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Better fans?

D

DarkenReaper57

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 2, 2003
Messages
2,173
I have tried several different 120mm fans, including the aluminum evercool and panaflo m1a's. At 12V, they both push a lot of air (the panaflo pushes more) although they are loud.

At 7V, the panaflo seems to hardly push anything. The evercool pushes an "ok" amount of air, but is still reasonably loud.

I am in the market to purchase some new fans. I want them to cool well, but I also don't want them to be uber loud.

I really like panaflo's because of their superior pressure and price/performance ratio. Do you guys think I would be better off getting some L1A's? How loud are these at 12V? What if I got some H1A's and 7-volted them?

Oh yeah, I have made my own fan conroller out of a rheostat before. It worked well until I added a 3rd fan. Unfortunately, the final fan put far too much stress on the thing (too much current for the resistor to handle). It burned up, and caused a short. Perhaps I should make a pwm fan controller...
 
I put 2 ThermalTake Thunderblades in my case along with the original 2 antec 120mms that came with my lanboy. They push a ton of air, I run them on 12v.. They are rated 77cmf w/ 21db.... They are not very loud at all and seems like they push at least twice as much air as the antec. I have a 52db fan on my cpu and when I lower its speed the noise from the rest of the case fans isnt too bad.


http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1027646880#post1027646880
 
TT likes to give their fans fake ratings. They have rated alot fo fans for 21 dba lately, and from what ive heard from people, none of them are even close to 21 dba.
 
I have a 120mm Panaflo...pretty sure it's an H. Have one of those Zalman inline speed controllers on it, only had to turn it down a smidge to get it quiet.

Now to do something about that annoying video card fan...:p
 
I think you're too limited at 12 or 7 volts and nothing else. I think you'd be better off making/buying hardware to open that up rather than buying fans that might fit better. Fan controllers, 12->9 volt cables with inline resistors, or wire swapping to slow down your fans would be your best bet, I think.

Panaflo's are all ready great fans. I have a 120 U1A on a fan controller, and at full speed the noise isn't even as annoying as my 120 Thermaltake (46dB 93cfm). They are both loud, but the Panaflo has a lower frequency sound. It still pushes very good air when I turn it down to very quiet levels.

edit: As an example: 12 to 9 volt cable. However you'd obviously be better off with a fan controller if you spent a little more.
 
Yeah that's another nice thing about Panaflos...even if you have them high enough to make noise, it's whooshy air noise instead of fan whine.
 
I bought a U1A recently and tested it for about 5 seconds. After gluing on new eyebrows, I now recoil in terror every so often when the memory of its ear-bludgeoning shriek haunts me.
 
ashmedai said:
Yeah that's another nice thing about Panaflos...even if you have them high enough to make noise, it's whooshy air noise instead of fan whine.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't mind a whooshy noise, but my M1A seems to make a bit of a whine. I can hear the motor. Perhaps this is because it is secured to a heatercore w/shroud so it is working harder to force the air through it?

Anyway, since I love electronics (I am a EE major, freshman though :rolleyes: ) maybe I'll work on making my own pwm fan controller or something. Should be a fun project.

A pwm fan controller should be able to dissipate enough heat to take 3 fans under half an amp each to...say...somewhere in the range of 7-12 volts, right?

I should really pick up an electronics book and start reading to enhance my knowledge, lol.
 
here's the best 120mm, panaflo L1A->coolermaster->nexus->yate loon (who makes nexus). find one of those and you'll be dandy..i can't even hear my y.l. fans at 7v
 
Qwertyman said:
here's the best 120mm, panaflo L1A->coolermaster->nexus->yate loon (who makes nexus). find one of those and you'll be dandy..i can't even hear my y.l. fans at 7v
Click to expand...

Do the L1A's push a decent amount of air, though?

Also, how do the evercool aluminum fans compare?

I know that I can look up the dba and cfm ratings, but those are often inaccurate.
 
DarkenReaper57 said:
Do the L1A's push a decent amount of air, though?

Also, how do the evercool aluminum fans compare?

I know that I can look up the dba and cfm ratings, but those are often inaccurate.
Click to expand...
120mm L1A's are loud and do push a good amount of air. I remember hearing that the evercool fans were pretty good though expensive and a little louder than would you probably would want - they do look very nice and are well built. I rather get a yate loon or papst (if you can find them.)
 
DarkenReaper57 said:
Yeah, I don't mind a whooshy noise, but my M1A seems to make a bit of a whine. I can hear the motor. Perhaps this is because it is secured to a heatercore w/shroud so it is working harder to force the air through it?
Click to expand...

BINGO!!! I've got two M1A's on my double heatercore attached to a crude homemade cardboard shroud, and at 12v you can definitely hear the wine. All my fans are on a Vantec fan controller so, I really don't hear them at all. They are pushing enough air to keep the heatercore cool enough to give me 29C idle and 35-36C load on a P4 3.0C @ 3.75.

I've always heard good things about the Pabst fans, but have never owned one myself.
 
Qwertyman said:
120mm L1A's are loud and do push a good amount of air. I remember hearing that the evercool fans were pretty good though expensive and a little louder than would you probably would want - they do look very nice and are well built. I rather get a yate loon or papst (if you can find them.)
Click to expand...

The thing is, I own 1 panaflo M1A, and 2 Evercool aluminum fans. I'm going to build an external watercooling system with 2 radiators. It will look rather goofy if there are two different kinds of fans (they will be lined up).

I am trying to find some reasonably cheap (at or below $10) fans that I can replace them with. I wouldn't mind getting different model panaflos if I found out that undervolting a higher model will be quieter and push more air than a lower model at 12V. Does anyone know that?

I could also buy another evercool fan. I may need to buy two since one of the evercools I have likes to chatter a bit. This has happened ever since I accidentally broke one of the blades off, and I needed to superglue it back on :rolleyes: .

The other option is to go with yate loon or papst. I really don't want to downgrade, though, either.

I am leaning towards panaflo simply because they are reasonably quiet at lower speeds, and have a high pressure gradient. I really don't want a whine noise, though.

I am also afraid that reducing the speed of a panaflo will make it far less effective, and it would be better to just use another fan at or close to 12V...

Argh. Decisions, decisions.

Either way, I'll probably make a fan controller, since I don't want it in a bay (they are also expensive to buy), and I like projects and all. How much would it cost to make one?
 
I dont know why, but my 120x38mm YS-Tech at min voltage pushes out more air with less DBA than the Aluminum Evercool 120mm (single ball bearing model) does with the same voltage.

But the Delta 3blade fans are pretty cool IMO.

I'm trying different fan combos in my TT Shark case to see what works best for me noise/cfm ratio.
 
DarkenReaper57 said:
After some looking around, I found this killer deal:
http://www.goldmine-elec-products.com/prodinfo.asp?number=G14959&variation=&aitem=5&mitem=9

Does anyone have experience with these deltas? I know they are loud at stock, but if undervolted, are they quiet?
Click to expand...

I have a case of those deltas, I bought for a WC project i am doing. They just came in yesterday. I have a few spares if you want to get them from me as I only need 15 :)

Anyway, I didn't get around to testing them last night cause I got my New CPU and Motherboard as well that I was tinkering with. Anyway, they come with a 2pin connect... But it is real easy to swap headers from 2 to 3pin since they use the same pin type... (cept for 4pin standard molex, cause you have to recrimp and solder)
 
J-Mag said:
I have a case of those deltas, I bought for a WC project i am doing. They just came in yesterday. I have a few spares if you want to get them from me as I only need 15 :)

Anyway, I didn't get around to testing them last night cause I got my New CPU and Motherboard as well that I was tinkering with. Anyway, they come with a 2pin connect... But it is real easy to swap headers from 2 to 3pin since they use the same pin type... (cept for 4pin standard molex, cause you have to recrimp and solder)
Click to expand...

I sent you a PM :).
 
Don't restrict yourself to 12v fans. I've got a number of 24v panaflow fans that run just fine and quite quietly at 12v.
 
Fenris_Ulf said:
Don't restrict yourself to 12v fans. I've got a number of 24v panaflow fans that run just fine and quite quietly at 12v.
Click to expand...

Don't they cost a lot more, though? :confused:

I really don't want to spend more than $10 per fan.
 
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