Advice on quiet fans?

[Jibby]

Hi all. I am completely and utterly new to fan/heatsink/any-other-cooling-parts selection, and have been reading up on a few articles, particularly of note being:

http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=232

Sorry if I'm asking pretty stupid questions here, but I would like some advice on my predicament:

I just got a PC of the following specs that I am using in my room:
Athlon XP 1800 + (stock cooling)
Epox 8RGA+ (using onboard video at the moment)
2 x 512 MB PC2700 DDR RAM
Aopen QF50A case (comes with 300W PSU... opened up the case and had a look at its model number is ATX-300GU)

I'm not too annoyed at the moment, but I think it is running louder than my gaming rig. It seems to have only two fans too, one in the PSU, and the other on the CPU heatsink. There are no other fans that I can see. I saw this - http://www.gamespy.com/asp/image.asp?/hardware/march03/bgm/bgm3/20.jpg - and could see a fan on the grill. This is what is meant by a case fan, right?

Well, I will eventually upgrade my gaming rig, and transfer the GF4 Ti4400 from that to this computer. That will make the whole setup even noiser. Where I live, I have a limited choice of fans, but I can get the Sunon B2 80mm, Vantec Stealth 80mm and Enermax 80mm pretty cheaply. Looking at the review at amdmb, these fans seem to be alright (and quiet), so would you recommend that I get them and if so, which should I get and where should I put them?

 

[Jibby]

Also, my room is pretty stuffy usually. If these fans are pretty quiet (particularly the vantec ones which are recommended as case fans by amdmb, and are supposedly very quiet), then I wouldn't mind putting a couple in the computer.

And the reason I have gone with these 3 fans is because I can get them at a nearby store and hence get them to put it in for me (I have zilch experience with this, remember... though I can opt to ask my best mate's brother for help...). I have a wider selection if I order from across the country (Australia) from http://www.auspcmarket.com.au/ , though that isn't preferable. I can also get Thermaltake vulcano fans easily too, but aren't they supposedly pretty loud (and heavy)?

 

[GAZZA]

In that particular image those two grey wires lead to a case fan mounted on the back of the case.

Here is a review of the Vantec Stealth 80mm fan and looking at the specs seems to be a very quiet fan for the rated CFM.

Looking Here at the review of your case you can see an image of the back of your case showing two fan grills where you would mount these fans, even though they mention that this is not worthwhile due to the restrictions of the fan grill. It would be better if those grills were cut out completely and use a normal wire grill.

I didn't see or read of any fan mounts for the front at all, you might want to take the front bezel off and see if your able to mount a fan there for increasing the airflow into your case.

 

[BoomAM]

The best silent fan available, imo, is the YS-Tech Silent 80mm.
27CFM
20dBa
And its cheap. For the same price as a Papst/Panaflow of the same noise/cfm, you can get 3 of the YS-Techs.
I have 6 of them in my case. 3 intakes, 2 exhausts, and one on top of my SLK-800. Very quiet, the only thing making noise now is the PSU, and the fan on the 9700pro.

 

[OulOat]

Originally posted by: BoomAM
The best silent fan available, imo, is the YS-Tech Silent 80mm.
27CFM
20dBa
And its cheap. For the same price as a Papst/Panaflow of the same noise/cfm, you can get 3 of the YS-Techs.
I have 6 of them in my case. 3 intakes, 2 exhausts, and one on top of my SLK-800. Very quiet, the only thing making noise now is the PSU, and the fan on the 9700pro.

Okay, and where might we get them?

 

[BoomAM]

Im assuming that you live in or around the US, in which case, your stuffed, cos i got them from a UK store, cos i live in the UK!!!.
For reference, i got them from
www.overclockers.co.uk

 

[Switch7]

I bought three Stealths a while back. They're louder than a lot of people say. I dunno maybe I just happened to get three bad ones but they're loud. I'm not talking Tornado loud, but they're miles away from silent, or quiet for that matter.

 

[shelaby]

aluminum fans are very very quiet, specially 120 mm, push out over 60 or 70 cfm, under 30 dba, nexfan.com has them, also a ton of other fans, look there

 

[ChefJoe]

Invest in some nice fans that will last you a while. I've got 2 year old Panaflo 120 mm L1As that have been running at around 7 volts for all that time. I bought mine from pcmods.com, probably paid too much. Digikey.com is also a great place to buy panasonic/panaflos. Still as quiet as the day I put them in. I just picked up 5 80mm L1As for $25+s/h from fozencpu.com

 

[GnomeCop]

THE BEST fans IMO right now would be the NMB ultra quiet fans that are on sale at SVC. I bought 5 for 11 bucks and they are really nice. 3 pin plugs , fan wires incased in rubber tubing. and incredibly quiet. My system was nearly silent before installing these and my system sounds pretty much the same after installing four of these (2 intake/2 exhaust)

my temps went down 10c, heh mainly because I was running my system with no fans before except for a 92mm on cpu, and an NMB in my psu.

now my system idles at 29-31c and underload 40-45c tops