i need some quiet fans!! any reccomendations?

[trOver]

so i got a new lian li pc-60, and it comes with stock 2x80mm fans, and 2x120mm fans. This setup is very loud!

What fans can i buy (2x80mm and 2x120mm) that will quiet this thing down, and keep good airflow?

Also- how much noise is accounted for with the vga cooler and the cpu cooler? (both stock, a 7800gtx and a conroe)

Thanks

 

[BlueWeasel]

Yate Loons have quiet 120mm fans that push a good amount of air. They are usually very reasonable in price (compared to Nexus) and are on sale for $3-$4 at SVC, Jab-tech, etc. Nexus and Coolermaster are also good choices.

For 80mm fans, I really like the Antec Tricool fans. On their lowest setting, they are damn near silent, but don't push much air. I've currently got one as my front intake fan in a Centurion5 case, and it's much quieter than the Panaflow L1A that it replaced.

 

[STATICS]

I have some pretty loud fans but i use this to control themfan controller

I know its not exactly what you are looking for, but just another option 🙂

 

[pcy]

Hi,


The quietest fan is one that is switched off.


Some else said that on this forum recently, but I can't find th epost to credit them.


It seems a silly point, but it reveals a vital truth.


For the same airflow all fans of the same size produce around the same amount of noise

So a quiet fan is simply a low-powered fan shifting less air and making less noise. OK. OK, we are just talking ordinary axial fans here, and some are a bit better than others...

But you also need to know:

For the same airflow a larger fan produces massively less noise than a smaller one.



Franly, with your setup , I'd just run the case fans at 5V rather than 12V. The noise level will collaps, and yo may find the temps rise only a couple of degrees. It' costs nothing to try it...




Peter

 

[tempuraki]

Franly, with your setup , I'd just run the case fans at 5V rather than 12V. The noise level will collaps, and yo may find the temps rise only a couple of degrees. It' costs nothing to try it...

I agree, and you don't even need to get a fancy controller to do it, if you don't care about the stock fans you got. Just cut the wires and connect 2 fans in series, you get 6v each.

 

[trOver]

Originally posted by: tempuraki

Franly, with your setup , I'd just run the case fans at 5V rather than 12V. The noise level will collaps, and yo may find the temps rise only a couple of degrees. It' costs nothing to try it...

I agree, and you don't even need to get a fancy controller to do it, if you don't care about the stock fans you got. Just cut the wires and connect 2 fans in series, you get 6v each.

good idea

 

[3NF]

My opinion is that the Skythe fans are nice and quiet. But as others have pointed out, a loud fan can be made quite by giving it less power. Can the power for any of your fans be controlled via the BIOS of your motherboard? All of my case fans connect to the motherboard and are powered from it. The duty cycle for each fan was lowered using the BIOS of the motherboard. I can barely hear anything now!

 

[Operandi]

Originally posted by: pcy
For the same airflow all fans of the same size produce around the same amount of noise

That is simply not true.

While two fans producing the same CFM of air will produce nearly identical noise in form of turbulence you also have bearing and motor noise to deal with and that varies greatly from fan to fan.

 

[Pens1566]

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: pcy
For the same airflow all fans of the same size produce around the same amount of noise

That is simply not true.

While two fans producing the same CFM of air will produce nearly identical noise in form of turbulence you also have bearing and motor noise to deal with and that varies greatly from fan to fan.

 

[pcy]

Hi,

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: pcy
For the same airflow all fans of the same size produce around the same amount of noise

That is simply not true.

While two fans producing the same CFM of air will produce nearly identical noise in form of turbulence you also have bearing and motor noise to deal with and that varies greatly from fan to fan.

Yes... but the fans all use very similar designs of motor, and (certainly for all the fans I use) the air turbulance noise dominates the motor niose. I'm not saying that all fans make the same amount of noise for the same airflow - I did say "around the same amount of noise" and I certainly agree theat you could get 10% differene for different design at the same size and airflow. It's also true that if you don't cae about noise, and run the fans at 12V, the motor noise ma be more significant.

However, the crucial pont is that these differences pale into insignificance compared to the noise reduction you can achieve (at constant airflow) by using more or larger fans and running them at lower speed. For instance, a 120mm fan running at 12V might produce 30dB at 1m; but two, running a t 6volts each will push the same amount of air but create arounf 18dB. db is a log scale - that's a 90%+ reduction in noise.




Peter

 

[Operandi]

Originally posted by: pcy
Yes... but the fans all use very similar designs of motor, and (certainly for all the fans I use) the air turbulance noise dominates the motor niose. I'm not saying that all fans make the same amount of noise for the same airflow - I did say "around the same amount of noise" and I certainly agree theat you could get 10% differene for different design at the same size and airflow. It's also true that if you don't cae about noise, and run the fans at 12V, the motor noise ma be more significant.

However, the crucial pont is that these differences pale into insignificance compared to the noise reduction you can achieve (at constant airflow) by using more or larger fans and running them at lower speed. For instance, a 120mm fan running at 12V might produce 30dB at 1m; but two, running a t 6volts each will push the same amount of air but create arounf 18dB. db is a log scale - that's a 90%+ reduction in noise.




Peter

If the air turbulence is the predominate factor you must be dealing with high-speed fans. High-speed fans are not quiet; under-volting them can make them less loud but thats hardly the point.

When you are dealing with low to medium speed fans the noise factor shifts from turbulence to motor and bearing noise. There is a reason people source out Yate Loons and Panaflos over all others after all.

 

[Zepper]

I just got a shipment of Yate Loons from jab-tech.com and I took one of the fans which sounded fine in free air and snapped it into one of those plastic cages that some cases use to hold fans in place and the same fan sounded like it was terribly off-balance.

One possible conclusion is that these fans cost so little partly because the frame is weak thus easily stressed.

OTOH, it is also possible that the grill of the plastic cage set up some kind of resonance in the intake stream (the grill was on the intake side in this instance).

So the wise modder will be very aware of all aspects of the fan and its mounting to get the lowest noise result possible.

.bh.

 

[pcy]

Originally posted by: Operandi

Originally posted by: pcy
Yes... but the fans all use very similar designs of motor, and (certainly for all the fans I use) the air turbulance noise dominates the motor niose. ...


However, the crucial pont is that these differences pale into insignificance compared to the noise reduction you can achieve (at constant airflow) by using more or larger fans and running them at lower speed. For instance, a 120mm fan running at 12V might produce 30dB at 1m; but two, running a t 6volts each will push the same amount of air but create arounf 18dB. db is a log scale - that's a 90%+ reduction in noise.




Peter

If the air turbulence is the predominate factor you must be dealing with high-speed fans. High-speed fans are not quiet; under-volting them can make them less loud but thats hardly the point.

When you are dealing with low to medium speed fans the noise factor shifts from turbulence to motor and bearing noise. There is a reason people source out Yate Loons and Panaflos over all others after all.

I'm using 120mm fans sold as "quiet" and running them at around 450 - 700 rpm. The noise that they make at these speeds is clearly audible in an (otherwise) silent room at upto 2-3 feet away, provided I stand still and stop breathing. The noise is definately air flow noise, not mechanical. I have tried fans from Globe, GlobalWin, Nexus, Yate Loon, Pabst... and I find very little to choose between them (except price).


I also have some cheap 120mm fans ($1.50 each). These produce an almost identical noise level at the same speed - not surprising really, same amount of air going through the same sized apeture.

I have noticed that ball bearing fans do produce more mechnical noise, so I no longer use them - I use fans with ceramic bearings for my CPU coolers wnere long life at higher temperatures is a requirement.

Once inside a case of course, things get a lot quieter, as the acoustic material of the case lining absorbs much of this noise, whatever it's source.




Peter
Peter