available which can be quieter but still be efficient.

When this fan was ran on 5v, it wouldn't spin, so 12v was my only option as shown in Step 3 (mpu321 remark: You can try to drive at 7v by connecting the fan wires between 5v and 12v pins.)

Its no louder than an xbox 360, and is genuinely bringing the operating temperature down inside the Popcorn. One thing i will note is that even when the PCH is shut down using the "Power + Delete" option, the fan still runs inside it. So,the only way to make it stop, when you boot down the PCH, its going to have to be switched off the socket im afraid. To make it quieter, a resistor could maybe be put in place between the connections, but right now it doesn't bother me much.

I don't take responsibility if you break your popcorn in some weird and wonderful way after following this guide. But ill be kicking about the forums if there's anyway i can help.

Thanks to yellow360f for originally showing his setup which i copied today and posted here. So full credit to him.

Below is a better photo from yellow360f which is much clearer photos.