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SilenX Fans

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Originally posted by: Nessism
Originally posted by: akira34
Originally posted by: Operandi
Originally posted by: Amol
so Panaflo's are the best?
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For 80-92 yes. Some have said the 120mm Panaflows are as good; but I haven't tried any.
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I have some 120x25mm Panaflo's on order... They should arrive on Wednesday by the time I get home. Depending on the time, I'm going to try and install them before the computer starts recording shows... They can't be any worse than the enermax 120x25mm fans that I installed over the weekend. Even on the lowest setting those things are LOUD...
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All Panaflo's are 38mm deep. Hopefully they will still fit in your case😎

Regarding the best fans, since Panasonic switched production over to China, the quality is far more inconsistant than before. I bought some H model 120's from BG Micro and was very disappointed due to excess vibration. Tried two different fans and both vibrate too much to work on my XP-120. I've never had a problem with the 80's I've bought though, just the 120's.

Ed
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You can still get panaflos from Japan here http://www.jab-tech.com/customer/product.php?productid=2344&cat=79&page=2


 
Even a 747 jet engine at take off can be rated as low as 14 dBA


if the measurement is taken far enough away from and from a 90 degree angle to the jet.

Just a humorous way to point out that the dBA statistic by itself is not enough to compare fans.
 
Have an Ahanix SilenX power supply with 80mm 14db, and it is indeed silent.
Pushes nice amount of air too. Not a lot, but enough.
The Vantec Stealth 20db 60mm fans I've used sound like freight trains in comparison.
My Zalman 7000ALCu cranked down to a crawl is louder than the SilenX.
My crappy broken power supply in Antec Aria using 120mm is much louder (when it worked).
I have boxes of 80mm (including L1A's), and 60mm fans all way too loud.
All future fans will be 14db, so probably SilenX.
(actually don't know the true db, but use the 14db as an example of what I will not hear).

The 80mm 14db SilenX is noticably quieter than the Panaflo 80mm L1A's.
 
I was looking at getting a quiet 80mm fan, and the silenX had the best quoted specs, but most people think these are overrated.

So I'm still debating over wether to get a silenX 80mm, a Medium Speed Panaflo (80mm), a Vantec Stealth (80mm) or a Tt silent cat 8. I think I'll go with the Vantec, since it's half the price of the silenX or Panaflo and has RPM monitoring (silenX and Panaflo's dont).

RoD
 
1. Silentx isn't as quiet as you would believe 14db to be.
2. 80mm-92mm Panaflo L1A is best fan for buck especially if you have a fan controller.
3. 120mm Yateloon D12SL is the best 120mm fan especially if you have a fan controller.
4. For 20$ Nexus is next up. It costs well over 2.5x more than the Yateloon and is pretty much the same fan, only 200rpm slower.

"Best" in terms of quietness.
"Best fan for buck" = 8$ or less, for quiet and decent airflow.
 
Were you finding these yate loons tiamat? I got one out of a fortron psu but otherwise I order 3 those ugly orange nexus. I hate the color with my black case.🙁
 
I just recently switched out the stock 120mm (70cfm) Adda exhaust fan rated at 32 db out of my Lian-Li V2000 for a 120mm, 1600rpm (58cfm) SilenX fan rated at 14 db. The SilenX is definitely quieter (you can hardly hear it), although I didn't find the Adda too loud either. My case temp did rise 1°C from 32°C with the Adda to 33°C with the SilenX. So yes, the SilenX fan is quieter, but at the expense of air flow. If I had my time back I would have just bought a higher rpm fan from Panaflo or Sunon, and ran it at a slightly lower voltage, as I have a fan controller anyway.

My overall impression after using several fans of different sizes, makes and models and of various price ranges is that ultimately, physics rules 🙂 Moving air creates noise, regardless of how it's achieved, bigger fans just do it quieter and more effeciently.

In my opinion, the best compromise between silence and airflow is to get a fan controller coupled with high rpm/cfm fans and then just dial down the fans' voltages until you get the best trade off between silence and airflow.
 
you pay for quality, yeah the fans cost a lot more, but they are more quiet. $15+ more worth? that's for each person to decide. Panaflo's are quite, but can't match the SilentX. My friends case has 2 120mm SilentX, and with my head next to the case I bairly heard a whisper out of them. I could tell they were running, but I have Panaflo's in my case. If you really focus you'll notice a difference there. But for real world usage you won't notice anything I doubt.

I will be putting SilentX fans in my next case, silence is golden 🙂
 
Originally posted by: QueBert
you pay for quality, yeah the fans cost a lot more, but they are more quiet. $15+ more worth? that's for each person to decide. Panaflo's are quite, but can't match the SilentX. My friends case has 2 120mm SilentX, and with my head next to the case I bairly heard a whisper out of them. I could tell they were running, but I have Panaflo's in my case. If you really focus you'll notice a difference there. But for real world usage you won't notice anything I doubt.

I will be putting SilentX fans in my next case, silence is golden 🙂
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SilentX is rebadged Adda, nothing more. If you look around you can find them for 5-10, no fan should really cost anymore then that. The 14 dBA rating is so far off SilentX is a scam in my opinion.
 
Originally posted by: Zebo
Were you finding these yate loons tiamat? I got one out of a fortron psu but otherwise I order 3 those ugly orange nexus. I hate the color with my black case.🙁
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These are 1650rpm Yate Loons Pctek

All of $5.50 each. I bought several. Pctek also sells 80mm Yate loons for cheap. Good stuff.

Ed
 
Does anyone know where you can get Yate Loons or Nexus fans in Australia? pccasegear.com.au has Panaflo, SilenX, and Tt and a few others.

RoD
 
Originally posted by: Nessism
Originally posted by: Zebo
Were you finding these yate loons tiamat? I got one out of a fortron psu but otherwise I order 3 those ugly orange nexus. I hate the color with my black case.🙁
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These are 1650rpm Yate Loons Pctek

All of $5.50 each. I bought several. Pctek also sells 80mm Yate loons for cheap. Good stuff.

Ed
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Do you want to sell 4 to me?🙂 That places shipping of off the charts.. $18.50 for less than a pound of fans.:roll:
 
Yateloon low speed sleeves are real hard to find now. The second they became available at some random online store, folks at SPCR bought them OTS within 2 days. When they restocked, same thing happened. I havent seen any place with them instock anymore 🙁

I was lucky and grabbed two of them - they are of the ugly orange color.

A comment was made about sleeve bearing not as durable as ball bearing. Back in the day, this was very true, however now technology has improved such that the difference is only slight. By the time the sleeve bearing wears out, you would have already replaced the fan with a newer model.
 
Sleeve bearing fans might not be as reliable as ball bearing ones. But Seasonic is using a Yate Loon D12SM-12 sleeve bearing fan for their S12 PSUs. I doubt Seasonic would use sleeve bearing fans if they weren't reliable to a certain extent.

Anyway, I think a cheap Coolermaster UV/LED 120mm would be a good buy. Looks good, widely available, rpm sensing, pretty much everything a silent freak would want 🙂

Don't pay insane prices for thermaltake/silenx/vantec products that claim to be silent
 
RPMs also affect bearing life..

With the same bearings, a fan spinning at 3000 RPM is going to wear out its spindle faster than a fan spinning at 1500 RPM.

So slower-spinning fans (like the Yate Loons in the Seasonic PSUs) should have a longer bearing life..
 
i think that the COOLER MASTER SAF-S12-E1 120 x 120 x 25mm SuperFlo is one of the most quiet. it's quieter than my zalman 7000 at the lowest setting. the airflow is only 11.27cfm though, but only 13dba.
 
From someone who has actually got a full PSU/cpu cooler and fans from silenx, i can tell you that they are that quiet and do move a decent amount of air. Compared to a thermaltake 21db fan these 14db seem like at least 3 times as quiet as the thermaltake, basically most of the noise is the air movement! Highly recommend silenx gear.
 
Thermaltake is also renowned for BS dBA numbers. not as bad as SilenX though.

Vantec fans are crap, they are just generic fans on lower RPM. they have so much motor noise.
 
I never trust dba ratings, I always look at the fans RPM. 120mm fans in the 1500 RPM range will probably provide the best balance btwn noise and airflow (Vantec Stealth, Yate Loon DSM). These won't be quiet though, if that's what you're looking for. I've got Cooler Masters that spin at 1200 RPM and they're still a bit louder than I'd like them to be, just a matter of what you can tolerate. For 80mm fans I look for ~2200rpm.
 
Hey, has anyone got any of silenX's new illuminated fans? I'm thinking about getting a blue 120mm one. Just wondering if any of you have tried them...

RoD
 
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