Two months with a Nofan

Q

Quartz-1

Supreme [H]ardness
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Two months ago I built a system around a Nofan CPU cooler and a Silverpower silent PSU. I thought [H]ers might like to know my medium-term experience.

Basically it's been wonderful. All I can hear is the coil whine from my Asus 1080p monitor and my tinnitus.

The only real problem has been that one of my RAM sticks became faulty near a month ago. This revealed the desirability of angled DIMM sockets as I had to remove the Nofan heatsink several times. This exposed a couple of design flaws:

1 - there needs to be some sort of locking or holding mechanism for the stalks so when you unscrew the fixing screws, the stalks don't come undone. They're ridged, but it's not enough for a good grip within the confines of a PC case.

2 - if you look at the top view here:

fittest-verticalview_zps44cbd01c.jpg


you'll see that the plastic ring at the top has some inward-pointing bits. These align with the screws. As such they're a massive nuisance if you're not using a very long screwdriver.

That's about it, really. The Nofan really does do what it says on the tin. I'm currently running Prime 95 and after 2 hours, the CPU is sitting at 63 degrees C, which is ambient +37.
 
There's a review of the Zalman here but note that it's in a system with fans.

Edit: I've read it and emailed them as below:

Having recently built a system around a Nofan CR 95 - build log at http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1740852 - I was very interested to learn of the Zalman FX100 and your review of it. Unfortunately, I came away disappointed and unsatisfied, as you left the case fans in. Why go for a fanless CPU cooler if you're going to leave the case fans in? And your PSU wasn't fanless. I also find it puzzling that your temperature delta was so high at stock speeds. Granted that I'm using the 3770S but I get a delta of only +37 degrees C in Prime 95 with my Nofan.
 
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I wonder how this would do against a nh-d14, 212+, or other good coolers with silent fans on it?
 
Hagrid said:
I wonder how this would do against a nh-d14, 212+, or other good coolers with silent fans on it?
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Fans aren't silent. Remember, this isn't a pure gaming rig and I'm not out to get the acme of performance out of it.

I found a site called Fanless Tech yesterday and they still think the Nofan is still the best.
 
The biggest problem is the blocking of the first 15 PCI slots. :D

Doesn't the GPU tend to be louder than any CPU cooling system?
 
DeathPrincess said:
The biggest problem is the blocking of the first 15 PCI slots. :D
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Yes, hence having asked about boards with two x1 slots before the x16 slot.

Doesn't the GPU tend to be louder than any CPU cooling system?
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Generally, when you're playing games, there's noise from the game which somewhat covers the noise from the GPU. Having a fanless CPU cooler means you don't have the annoyance of the CPU fan kicking into high gear because Flash Player or MSSE or whatever suddenly decides to max a CPU core or two.
 
Quartz-1 said:
Generally, when you're playing games, there's noise from the game which somewhat covers the noise from the GPU. Having a fanless CPU cooler means you don't have the annoyance of the CPU fan kicking into high gear because Flash Player or MSSE or whatever suddenly decides to max a CPU core or two.
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Thats called pwm/speedfan, and setting up your hardware properly.

My system has 1x 135mm fan(psu fan),4 x 120mm and 4x 180mm, it set it up in tiers. Under 40 degree's none of em spin. meaning absolute zero noise (only have ssd's left in my rig)
And no flash or video will even bring anything above 40 degree's celcius in my rig.

Only when i play games, that utilize my hardware to the fullest, i start to hear my rig.
 
BTU_Natas said:
Thats called pwm/speedfan, and setting up your hardware properly.
Click to expand...

Indeed it is, and I used both, but neither can stop bad coding. And if the CPU gets hot, it needs cooling, which in a system with fans means the fans start moving, which means noise. And I don't like noise except when it's at my direction.
 
I'm seriously considering building a system with the FT02 and a Nofac CPU cooler, but I have some concerns about using a fanless PSU with the FT02.

Both the Silverstone Nightjar NJ520 and the Seasonic SS-520FL Platinum Fanless 520W (on which the Nightjar is based) have printed warnings stating that they must be installed with the main grille facing upwards - presumably to allow the hot air to rise out of the PSU by convection, since there is no fan to pull the air out. I'm wondering whether the unorthodox orientation of the FT2 limits it to PSUs with fans.

I've noticed that you installed the Silverpower 460W fanless PSU, but I would have thought that this would suffer from the same issue as the Silverstone and Seasonic PSUs. Could you share your experiences with the Silverpower?
 
I had a 4770K rig with a NoFan and it was phenomenal. Stayed just as cool as with a conventional fan driven air cooler. I couldn't recommend it highly enough. I even tried to figure out some way to set it up as the cooler on my new octocore but there was no way unfortunately.
 
Hi Quartz

I'm planning to build a system around Nofan CR95C(already got it) I'm wondering why you couldn't fit your video card in the first PCI slot, your motherboard Z77X-UDH5H is listed as OK to fit in first VGA slot by Nofan site http://www.nofancomputer.com/eng/products/matherboard_cr95c03.htm

I'm thinking to get a highend ASUS MB, some low profile DIMMS, fanless PSU, and new Palit 750ti passive VGA card and just keep it all in open case lets say Corsair 300R... Any suggestion? I really hope I can fit my video card in the first slot...
 
quest756 said:
Hi Quartz

I'm planning to build a system around Nofan CR95C(already got it) I'm wondering why you couldn't fit your video card in the first PCI slot, your motherboard Z77X-UDH5H is listed as OK to fit in first VGA slot by Nofan site http://www.nofancomputer.com/eng/products/matherboard_cr95c03.htm
Click to expand...

It just looked a little too close for comfort. I may give it another look when I switch to a FT05.

I'm thinking to get a highend ASUS MB, some low profile DIMMS, fanless PSU, and new Palit 750ti passive VGA card and just keep it all in open case lets say Corsair 300R... Any suggestion? I really hope I can fit my video card in the first slot...
Click to expand...

I would strongly suggest a rotated case like the FT02 or FT05. With a normal case you have hot air rising from one element to the other, diminishing the whole; with a rotated case hot air from each element vents immediately. And really, the performance loss from using the secondary slot is minimal.
 
Now they just need to make that entire thing spin, while somehow maintaining good heat transfer to the entire heat sink, and you could probably do some overclocking on it! Probably not possible nor would it be too safe. :D
 
I am seriously taking a look at the CR-95C black pearl for my setup. I do not intend to go fanless. Honestly a fan on a CPU vs. a case fan with no air restrictions sound totally different. The CPU fans just create more noise when pushing air through the fins. Running my Noctuas at 400rpm with almost all restrictions removed as proven near silent as after a couple feet away from the unit all I hear is my tinnitus lol. I have a GTX980 which cuts its fans off at a certain temp so they only run when gaming pretty much. I actually have my cpu fans to auto shutoff but it's annoying when they kick on because they kick on with a woosh sound at a higher rpm then they need to be. I assume I would have to lose my overclock with the CR-95C. Really debating but really want this. My only other noise issue is my WT Red 6tb as it sounds like a 900rpm fan or so. Got a Smart Case 2002C coming to resolve that.
 
Thats pretty cool, I wonder how much better it will perform with just one case fan.

I wonder how many other issues you will run into with the motherboard, since most motherboards are not designed to run with out cooling air flow over their power circuitry and other IC's provided by a cpu cooler with a fan.
 
Quartz-1 said:
The Nofan and the Silverstone FT02 is a marriage made in heaven.
Click to expand...

Just picked upa white Fractal R5 and love it so I will be keeping it... thinking of trying the Macho Zero with the duct since I plan to use my case fans anways. I think I can keep my OC this way.
 
Was thinking about switching from Intel to Zen but. Looks like no passive cooler has AM4 support.
 
damn, old thread. I will add though, the worst thing about a silent PC, is all the shit you start hearing. I will take the woosh of air over coil wine any day.
 
PimpUigi said:
Was thinking about switching from Intel to Zen but. Looks like no passive cooler has AM4 support.
Click to expand...

3 years since last post...Make a new thread.

Most of the passive coolers will not be made for AM4, what changes is the mounting hardware, most of the higher end heat sink companies actually give out free updated retention HW for their heatsinks. And in worst case you pay 5-10 bucks out of pocket for the new mounts.

There are a lot of passive options on the market, but most are over rated and not needed. Fully passive is not worth it unless you have an environment that REQUIRES it. The reason for this is the noise floor in most houses and offices is actually quite high, and high quality sub 800rpm fans are not audible to the human ear, or drop down to 500rpm if you really want to be safe, however, in systems build to be passive, even the slightest air flow from even the worst flowing 500rpm fan will have a huge impact on temps. In most cases it is best to just buy a nice highend cooler and run 500-800rpm fans on it, not only do they tend to be cheaper, but also perform better. Now, if it is something you just want to do, go for it, but from a practical and function stand point, there is really no reason to remove ALL fans from a system, rather build it right and make some good fan selections.
 
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