My Cooler Master Sickleflow makes ticking noises at low speed, does yours?

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XacTactX

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The SickleFlow (AKA the R4) is well regarded for its airflow to CFM ratio. I found one on sale and got it because of this.

But unfortunately, what I've noticed is that if I run it at any level below 8 volts, the bearing becomes audible. It constantly makes a ticking and vibrating sound. I have the fan sitting right next to me right now but I can even hear it inside my computer case. I tried putting the fan on top of a sponge, thinking that the fan's vibrations were going into my desk, but it still makes the rattling and ticking sound.

I thought of lubricating the bearing but since this is a "long-life sleeve" bearing, the cap is made of hard plastic, not soft rubber. I think it was not meant to be removed, so I let it go at that point.

If you have a Cooler Master R4, how do you like it? Does it make ticking or other sounds at low speeds?
 
I run a red sickleflow on my Xigmatek HDT1283 original and Asus Q-Fan. Running at 1200rpm the fan is quiet with the rubber isolators. I was trying to tape up the sides with painters tape and the ticking you complain about happened and when removing the tape it went away. I would think its to do with being affixed to a mount.
 
i have better than a dozen of these coolermaster fans. some rattle but most don't. i think it might be just be some iffy qc at the factory. for the record, the enermax apollish fans are much more visually impressive in this current trend of led fans that feature lighting along the fan blades. to be fair, the enermax fans cost twice as much as the coolermasters.
 
Mine made clicking noises due to the fan controller, NZXT Sentry 2. Switched to the Lamptron FC Touch, and tried a Sunbeam Rheosmart 6-channel controller, and no more ticking noises.
 
Tsumi said:
Mine made clicking noises due to the fan controller, NZXT Sentry 2. Switched to the Lamptron FC Touch, and tried a Sunbeam Rheosmart 6-channel controller, and no more ticking noises.
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Now this right here is smart. I've been trying the fan with the fan controller integrated into my NZXT Lexa S. Maybe if I try another fan controller it will be better. I'm off to try it with a Zalman MFC1 Plus now. Thanks for the tip.

Truth be told I've tried two DIFFERENT Sickleflows. The first made ticking noises and I thought it was defective so I RMAed it and they sent me another one. The new one makes ticking noises too. Of course I've been using the same fan controller the whole time.
 
XacTactX said:
Now this right here is smart. I've been trying the fan with the fan controller integrated into my NZXT Lexa S. Maybe if I try another fan controller it will be better. I'm off to try it with a Zalman MFC1 Plus now. Thanks for the tip.

Truth be told I've tried two DIFFERENT Sickleflows. The first made ticking noises and I thought it was defective so I RMAed it and they sent me another one. The new one makes ticking noises too. Of course I've been using the same fan controller the whole time.
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Yeah, what amazed me was that it even caused ticking noises with the 2150 RPM Gentle Typhoons that I have, although it was much more subdued.

Edit: The best way to tell is to plug the fan directly into the power supply. Once I did that, all I heard was the whoosh of air moving and the small hum of the motor.
 
What orientation do you have the fan, horizontal or vertical? I have 7 of these in my case and 1 or 2 of them have a ticking noise of some kind on my horizontal mounted ones on my 4x120 rad at the top of my case. The other 3 that are vertical have never made a noise. After I heard it I asked about it and apparently sleeve bearings are known to make noise mounted horizontally.
 
The issue with fans ticking and fan controllers is usually caused by the fan controller using PWM to control a fan that is not PWM. I had an old PWM fan controller that made my Ultra Kazes tick like crazy, since I started using the Sunbeam Rheostat fan controller, they don't tick at all. In my opinion, avoid PWM fan controllers for controlling non-PWM fans.
 
External fan controllers are almost exclusively voltage/non-PWM based. However, the Sunbeam Rheosmart that I used can accept a PWM signal from the motherboard to control the fans, and it never ticked even in that mode. It just has something to do with NZXT fan controllers in general, especially older ones. I had R4 fans in both orientations, horizontal and vertical, and the ticking came from all my fans, including my Aerocool Silver Lightnings and Gentle Typhoons.
 
You know, it's really interesting, after plugging the two Sickleflows into a Zalman MFC1 Plus fan controller, the ticking noise is much lower in volume. If I am about one foot or more away from the fan, it is very difficult to hear. But there is still a faint ticking sound.

As far as I know my fan controllers are non-PWM and I've been running the fans in vertical orientation.

Could you guys please just confirm one more time, do you hear any clicking noise at all? What about from 1 foot away on the exhaust side(or closer)? Because I have a hard time believing that I received two defective fans (one new, one from RMA).
 
I can confirm a very faint ticking noise at low speeds with my R4 fans and Lamptron FC Touch.
 
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