Added fan = much, much noise. Should I cut some metal?

[wallsfd949]

I have a gateway case that I added an 80mm fan to about 4 months ago. I gues I got used to the noise because I unplugged it last night and realized how quite it got. The case looks like this -->Rear Case View and I suspect the little holes are causing all the noise. The fan is not that loud when it's not up against the case.

Should I :
a.) buy a new panaflo fan
b.) cut the sheet metal out and put a little wire grill
c. ) all of the above

I like it quiet, but I don't have a fan now.

 

[Overkast]

d) none of the above

See if you can get some rubber washers from Home Depot and place them between the fan and the case metal.

 

[Davegod]

play about and see if it's the air turbulence or vibration or the fan itself causing the noise, then its either b, d or a/c respectively. Grill doesnt look bad in the pic though.

 

[0roo0roo]

i've seen worse case fan grills. the psu grills are a tad lousy, but not all that much you can do with slot grills. i once cut out 2 outa 3 of the grill slats on a psu like that.

a panaflo might help, whatfan did you buy? unless you use a fan speed controller i find most fans too loud at max speed.

 

[beatle]

I'd take Overkast's advice and space the fan away from the grill just slightly. It doesn't look like a bad grill, but if it makes less noise pulled away from the grill, I'd say the grill is causing it.

 

[wallsfd949]

Thanks for all the replies, I'm going to stop at Home Depot on the way home from work and pick up some rubber washers and let you know how it turns out. I really like how quiet my living room has been since I disconnected the fan.

the psu grills are a tad lousy, but not all that much you can do with slot grills

I need to replace the power supply anyway. It's a 160w. unit and I'm about to add 3 drives to the system for a total of 5 hard disks and an IDE RAID card.

what fan did you buy?

It was one I picked up at a local computer show. Not sure on brand but that was before.... well, I became so anandtech informed.

 

[tracerbullet]

Good ideas - and as a note, that grille looks very much like what's on my new Sonata case, which Antec claims is really low noise. I've seen some terrible fan grille setups, but that one looks fine to me. Again try experimenting to make sure of course, as already suggested - just don't be surprised if that isn't the issue I guess.

Any chance that when the fan is tightened to the case, that it's getting bent or warped? That may cause the blades to just touch either the fan chassis or the PC case itself?

 

[wallsfd949]

Well, home depot didn't have the right size gromets. I did however do some testing and here are the results:

Fan Speed 2850RPM
Fan Type IN WIN df 1208bm (I'm assuming cheap)

When the fan is running outside of the case, it is relatively quiet, except for an annoying buzz that I am assuming is from the cheap fan. Once I put the fan in the case, you can hear the wind moving. I'm contemplating cutting out the hole and getting a panflo plus a wire fan grill. Anyone agree?

 

[0roo0roo]

fans runnning too fast. i run my fans at 2000rpm or less.