Case fans

[finr]

Hi all..

I have a Chieftec Dragon Midi Tower here housing a P4 2.6C... The only fans except CPU, NB and VGA are one 80mm in the front moving 23cfm @ 25dB (in front of the case, blowing air past the HDDs towards the CPU) and two in my PSU (Enermax). The temps inside are kinda high, so I guess I need to insert a few more fans to get more airflow inside the case. I'm thinking about picking up some Papst 8412 fans that have an air flow of 19cfm @ 12dB. Now I got a few questions:

1. How many fans should I get and where should I place them? The options are one additional at the font, two at the back, and one in the side panel.

2. Will two fans @ 12dB be as loud as one @ 24dB? I think to recall that u can't simply add dB, is that true? Ie, is it better to get two fans with lets say 19cfm @ 12dB or one fan with 38cfm @ 24dB? Does it make a difference at all?

3. If a side panel fan is recommended, should it blow air into the case or suck it out?

4. Are there other fans you would recommend over those Papst ones?

5. How many cfm does the Intel retail HSF fan (of a P4 2.6c) move? Can it be replaced with a quieter one?

Thank you very much for every input!

finr

 

[JZilla]

1. A friendly suggestion: Try and move your current fan away from the front/intake to the back/exhaust. And then see how the temps are before you go out and buy fans.

2. For silence, it's better to have several fans at low rpm than one high spinning. And you don't have to buy low-rpm fans, you could buy the 2100rpm Papst fan, and then use a fanbus to quiet it down. The Papst you mention is probably spec'ed a little too well, it can sometimes make a clicking sound (like mine does).

3. It should blow air into the case.

4. Panaflo.

5. No idea, I've been an AMD guy ever since the Athlon came out. Still have my Athlon 600mhz, but that's another story. But I think you can replace the fan like every other heatsink. Or you could buy a new heatsink. And since you think it's noisy, you really should get rid of the nb and vga fans.

If you are getting into quiet computing, SilentPC Review is a very good place to start. Read their recommended lists and visit their forums. Good luck.

 

[whovous]

My mobo does not have an NB fan, but I went the Zalman route on my video card and P4 and cut the noise level way down with no loss of cooling. I put passive (i.e., fanless) heatsinks on the video card, and the 7000CU running at the lowest speed on the CPU. The difference was huge. Video card fans in particular are little buzz bombs, IMO.

 

[finr]

@JZilla:

1. Thanx, I'll try that, I doubt that it will make enough difference though

2 & 4. Hm... I can't find any store to get those Panaflo here in Austria.. What do you guys think of "Noiseblocker Ultra Silent Fan S2"? These are kinda cheap compared to the Papst!

@whovous: I can't simply disconnect the VGA fan, can I?? I guess it's there for some good reason . Same with the NB fan... What about warranty when replacing the cooler on VGA/NB?

Thank you again...

 

[Davegod]

1. either one medium RPM intake combined with one medium RPM exhaust, or two low-rpm fans each end. You may well find that the intake fanholder that is actually in the HDD drive bay (presuming this is the same chassis I'm thinking about), can be taken out and a 92mm fan wedged in there - not tried it myself but someone was talking about it here. Because it is bigger a 92mm fan will be more efficient at pushing air (lower noise and/or higher airflow).

2. two 12dB fans would probably be rated 15dB. 24dB is still pretty quiet, tbh 12dB is probably fairly optimistic rating. probably two 19cfm fans would be better for case cooling as there you just need a current of air, but if it was a cpu heatsink (OK a really huge one ) probably the one 38cfm fan would be better because air preassure is important, not just volume of air but it's speed.

3. blow in, though you dont exacly need a 5th fan.

4. Papst are very high quality, also panaflo. maybe more high quality than necessary, but if you're fussy about noise...

5. dunno but yes there are quieter ones. Zalman and Thermalright would be two brands to look for, in the case of the latter you'd also need to add a fan in which case the Papst or Panaflo is again the pick of choice.


You may well be able to simply disconnect the northbridge fan and everything be fine, at worst you should be able to replace the northbridge heatsink AND fan for a bigger passive heatsink from e.g. Zalman. I suggest against unplugging the video card fan though! there is a passive video card heatsink from zalman which many have said works great but since my video card fan was pretty quiet i'ev never seen the need...

To quieten yoour PC, find whatever makes the most noise, quieten it, again find out what makes the most noise, quieten it, and so on.

 

[whovous]

Finr,

First thing to do is find out how much noise your VGA fan contributes. Boot and listen both with the fan connected and disconnected. You cannot do any harm to it in 30 seconds or less of listening.

Second, I was not suggesting that you simply disconnect the fan, but that you completely remove the stock fan and heat sink and replace it with a much bigger and more efficient heat sink without a fan. Zalman makes two different HS options. I have the cheaper (about $16 as I recall) on my GeForce Ti200, and have seen the more expensive one (called a heat pipe, or something close to that) on some pretty high end boards. I suggest that you first Google Zalman to find their web site and their model names and numbers, then do searches for reviews of their products. I did a lot of searching and educating myself before going that route, once my Antec Sonata turned out to be not yet quiet enough. Unfortunately, I did not save any of my links.

Zalman's basic idea is to replace a small amount of aluminum heat sinking with a large amount of copper heat sinking. I think their products are quite cool looking, as a bonus. They work.

As for the NB fan, it is almost certainly a major noise source, since small, fast-moving fans always are. Again, Zalman replaces stock HSF with a lovely and rather heavy batch of copper fins to draw away the heat. It is a very inexpensive fix, and as I recall, it can be easily undone if need be.

As for warranties, monitor your machine with the new stuff. If it gets too hot, get rid of the new stuff. In many cases, even if you do not monitor temps, the machine will shut down on its own before it lets you do much damage.

One thing to note about replacing the VGA fan is that that change may well be permanent. At least on my cheaper version, it came with some sort of thermal glue to attach it, along with a warning that it was not coming off. My card is rather old, so if the experiment had failed, it would have been a good excuse to get a better one. The experiment has worked for months for me so far, with no problems.

Quiet is good. Right now, I am sitting 18" from my Sonata, and cannot hear it all since the central air conditioning is running.