Well the boards are built for having a fan connected to them. It's just Bitmain's decision to only add 1 fan. It's not like you're "tech hacking" your device by doing something it wasn't designed for.
I understand your concern but also in terms of cooling, having the hot air sucked out is much more efficient than just blowing more cold air in.
I understand your concern but also in terms of cooling, having the hot air sucked out is much more efficient than just blowing more cold air in.
It's not "much more efficient", it lowers your temperature by 1-2 degree maximum. I remember I've spent a long time a while ago researching whether a second fan on my Noctua U12P CPU cooler was actually doing anything at all and it turned out that yeah, it did, but I would be just as fine without it.
I believe this would be the case with the antminer as well. It's not a closed case solution that would allow you to efficiently suck out the warm air from it utilizing a 2nd fan. It is highly likely to suck cold air just around the fan itself instead of actually removing the heat in the middle of the unit. The way this unit is designed it should be more efficient to use the single powerful fan at near full speed to achieve the most efficient cooling.
Regarding the statement "Well the boards are built for having a fan connected to them. It's just Bitmain's decision to only add 1 fan." I can assure you that I am aware of this. I am not specifically worried about an additional fan, but the risk of a burnout running the one fan at higher speeds over time. Even dedicated fan controllers can burn out when running this kind of heavy duty fans at 80-100% over several days and they tend to be more robust than the built in solutions on a multi-purpose controller. It is a lot more pleasant burning a $30 piece of hardware than the miner controller board.
