Antec Sonata owners - How do you remove the stock 120mm exhaust fan?

NotoriousJTC

Golden Member
Nov 19, 2000
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I have an Antec Sonata case and the stock 120mm fan might be close to bitting the dust, as the motor has got louder recently. I'd like take the fan out to clean it to see if that would help, but im sure how to unmount it.

It uses 4 rubber pegs rather than screws to secure itself to the case, and it appears the only way to remove them is to cut right through them. I can't seem to force them back through the hole, as there are these small fins sticking out resisting. Cutting through them would make placing the fan back in place a problem. What should i do, or what have other people done?


Also while im at it, are there any recommendation for a good, most importantly quiet 120mm fan replacement, that would fit the Sonata case?


TIA.
 

arcas

Platinum Member
Apr 10, 2001
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You can force the rubber pegs back through the holes. It takes a little doing but once you figure out how to do one, the others are trivial. I used a tiny jeweler's screwdriver.

In my setup, I removed the stock fan and replaced it with a quiet Nexus (yeah, it has less CFM than stock but it turns out it doesn't matter) and mounted the stock fan on my Scythe Ninja HSF blowing toward the rear. Added another 92mm fan to the top of the Ninja blowing downward. Note when I say "top" I mean the side of the HSF nearest the top of the case. This gave me the best combination of quiet and overall temperatures.

When idle, the only fans I hear are the chipset fan (I replaced it with a Vantec I believe...been a while) and the stock HSF on my 6800GS. When I'm crunching numbers, I can hear the 92mm fan on the CPU heatsink crank up to a low hum but other than that it's pretty quiet.

 

w00t

Diamond Member
Nov 5, 2004
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I used those rubber fan mounts on my new rig they are very hard to get in I've yet to take em out but I'd imagine it'd be a b1tch.
 

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
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The Antec tricool is decent at low - med speed. Check www.SilentPCReview.com for a 120mm fan roundup on the main page.

Your case should have come with 4 extra clear rubber "attachy-things" :) I was able to push the preinstalled ones out with fingers (aka pokey-things) since I didn't have a jeweller's screwdriver handy. Just push one corner of one attachy-thing inside the case, then another corner of it, etc.
 

NotoriousJTC

Golden Member
Nov 19, 2000
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Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
The Antec tricool is decent at low - med speed. Check www.SilentPCReview.com for a 120mm fan roundup on the main page.

Your case should have come with 4 extra clear rubber "attachy-things" :) I was able to push the preinstalled ones out with fingers (aka pokey-things) since I didn't have a jeweller's screwdriver handy. Just push one corner of one attachy-thing inside the case, then another corner of it, etc.

Alright, maybe i need to try a litle harder to get hose things out, ill give a go again.