Antec SOLO + 4 HDDs

[bigi]

If so which ones are the quietest for Antec SOLO. Thanks

 

[Zepper]

I'd put both on if there are places for two. Panaflo low speed ones are very quiet. Jab-tech.com and SVC.com and many others carry them . IDK how the Yate Loon 90mm ones are, but the 120s are generally pretty quiet. The panaflos with the letter "X" in the suffix of the model no. (e.g. FBA09A12L1BX - this is the one to which I'm pointing you) are the ones with the speed sensor - probably no need for the speed sensor on HDD fans, CPU and case exhaust and PSU are the ones I would want monitored - any of those go down and the heat she rises dramatically... No X, no speed sensor.

Some resellers will try to trick the unwary by supplying a 3-wire lead (panaflos have connectors on the fan and don't come with leads, the reseller either includes one or sells it separately) on fans that don't have the sensor - subtle, eh. Aren't you glad you asked here?..

.bh.

 

[Pain999]

I put a couple of Antec 92mm TriCool's with the 3-Spd Switch on low which does not move alot of air, still enough for the hard drives most of the year and is nearly silent. If the weather is hot I put them on medium.

 

[Zap]

Fans in the front of the Solo are a good idea.

Originally posted by: bigi
If so which ones are the quietest for Antec SOLO. Thanks

I've had good luck with the Evercool Green Fan, Antec Tricool and Zalman fans. All are reasonably quiet once undervolted, with the Evercool probably the quietest out of them all at any voltage. However, it doesn't move much air.

Generally speaking if you want fans to be quiet, soft mount them using something like this and undervolt them with a fan controller of some kind to your desired sound level. Look for fans that are low RPM to begin with. Also, generally speaking ball bearing fans are usually noisier and sleeve bearing the quietest. There are some other types of bearings such as hydrowave, rifle, etc. and those may be somewhere in between or even as quiet as sleeve bearing.

Note that the Solo case was designed to muffle the sound from the front fans because there are no vents directly in front of them (instead, vents at the edges). You really want to listen to the fans with the case put back together and run it in your normal environment to see if it is too noisy.

 

[bigi]

Thanks for all replies.

Some resellers will try to trick the unwary by supplying a 3-wire lead (panaflos have connectors on the fan and don't come with leads, the reseller either includes one or sells it separately) on fans that don't have the sensor - subtle, eh. Aren't you glad you asked here?..

I thought that three wires are needed for speed monitoring capability ???
Can anyone clarify this? Also is 2 fan splicing a good idea in this case?

 

[Zepper]

The third wire isn't important unless the fan has the Hall-effect sensor built in to generate the tach pulses. Putting a 3-wire lead on a fan that lacks the sensor is a subtle fraud. A three wire lead on the X suffix models isn't fraud because the sensor exists. Capice?

You see, on most fans, the lead is hard wired so it won't have the (usually) yellow wire if it lacks sensing. Dealer can't choose whether to put a two or three wire lead on them.

.bh.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Panaflos are heavy and very durable. These units come with a special sleeve bearing to reduce noise.

Most MBs require the 3rd wire for fan control. ABit IP35/IP35-E will work with 2 wire fan.

 

[zagood]

Originally posted by: bigi
I thought that three wires are needed for speed monitoring capability ???
Can anyone clarify this? Also is 2 fan splicing a good idea in this case?

Three wires are needed for tach monitoring, but not all fans with three wires have tach monitoring. You don't need three wires to control speed via voltage.

I have the P150 - my front two intake fans are basically spliced (made my own 2-fan adapter) plugged into a Sunbeam Rheobus. I wouldn't recommend splicing them and plugging them into a motherboard header though.

You can make your own 2-fan adapter using wire, solder, and the following parts:

1x Female Fan Pins
1x Female Fan Header
2x Male Fan Housing

Solder wires from the two male fan headers to the corresponding female pins (two wires on each female pin) and mount in the female headers.

You can do the same thing by splicing, but this way you have more flexibility.

P.S. make sure you insulate the bare part of the wires soldered to the male housing, either with heatshrink or electrical tape. And sleeving always looks nice.

Oh and make sure you have extra parts for everything, especially the female fan pins. It's easy to screw something like this up the first time.

-z

 

[bigi]

The third wire isn't important unless the fan has the Hall-effect sensor built in to generate the tach pulses. Putting a 3-wire lead on a fan that lacks the sensor is a subtle fraud. A three wire lead on the X suffix models isn't fraud because the sensor exists. Capice?

Yes, everything except - Kapish

 

[natrap]

I'm in the same boat. I'll be getting a Solo next week with 4 hard drives. The Antec Tricool 92mm looks good to me, it's cheap and available.

I found these specs from a review

RPM: 1200 / 1600 / 2200
CFM: 21 / 28 / 38
dBA: 14.6 / 21 / 27

It doesn't say whether those noise levels recorded with the case open or closed. Either way I'd say with those numbers that low and medium will probably be inaudible and high will be audible, so I'd probably run it at low or medium if it's still inaudible.

Can anyone tell me about the CFM figures though? Does that level of airflow actually keep the hard drives cooler? And what about the temperature in the case around the GPU? Does the airflow travel that far? I'm interested because I'm getting a Sparkle fanless 8800GT?

 

[PhoenixOrion]

I have a SilenX and a Vantec Stealth on the front fans of my Solo.

I had to connect them to MB so I can undervolt them to 8.5V......very quiet and I'm satisfied.

 

[Elcs]

Just wanted to say that I have a 120x25 mm Tricool and at low, it does very little and at medium, there is clear noise and it is not what I want.

For the 80mm model, a Panaflo L1A is very very quiet and at 12v pushes a reasonable amount of air. The 92mm version is a little noisier at such voltages but pushes even more air. A fan controller on either fan makes a great option.