Are gentle typhoons still the best cooling fans to get?

[BonzaiDuck]

@ReignQuake @BonzaiDuck I used to have the same case too (well, the black and green "Nvidia edition", but essentially the same), but I got rid of it in favor of a Fractal R4 a couple of years ago. Sold the case, hopefully it's still seeing some use. I originally liked it quite a lot, but a combination of bad hardware planning, old-fashioned case design and nagging faults caused me to pretty much loathe it in the end. And I too had a rattling side door - not the plastic inner door, but the aluminium outer door. Could never get it to stop rattling entirely for more than a little while.

I had a series of unfortunate kinda-sorta compatibility (some hardware compatibility, some user brain-to-real world compatibility) issues with this case though. Originally, I bought it alongside two Radeon HD 4850s in CrossFire (yeah, I know, dual Radeons in an Nvidia edition case ... XD What can I say? I loved the green color at the time). The single-slot blower fans on these must have been designed in some special region of hell where the worst fan designers go, so after a short while I decided to replace them with Arctic Accelero S1s (as those were pretty much the only third-party GPU coolers that would fit, that I could afford and that were available). I even dremeled off the VRM coolers from the stock blowers to avoid crashes. Lo and behold, the S1s extended too far above/to the side of the GPU PCBs for the inner door to fit properly (not to mention that I had to cut away some of the fins to fit a CF cable through). And removing the inner door left me with a single intake fan, mounted on the HDD cage (which at the time held four 3.5" HDDs running in RAID 5), which ... well, was far insufficient to properly cool a very hot-running X48-based motherboard, especially with two passively cooled GPUs attached, even with a down-draft CPU cooler. Or did I still have my 120mm liquid cooling kit attached to the CPU back then? If so: hooray, even less airflow! No, I wasn't particularly smart at the time.

The system finally became both usably stable and stopped damaging my hearing when I ditched the 4850s for a single (non-stock cooled) 6950. I put the fan side door back in, but then (as I could actually use the PC regularly) dust build-up started bothering me (not to mention the immense hassle of having four 120mm fans in the side panel tethered to the motherboard - yeah, again, not very smart). I hadn't heard of DEMCIflex at the time. Not to mention that the side door rattled, the open-air design let out every single noise made by any component, and so on. In the end, I had enough.

But this is getting very off-topic now. Oh well.

Sure -- we were talking about the Nidec-Servo Gentle Typhoon. And if I'd wanted to swap one of the two AP-30's I have from one system to this one, there would be one in there.

Even so, you had asked to see the rig.

I'd be interested in any constructive comments as to what I might improve.

For instance, the front-panel fan-and-filter arrangement is really solid, noise-free, interference-free and clean -- just not exactly an aesthetic strong-point. It doesn't bother ME!

Actually, that was the original mod-focus when I resurrected the case. Using 140mm fans, I wanted to be sure I could get a 280mm radiator in there -- and I can. Then, I just decided in favor of the LG Macho heatpipe cooler, decided I liked the two 140's in front, and that's the way it is -- March 31, Two-thousand and seventeen.

On the side-panel "rattle" thing -- never happened to me.* [see footnote] My biggest frustration was that of getting the bottom latch to hold which secures the motherboard tray to the chassis. It is either a tedious little thing needing occasional attendance after the case has been opened and laid flat on the floor for maintenance, or something that I can eventually fix permanently, with more tedium.

But the side-panel -- if properly fitted before sliding it forward to lock -- doesn't rattle. That entire rig -- I can actually say it has ten fans if I include the small fan part of the ICYDOCK bay device -- it's quiet as a DEAD church-mouse.

Also -- this. There are probably several ways I could arrange the same ducted airflow from the motherboard without the Crossflow fan. And -- I probably would've picked one of those options without scuttling the case if I'd decided to live without the Crossflow.

But USING it meant that I actually had to commit myself to "short" graphics cards, like the Gigabyte OC Mini GTX 1070 I have in there. Anything else would interfere with the CF fan.

And with the CF Fan installed, you can't just run straight SATA cables to the SATA ports. For the six ports, one must choose carefully three right-angle and three LEFT-angle (hard to find) cables of the right lengths for various drive and device placement. And it's best to fit those cables to the motherboard once and for all before installing the CF fan. Otherwise, you have to pull the fan to access the cable-to-port connection.

So -- any thought or ideas would be helpful. This isn't your $1,000 case with glass on three sides and enough water loops to show three colors of liquid. It's just an old Stacker for which I paid $130, already used for 5 years with a C2D E8600 system, put in storage -- and now, a second-life -- with this..

Also, just some links. The DEMCiFlex company is in South Africa. They make generic magnetic-stick-on fan filters, and they make kits. One among many, the HAF 922 kits gave you a filter for every HAF vent, customized to the vent shape. The Stacker item only included the single side-panel filter:

Stacker side-panel filter

I mentioned the ICYDOCK ODD+2xHDD single drive-bay device:

ICYDOCK MB994 . . .

Used to be the case -- with the cases and like the Stacker -- it was all about offering up a pile of 5.25" drive bays with cover assemblies. Now, with front-mounted radiators, your front-panel opportunities are limited. But this item -- there's another 4x 2.5" drive model like it -- puts three drive-bays'-worth of functionality into one, provided you commit to using 2.5" drives in that mix.

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* The only thing that should rattle at all in the CM Stacker 830 would be the inner plastic 4xfan door. That thing sits on a spring-loaded hinge-pin -- one at top and one at bottom, with release levers for each one. The plastic frame only makes direct contact with the chassis at the two forward clips that secure the plastic assembly. I just cannot imagine what would cause the outer side-panel (all metal) to rattle, unless you'd actually attached fans to it directly. This was the reason I tried hard to save that inner plastic frame and use it. If the fans are noise-isolated at their mounts, there's really not a lot to make that assembly rattle. Any vibration would bet taken up in those spring-loaded hinge-pins, except for what transmits through the two forward plastic latches.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Folks are going to get irritated -- I took another look at Valantar's original request about "pictures of my rig" -- my paraphrase. Maybe he was more interested in the DIY acoustic ducting to an AP-30 in my i7-2600K rig - Moms' new PC now.

The duct construction exposes a cork wrapped in Spire closest to the fan hub:

Perhaps I could have fashioned a more smoothly tapered nose for the noise suppressor facing the cooler, but the entire cooler face of fins is exposed with at least an inch gap before air meets the cork-and-Spire:

The duct slides in from the open side-panel, and rests on the upper edges of the AP-30 and NH-D15. There are two layers of Spire on the outside and one inside -- just enough to brush against the side-panel when installing and securing it. Look carefully and you will see that the AP-30 has its own "collar" with Spire and art-board.

Going back to the Skylake in the Stacker, the silicon-rubber accordion-duct accessory has noise-deadening properties, just not as extensive as with three layers of Spire and the rigid art-board.

If that was Valantar's original interest, then all bases are covered. Maybe the Skylake excursion wasn't really wasted time for some members.

So -- yes -- the AP-30 Gentle Typhoon PWM 118 to 145 CFM*, rated versus tested. 4,200 RPM top-end.

You CAN make dBA the least priority in your fan choices and planning -- within reason -- if you know what you plan to do and you know how to kill the dBA. It is mostly motor whine or anything with a "tone" that constitutes the noise of biggest concern. The rest is "whoosh!" -- air-movement with turbulence.
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* I had to correct this -- initially given as 160 CFM. My old-man memory can be sluggish. The review I saw tested the fan at 145 CFM. Today -- I'm sure of that.