Arctic fans..Longevity issues?

Auer

Auer

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 2, 2018
Messages
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First of all, I'm not looking for replacement opinions, I got that covered.

Around xmas 2019 or so I bought a Arctic Liquid Freezer II 120 and the cooler itself has been fine, working as advertised with good reviews all around.

But I'm already on my second fan. And its now starting to make bearing noises as well.
Arctic replaced it once free of charge so it's the replacement that is now also getting loud. Very loud.
To add, I also had one of the 140's replaced (bought at the same time) for the same noise issue.

I keep my house reasonably clean, don't live in a dusty environment and keep the case and filters clean with a monthly dust off that never shows much at all.

So, basically, I have a 120 and a 140 replaced once, and the replacement 120 is now making bearing noises.
The fans in question are the P12 PWM PST and the P14 PWM PST

Anyone else? Or did I get all the Monday made ones?
 
Auer said:
First of all, I'm not looking for replacement opinions, I got that covered.

Around xmas 2019 or so I bought a Arctic Liquid Freezer II 120 and the cooler itself has been fine, working as advertised with good reviews all around.

But I'm already on my second fan. And its now starting to make bearing noises as well.
Arctic replaced it once free of charge so it's the replacement that is now also getting loud. Very loud.
To add, I also had one of the 140's replaced (bought at the same time) for the same noise issue.

I keep my house reasonably clean, don't live in a dusty environment and keep the case and filters clean with a monthly dust off that never shows much at all.

So, basically, I have a 120 and a 140 replaced once, and the replacement 120 is now making bearing noises.
The fans in question are the P12 PWM PST and the P14 PWM PST

Anyone else? Or did I get all the Monday made ones?
Click to expand...

what RPM do you keep them running at? i'm running 4 of the 120's on year 4 now with them but they primarily stay between 600-800rpm(systems never turned off so they've been running with 100% uptime since i bought my liquid freezer 240 other than the 45 minutes where i swapped the board/cpu last year). unless it's high humidity or something, only thing i can think of that could be the culprit.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
what RPM do you keep them running at? i'm running 4 of the 120's on year 4 now with them but they primarily stay between 600-800rpm(systems never turned off so they've been running with 100% uptime since i bought my liquid freezer 240 other than the 45 minutes where i swapped the board/cpu last year). unless it's high humidity or something, only thing i can think of that could be the culprit.
Click to expand...
PWM mode so they ramp up and down as they are designed to to do.This thing is not really stressed at all CPU wise and the 2700 is hardly ever above 55c.

My house is not humid or dry above the average North East USA I think, and AC used during the summer if needed.
System is asleep during the night and when I'm not around of course.
 
I bought a 5 pack of the 120mm fans off Amazon over a year ago and have been running them since. I haven't had a single problem with any of them.

I never shut off my systems unless I have to so they run all the time and I hate hearing fans ramping up and down so they're running 100% speed at all times.
 
Falkentyne said:
The answer is always Noctua.
Just grab some Noctua industrial fans, grab a 4 pin noctua extender (they come in a 3 pack) and set a fan curve. The fans are reliable, long lasting and have the best static pressure on the market, so they work well even at lower RPM.
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Thanks. But as I said in the first line of my OP I have replacements covered.
I simply wanted to know if others have had the issues I have.

I have also contacted Arctic again and awaiting a response from them .
 
While i don't have the fans you have issue with, I am currently in possession of 16 pics of F12's for about 3 years now. Connected via some fan controllers to the mobo. Only one of them has a rattle at full speed, however as they are running at that speed only on boot-up I can't be bothered to look for it and change it under warranty. Also have some other fans in other systems around the house and they are flawless.

Are you running them at weird angles (not vertical / horizontal ) by any chance?
 
I'm suprised you are not getting contact back from Arctic, they used to be a pretty good company when I bought my Acellero 3..
 
AlexisRO said:
While i don't have the fans you have issue with, I am currently in possession of 16 pics of F12's for about 3 years now. Connected via some fan controllers to the mobo. Only one of them has a rattle at full speed, however as they are running at that speed only on boot-up I can't be bothered to look for it and change it under warranty. Also have some other fans in other systems around the house and they are flawless.

Are you running them at weird angles (not vertical / horizontal ) by any chance?
Click to expand...
I'm not , the 120 is a radiator exhaust fan and the 140's are intakes in a Fractal Define Nano S
 
N4CR said:
I'm suprised you are not getting contact back from Arctic, they used to be a pretty good company when I bought my Acellero 3..
Click to expand...
I did, the first time around, and this time I got an email saying theyre behind things because Covid etc.
I have no complaints with their customer service.

Again, I'm curious why mine so far haven't lasted all that long at all.
 
Auer said:
I did, the first time around, and this time I got an email saying theyre behind things because Covid etc.
I have no complaints with their customer service.

Again, I'm curious why mine so far haven't lasted all that long at all.
Click to expand...
Probably a bearing batch failure, unlucky run for you.
 
I used Arctic fans in the past - the 80mm ones and the weird deeper open cage version of the 80mm fans and I was not too impressed with them in the end. They were quiet, and I ran them with manual fan speed controllers to slow them down, but some developed a tick noise after a year or two and at least a couple died completely.
 
Silent Wings 3 or Noctua.
After 1 replacement I'd just try alternatives.
If those died then I'd revisit your environment.

I kept chasing case noise until I realized my psu fan wasn't in eco mode, that was a big DUH.
 
the F12 fans are consistently rated as one of the best case fans you can buy...the fact that they are also the cheapest is the crazy part...everyone talks about Noctua but the Arctic fans usually beat them in all the tests I've seen
 
polonyc2 said:
the F12 fans are consistently rated as one of the best case fans you can buy...the fact that they are also the cheapest is the crazy part...everyone talks about Noctua but the Arctic fans usually beat them in all the tests I've seen
Click to expand...

When I bought the 5 pack of fans off Amazon I did so because they were cheap and looked semi-reliable. I wasn't expecting to get 10 years of use out of them but as long as they lasted at least a couple of years I would consider I got my money's worth. I also wasn't worried about noise as fan noise generally doesn't bother me much. While I can hear the Arctic fans they are by no means loud nor is the noise annoying to me and they push a good amount of air which is exactly what I wanted. I paid about $28.00 for five fans which is practically a steal. I don't think I could have gotten even two of Noctua's cheapest fans for that price and two fans definitely wasn't going to be enough fans. So far it's a gamble which has paid off very well.

If I needed more fans I wouldn't hesitate to buy more of the same ones.

As for the OP, I suspect he's simply had some really bad luck with the fans he received.
 
I bought some Arctic F14 140mm fans at the end of 2016 and they lasted until about 6 months ago before they developed a little rattle and were replaced.
They were on permanently for just over 3 years.
fyi
 
Hmm. Interesting. Thinking back, Arctic fans are the only name brand fans I've had which failed.
Granted, that's only 2 and they each did last several years, so it isn't garbage or anything, but ... did fail.
 
The one F12 I had for quite a while started rattling, but it was in service for quite a while without a problem, so less likely a defect and more just end of its life.
 
Don't buy sleeve bearing fans unless you are okay with them becoming noisy and eventually dying in 1-3 years.

Don't be fooled by companies with marketing departments that constantly come up with new names for their sleeve bearings either (aka "Fluid Dynamic Bearing"). The price is low enough that people will always keep buying them, so companies will keep selling them. They last long enough for things like warranties to expire first, so companies don't really care, some even looking upon it as an opportunity to force you to buy more fans. Any fan that gets a bad reputation will just get re-named, and advertised as having yet another "new" type of bearing that is really just another re-named sleeve bearing.

Ball bearing fans are what you want. They last decades. Tried and true technology. No marketing BS.

Remember the popular Scythe "Slipstream" fans? Sleeve bearings. I bought a 5-pack in ~2015. Every single one of them failed 2-3 years ago. I bought a 5-pack of Arctic F12 fans 2 years ago. "Fluid Dynamic Bearings" aka Sleeve bearings with extra marketing BS. One has already failed, two are already getting noisy, and the other two probably only still work fine because those computers aren't turned on very often. Meanwhile the Silverstone FM121 fans that I bought in 2008 are still going strong. Why? Ball bearings.
 
OP i have run several dozen of these fans in the last 3 years (F12 / F14 . 7 rigs on 24/7) and have had quite a number of failures, especially with the 140MM variants. Some of them just slow down over time and lose all magnetic "springyness" and other i have had have gotten a terrible bearing noise that comes and goes but is super annoying. I have started changing them over to the P12 / P14 fans and I am hoping these will last longer. I would say i am getting at least a good 2 years out of these fans with them on all the time at 80% or so. When i get the bearing problem which has only happened to 2 of them I will trash them right away. When you can buy these things in packs of 5 for super cheap and they have good performance to noise qualities I don't mind having to replace them roughly every 3 years or so. To me its not worthwhile to ship them back to the manufacturer but ymmv. I find the P series version of these fans to be almost as good as Noctuas and because they are so cheap it still seems like a better value to me even if some of them die.
 
Update:

Arctic is sending me new fans for the second time, excellent CS as usual.
I asked them if this is a known issue and was told : " Its not a known problem but I will have an engineer look into it. I will send a replacement out today. "

If it works better, great. If not, I'll go to plan B, which was something I wanted to try in any case, and go all Fractal on the fans and AIO.
 
It may not use the same fan, but I have the first revision of the Arctic Liquid Freezer 120 and the orginal fans are still working great.
 
GotNoRice said:
Don't buy sleeve bearing fans unless you are okay with them becoming noisy and eventually dying in 1-3 years.

Don't be fooled by companies with marketing departments that constantly come up with new names for their sleeve bearings either (aka "Fluid Dynamic Bearing"). The price is low enough that people will always keep buying them, so companies will keep selling them. They last long enough for things like warranties to expire first, so companies don't really care, some even looking upon it as an opportunity to force you to buy more fans. Any fan that gets a bad reputation will just get re-named, and advertised as having yet another "new" type of bearing that is really just another re-named sleeve bearing.

Ball bearing fans are what you want. They last decades. Tried and true technology. No marketing BS.

Remember the popular Scythe "Slipstream" fans? Sleeve bearings. I bought a 5-pack in ~2015. Every single one of them failed 2-3 years ago. I bought a 5-pack of Arctic F12 fans 2 years ago. "Fluid Dynamic Bearings" aka Sleeve bearings with extra marketing BS. One has already failed, two are already getting noisy, and the other two probably only still work fine because those computers aren't turned on very often. Meanwhile the Silverstone FM121 fans that I bought in 2008 are still going strong. Why? Ball bearings.
Click to expand...
You trying to tell my my hydraulic bearing fan is going to start making a racket in the near future?? I guess it's be okay I already got over 15 years out of it ;). Seems so hit or miss some I can't burn out if I try, others you look at wrong and they squeal.
 
GotNoRice said:
Remember the popular Scythe "Slipstream" fans? Sleeve bearings.
Click to expand...

All 6 that I bought back in 2012 are still working perfectly with no bearing noise. Sleeve bearing fans are really only bad if you run them for any length of time in any orientation besides vertical. All of mine have been vertical their entire lives.
 
Hrm, come to think of it, most fans I've had fail/rattle are after using them horizontally... o_O
 
GotNoRice said:
Don't buy sleeve bearing fans unless you are okay with them becoming noisy and eventually dying in 1-3 years.

Don't be fooled by companies with marketing departments that constantly come up with new names for their sleeve bearings either (aka "Fluid Dynamic Bearing"). The price is low enough that people will always keep buying them, so companies will keep selling them. They last long enough for things like warranties to expire first, so companies don't really care, some even looking upon it as an opportunity to force you to buy more fans. Any fan that gets a bad reputation will just get re-named, and advertised as having yet another "new" type of bearing that is really just another re-named sleeve bearing.

Ball bearing fans are what you want. They last decades. Tried and true technology. No marketing BS.

Remember the popular Scythe "Slipstream" fans? Sleeve bearings. I bought a 5-pack in ~2015. Every single one of them failed 2-3 years ago. I bought a 5-pack of Arctic F12 fans 2 years ago. "Fluid Dynamic Bearings" aka Sleeve bearings with extra marketing BS. One has already failed, two are already getting noisy, and the other two probably only still work fine because those computers aren't turned on very often. Meanwhile the Silverstone FM121 fans that I bought in 2008 are still going strong. Why? Ball bearings.
Click to expand...
There are really only 2 types of computer fan bearings; sleeve bearing and ball bearing, but there are many different sleeve bearing designs. Sleeves with groove, rifling, etc. all to help keep them lubricated. All "fluid dynamic" means is a film of oil between shaft and sleeve bearing. ;)

Some last long, long time, some don't. Seems horizontal applications have more failures than vertical, but I've seen fan last long time either way so hard to prove.
 
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