140mm fans - Horizontal mounting

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brncao

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 4, 2013
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So my 140mm Aerocool Shark fan has failed (lasted less than 14,000 hours compared to their stated MTBF of "100,000" hours) :mad:. The negative reviews were true afterall. Even though it mostly had positive reviews, it most likely means they owned it for just several months when it was working... before failing. Avoid their products if you're gonna mount it horizontally.

With that said, I need some recommendations for a pair of 140mm fans mounted horizontally. They'll be mounted at the bottom and top of the case. So no static pressure type fans. Quiet fans are preferable. LED are optional.
 
3 or 4 pin? Fixed or variable RPM/airflow?

I'm a fan of Arctic Cooling PWM fans, especially since they have daisy-chain connectors built right in. Aren't going to push the most air, but they are pretty quiet at low to moderate speeds. If you want some good air movement in a PWM fan, you may want to check out this Rosewill.
 
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DejaWiz said:
3 or 4 pin? Fixed or variable RPM/airflow?

I'm a fan of Arctic Cooling PWM fans, especially since they have daisy-chain connectors built right in. Aren't going to push the most air, but they are pretty quiet at low to moderate speeds. If you want some good air movement in a PWM fan, you may want to check out this Rosewill.
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The Arctic Cooling fans are quite good for your mounting options, they use a FDB bearing so they will not care about how they are mounted, they also have really good actual CFM to noise ratios. The AeroCool also claim to be FDB, but I can't find any actual specs or drawings on the bearing/motor, so I have no idea what type of FDB they use, I have had some AC F14's and 6 AC F12s in service for coming up on 4 years for the F12s and 2 years for the F14s, and they dont make any more noise than they did brand new, I believe the F12 and F14 also carry a 6 year warranty.
 
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BlueFireIce said:
The Arctic Cooling fans are quite good for your mounting options, they use a FDB bearing so they will not care about how they are mounted, they also have really good actual CFM to noise ratios.

I have had some AC F14's and 6 AC F12s in service for coming up on 4 years for the F12s and 2 years for the F14s, and they dont make any more noise than they did brand new, I believe the F12 and F14 also carry a 6 year warranty.
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Same for me...about 4 years on my F12s and 3 years on my F14s.

At full speed they do throw out a bit of noise, but they do push a good amount of air. I typically set them for "normal mode" in Asus Fan Xpert2, and most of the time they are running at 400-550 rpm. If I set them for "silent mode", then they will outright sit idle at 0 rpm until I place a load on the GPU/CPU to build up temps, then they kick into action. My case (Corsair 350D) sits to the right of my feet under my desk, and oftentimes I have to check and make sure they are actually spinning when I've got them in "normal mode" because they are that quiet... :)
 
DejaWiz said:
Same for me...about 4 years on my F12s and 3 years on my F14s.

At full speed they do throw out a bit of noise, but they do push a good amount of air. I typically set them for "normal mode" in Asus Fan Xpert2, and most of the time they are running at 400-550 rpm. If I set them for "silent mode", then they will outright sit idle at 0 rpm until I place a load on the GPU/CPU to build up temps, then they kick into action. My case (Corsair 350D) sits to the right of my feet under my desk, and oftentimes I have to check and make sure they are actually spinning when I've got them in "normal mode" because they are that quiet... :)
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Should also note the 140mm ones I have are horizontal mount, and 3 of the 120mms are as well. I don't get any extra noise at full RPM other than wind noise, but thats not a fault of the fan, they can't control the air "whooshing" sound, and if they kick up that high is often because I have been gaming for hours and I probably have my headset on anyway, rest of the time they almost never go above 600rpm, and at those speeds all I can hear is the pump in my swiftech, which is saying something because it is very quiet. The F12s are in a P280, and it also sits right at my feet next to my desk. The biggest plus to these fans....The price, I mean hell, you can find 5 packs all day long for the same price as the single Noctua fan, which are GREAT fans BTW, but not that great, the Noctua feel more stout in the hand, but as for function, I have found the AC F line to perform just as well. I got mine from some small no name shop long time ago, they has the F12s on sale for $1.99, needless to say I still kick myself for not picking up extra, but at the time they were pretty new, with no real reviews anywhere and I was just trying them out.
 
^ same for me: no difference in noise due to the way they are mounted...two 140mm front (vertical), two 140mm top (horizontal), and one 120mm back (vertical)...all Arctic Cooling F-series PWM. In my opinion derived from my experience with them, the AC F-series is impossible to beat for their balance of price, quality, warranty, airflow, and noise.
 
Agreed, its why I have them in everything, and I have lots of fans, boxes full as a matter of fact, from 200CFM+ Deltas, GTs, and Noctuas etc etc, the GTs are some really well made fans, and if I was doing server stuff....Might go with them, but for performance, they were replaced with F12s on my Rads and temp did not change and I noticed a slight drop in noise at normal speeds and a drop to no motor/bearing noise at low speeds, something some GT fans had issue with, the AP-14s did ok to about 1000-800rpm, but below that started to sound a little rough, but not the case with the F line.
 
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