SilenX Fans

[drakore]

Hi,

I currently have one of these hooked up to my CPU w/ a Scythe Ninja. I am unsure if this is doing the job it should be doing. It's rated at 1600 RPM to push 72cfm @ 14dBa. It's hooked up to a Zalman MFC-1 fan controller. When I have it fully ramped, my mobo is saying that it is only pushing 1000 rpm and it doesnt seem to be moving that much air. The nexus I have appears to be pushing more air. @ idle my X2 3800 is at about 33 deg.

Does anyone else use this fans and have any inputs/comments/or complaints?

 

[Operandi]

SilenX is over-spec'ed junk.

 

[drakore]

Do you have experience with any other fans? Would you put Nexus fans over them?

 

[Operandi]

I should say the fans (SilenX) themselves are fine since they are rebadged Adda's, the problem comes in when SilenX's marketing division takes over. They take a Adda fan that is truthfully rated at 20 dBA put a "SilenX" sticker on it and suddenly it becomes a 14 dBA fan; magical stickers yay.

Nexus is rebadged Yate Loon with in line resistor so if your interested in the Nexus I would suggest the Yate Loon; Nexus's specs are in line unlike SilenX however. I've Also have had good experiences with low Speed triple bladed Delta's. Although they can't match Yate Loon for pure noise levels they are a higher quality (ball bearing) fan.

 

[drakore]

Thanks for the info, I will look into the Yate Loon and Delta fans. Do you have any experience with scythe fans? Right now I have the 1200 rpm one and there is some motor noise. I am not sure how much CFM it is actually pushing, seems less than the nexus.

I think i am going to change my fan arrangement. Currently in my P180 I have the scythe as my intake, nexus as rear intake, antec tricool as my roof exhaust, and silenx as my cpu fan. I think i am gonna put the nexus on my cpu, the silenx as my front intake and the scythe as the rear exhause.

Any comments or suggestions let me know.

 

[Zepper]

I second the SilenX = overpriced junk comment.

Scythe are quiet and expensive - slow just about any 12cm fan down to 800 RPM and it'll be very quiet... Get your orange Yate Loons from nexfan.com at B2GO and $5. flat shipping with the 'cheapship' code. If you can't deal with orange fans, jab-tech.com has black frame/white blade ones but you have to need something else there to make shipping reasonable.

.bh.

 

[INM8]

If you want good information on quiet cooling go here: http://forums.silentpcreview.com/

 

[Bobthelost]

You can't go wrong with yate loons, silentx lie almost as much as scythe do about noise emmissions (ironically the scythe fans are fairly quiet too).

 

[SergeC]

Overpriced, underperforming, lies for specs. Bad.

 

[drakore]

Thanks for the input guys, I am gonna pickup some of these yate loon fans. They are much cheaper than Nexus ones. Does anyone have an idea of how much cfm the silenx fans actually push?

 

[Bobthelost]

The specs on CFM are normally accurate, it's just the noise levels that are utter bullshit.

 

[Zepper]

The SilenX are cheap crap fans with a dropping resistor to cut the noise - similar to the Nexus which are basically the Yate Loon w/ a dropping resistor. At least Nexus chose a better foundation for their product.

A lot of the quality of your experience with any given fan is how well your reseller understands it so that he packages it properly for shipping to you. For example, the Arctic Cooling frameless fans are easily damaged in shipping - many arrive with bearing damage because the reseller doesn't know (probably never even thought about it :roll: ) how to package them - in perfect shape, they are eerily quiet.

.bh.

 

[pen pen]

I wasted a ton of money on those and am in the process of replacing them right now with my new build. IMO they don't move as much air as advertised and after a couple months 2 of the 4 of got a strange humming noise. I would not spend the money of them. Get Yate Loon's or Panaflo's or even Scythe's.

 

[drakore]

The SilenX fan was rated at 72cfm @ 14dBa @ 1600rpm, but my mobo is only reading it at 1000rpm. I have it cranked fully on my zalman mfc1. Does it need to be running on the 4pin to get it at 1600rpm? or is the fan just crap?

Also in terms of my case air flow design would it be better to change my rear exhaust pointing towards the cpu and then the remaining air get sucked through the top exhaust?

I may also put some additional exhaust fans under the VGA card to help this cause if i change the orientation of the rear exhaust.

Current airflow model: (F1 = Scythe 120 F2 = SilenX 120 F3 = Nexus 120 F4 = Antec Tricool)
^
F4 |
F1---> F2---> CPU F3--->

Changed model:
^
F4 |
F1---> F2---> CPU <---F3
VGA
--->F5

(F4 is supposed to be aligned over the CPU)