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- Jan 18, 2003
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Just felt like typing up a review cause I bought a couple of these and figured people may be interested. Enjoy!
FM122 @ Newegg
FM122-B @ Newegg
The only difference being one has a silver fan controller and the other has a black controller. Also the silver one costs and additional $1
package contents:
1x 120mm ring style grill
1x Black/Silver single fan controller for a 3.5" bay
8x Fan mounting screws (4 to mount the grill, 4 to mount the fan)
2x case screw (to mount the the fan controller)
1x 120mmx32mm case fan
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Packaging
The package itself is fairly heavy duty corrugated cardboard, it is very thin. On the front is a clear plastic triangle displaying the fan and grill behind it. Upon opening the package from the top you will be greeted by the 3.5" Controller and the tiny bag of screws wrapped in cardboard. Next up is the Fan and Grill, one of the boxes actually had the grill in flipped over so I had a very hard time getting it out, I ultimately had to destroy the box. Laying it all out all the contents were indeed present.
--Minor note the front also has a badge for "RoHS" which is a recent directive for electrical devices in the UK: "This Directive bans the placing on the EU market of new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than agreed levels of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants."
Installation
Some may find that the plastic is hard to "get going" being that it is not pre threaded, I found the plastic soft, however. You could find problems mounting a 32mm deep fan in your case, I found that I needed to unmount my HDDs to get my front fan installed (Lian Li PC-7AW). There is also a good deal of wiring to hide. The fan itself is connected via 4pin power, also has a speed sensor 3pin for the motherboard (single yellow wire no power from the board), also it has a female end to connect to the male end of the fan controller's wire. The yellow speed cord was tied very tightly by hard plastic zip ties. I ended up having to pull the wire out being unable to cut it safely, however, this was only necessary on one fan as most 3pin connectors are located near where case fans will be mounted.
The Fan
As stated previously the dimensions are 120x120x32mm. The fan itself is fairly heavy @ 1lb~ (I guesstimated this from the shipping box claiming 5lb and having received 3 fans). Constructed from very clean white plastic the fan itself is very pleasing to the eyes. Blade design is a counter-clockwise spiral. The box claims this fan to be a "High air pressure 120 x 120 x 32mm design" and it definitely is, you will be amazed at how fast this gets the air moving both on inlet and outlet sides. It does move a lot of air at max speed, 107CFM, it would be nice to have had a low speed measurement as well but alas Silverstone elected to omit this. I compared them to my old fans rated at 50CFM~ and these are actually stronger at lowest setting than the old fans.
-22dBA @ 800rpm ~ 44.1dBA @ 2400rpm is the rated noise levels. I am unable to test these claimed values accurately for 2 reasons:
1) I have been unable to get any of these fans to run at 800rpm(more on this later)
2) I lack a sound level meter
HOWEVER, I can say the fan even at max speed of 2400rpm+ is actually a fairly nice humming sound. There is no whining from this fan which is a nice thing. I would almost say the sound is soothing if it wasn't so loud. I currently run my fans at 1300rpm as this is when they start getting louder than my cpu fan(25dBA~)
The spiral blade design makes the center dead zone VERY small, these would be a very good CPU cooler for that reason.
Speed Controller
All three of mine came bent out of shape and the holes for mounting screws were actually smaller AND unthreaded than the screws provided. The metal is aluminum so it's not hard to force the screws or bend them back into shape, it's just inconvenient. Construction is very poor in my opinion.
Also these controllers vary a bit from piece to piece. One consistent thing is that none of them will take these fans down to the claimed 800rpm, the lowest I have gotten is 920rpm with the highest-low being 1100rpm. All of mine will take these fans above the rated speed of 2400rpm anywhere between 2500-2700rpm.
I would give it a 1 out of 5 only because it does control the fans a little as claimed.
Summation
Very good fan, very bad controller. I recommend them, they are a steal at the current prices $11.29-12.29.
I HOPE this is useful to atleast 1 person.
FM122 @ Newegg
FM122-B @ Newegg
The only difference being one has a silver fan controller and the other has a black controller. Also the silver one costs and additional $1
package contents:
1x 120mm ring style grill
1x Black/Silver single fan controller for a 3.5" bay
8x Fan mounting screws (4 to mount the grill, 4 to mount the fan)
2x case screw (to mount the the fan controller)
1x 120mmx32mm case fan
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Packaging
The package itself is fairly heavy duty corrugated cardboard, it is very thin. On the front is a clear plastic triangle displaying the fan and grill behind it. Upon opening the package from the top you will be greeted by the 3.5" Controller and the tiny bag of screws wrapped in cardboard. Next up is the Fan and Grill, one of the boxes actually had the grill in flipped over so I had a very hard time getting it out, I ultimately had to destroy the box. Laying it all out all the contents were indeed present.
--Minor note the front also has a badge for "RoHS" which is a recent directive for electrical devices in the UK: "This Directive bans the placing on the EU market of new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than agreed levels of lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyl (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants."
Installation
Some may find that the plastic is hard to "get going" being that it is not pre threaded, I found the plastic soft, however. You could find problems mounting a 32mm deep fan in your case, I found that I needed to unmount my HDDs to get my front fan installed (Lian Li PC-7AW). There is also a good deal of wiring to hide. The fan itself is connected via 4pin power, also has a speed sensor 3pin for the motherboard (single yellow wire no power from the board), also it has a female end to connect to the male end of the fan controller's wire. The yellow speed cord was tied very tightly by hard plastic zip ties. I ended up having to pull the wire out being unable to cut it safely, however, this was only necessary on one fan as most 3pin connectors are located near where case fans will be mounted.
The Fan
As stated previously the dimensions are 120x120x32mm. The fan itself is fairly heavy @ 1lb~ (I guesstimated this from the shipping box claiming 5lb and having received 3 fans). Constructed from very clean white plastic the fan itself is very pleasing to the eyes. Blade design is a counter-clockwise spiral. The box claims this fan to be a "High air pressure 120 x 120 x 32mm design" and it definitely is, you will be amazed at how fast this gets the air moving both on inlet and outlet sides. It does move a lot of air at max speed, 107CFM, it would be nice to have had a low speed measurement as well but alas Silverstone elected to omit this. I compared them to my old fans rated at 50CFM~ and these are actually stronger at lowest setting than the old fans.
-22dBA @ 800rpm ~ 44.1dBA @ 2400rpm is the rated noise levels. I am unable to test these claimed values accurately for 2 reasons:
1) I have been unable to get any of these fans to run at 800rpm(more on this later)
2) I lack a sound level meter
HOWEVER, I can say the fan even at max speed of 2400rpm+ is actually a fairly nice humming sound. There is no whining from this fan which is a nice thing. I would almost say the sound is soothing if it wasn't so loud. I currently run my fans at 1300rpm as this is when they start getting louder than my cpu fan(25dBA~)
The spiral blade design makes the center dead zone VERY small, these would be a very good CPU cooler for that reason.
Speed Controller
All three of mine came bent out of shape and the holes for mounting screws were actually smaller AND unthreaded than the screws provided. The metal is aluminum so it's not hard to force the screws or bend them back into shape, it's just inconvenient. Construction is very poor in my opinion.
Also these controllers vary a bit from piece to piece. One consistent thing is that none of them will take these fans down to the claimed 800rpm, the lowest I have gotten is 920rpm with the highest-low being 1100rpm. All of mine will take these fans above the rated speed of 2400rpm anywhere between 2500-2700rpm.
I would give it a 1 out of 5 only because it does control the fans a little as claimed.
Summation
Very good fan, very bad controller. I recommend them, they are a steal at the current prices $11.29-12.29.
I HOPE this is useful to atleast 1 person.