Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and failing

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Krydel
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Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and failing

Post by Krydel » Fri Jul 25, 2014 3:30 am

*Edited to clear up info*

I've been having a bit of difficulty effectively cooling the H440 whilst maintaining peacefulness. Stock temps are fine, but loud. Aerocool dead silence temps were also fine; but whilst the fans were quiet, these produced a lot of annoying clicking, vibrations etc even with the rubber grommets. My second attempt at buying fans were the Silent Wings 2 140mms throughout, but they were woefully inadequate at cooling :(

Stock Fans @ 800rpm (50% Setting in BIOS - Recorded with ~3C lower ambient than the below temps)
CPU Idle 32-34C
CPU Load 65C
GPU Idle 32-34C
GPU Load 77C
~10 minutes to return to idle temps after stressing GPU.

Aerocool Dead Silence @ 7V (1 x 140mm exhaust, 2 x 120mm exhaust, 3 x 120mm intake)
CPU Idle 35 C
CPU Stress load 61 C (Intel Extreme Tuning Utility)
GPU Idle 34C
GPU Stress load 78 C (Furmark) - CPU rises to 58-60 C also.
CPU + GPU Stress Load N/A, didn't do it before I got rid.

Silent Wings @ 7V: (5 x 140mm, 2 intake, 3 exhaust)
CPU idle 42C
CPU stress load 68C (Intel Extreme Tuning Utility)
GPU idle 34-35C
GPU stress load 80C (Furmark) - CPU rises to 68 C also
CPU + GPU stress load 80C for both.

Initially, I had 1 x 140mm exhaust, 2 x 120mm top exhausts and 3 x 120mm front intakes. All of these were aero cool dead silence fans; quiet, but they all buzzed a bit at low rpm, clicked when horizontal and more annoyingly transferred a lot of vibration. This perhaps wouldn't have been so much of an issue if it was a constant vibration but it kind of went 'up and down' in intensity. That said, they cooled quite well at 7v and even at 5v.

So i'm searching for a new fan setup I suspect I need fans (black or red, or at least subdued) with decent static pressure for one, because of the suffocated vents, and generally better airflow. Currently i'm looking at having 6 x Noiseblocker M12-S2s (3 intake, 3 top exhaust) and 1 x Noiseblocker PK-2 or PK3 or Phanteks PH140-HP. Expensive, but hopefully worth it. I'm also probably going to pick up an NZXT Grid+ as an elegant control solution when its released.

Please if anybody could help me trying to keep my computer as cool as possible whilst also remaining super quiet that would be great!


My Rig:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 93.3 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler
Motherboard: MSI Z97-GAMING 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Kingston Fury Red Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card
Case: NZXT H440 (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair 860W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For £105.00)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit)
Monitor: Dell U2414H 60Hz 23.8" Monitor
Last edited by Krydel on Sun Jul 27, 2014 12:45 pm, edited 3 times in total.

CA_Steve
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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by CA_Steve » Fri Jul 25, 2014 9:39 am

Welcome to SPCR.

Just to make sure I have this correct with the Silent Wings @ 7V:

CPU idle 42C
CPU stress load 68C

GPU idle 77C
GPU stress load 80C (CPU 68C)

CPU + GPU stress load 80C for both

Abula
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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by Abula » Fri Jul 25, 2014 10:12 am

Well your temps don't seem bad to me, im coming from a i7 4970K that could reach 93C if i load it on 1.2V on 4.4ghz, i had to do some tweaking to get it under 80C, losing 0.2ghz on the clocks and below 1.2V helps, those last mhz really push it too much for the gain in performance, thus the rpms i need to sustain it, aka increasing the noise, not worth it to me.

Overall there are trade offs for quiet computing, there are no magical fans that will do a dramatic difference, there are better fans no doubt, both tonally and performing, but not to the point that you will get a super quiet PC with high running cpu overlcoking... so on. What im trying to say is that even though that i don't own nor have tried silent wings, i think what you are getting seems alright comparing to my setup, then again there are other setups like CA_Steve that runs much cooler on non hyperthreaded cpu, but also mid en gpu, so could affect a little more.

One thing that you should look into is how is the ambient temp vs the inside case temp, maybe the fans are doing their job fine, its more the cpu cooler or vice versa. Also test open case, see if there is a dramatic drop on temps. Or even on an open bench to check how good or bad the case fans are working.

You could try higher static pressure fans, like scythe gentle typhoons, that SPCR has reviewed and came out really well in tonal, performance, but they are hard to get now a days that scythe broke their contract with nidec. But i wouldn't expect a much dramatic difference. On 140s, check SPCR First 140 mm Fan Roundup: Noctua, Phanteks, Xigmatek and First 140 mm Fan Roundup: Noctua, Phanteks, Xigmatek, pay close attention to the phantek on the 1st and the antec 140 on the second, both seem like very good option.

Personally what im trying to do is move into a higher airflow case, im waiting on the FT05 with twin 180mm intake fans, i feel this fans would push a lot more air under the same dbs, im hopping to idle them between 300-400rpms and on load 600-700, but will see, a lot of testing will be involve once i move the setup.

Krydel
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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by Krydel » Fri Jul 25, 2014 11:44 am

CA_Steve wrote:Welcome to SPCR.

Just to make sure I have this correct
Sorry, I didn't make myself entirely clear, I wrote this post on the way to work in a bit of a grump because I'd traded my fans for (what i view to be) worse ones! Now I have a bit more time i'll clear things up. I should note I am now running on stock NZXT FN V2 fans because I took the opportunity to quickly return my Silent Wings after phoning the retailer. Hasty? Yes, but knowing what temps I was getting before I wasn't happy and that was that. This time, I want to research a bit more before I buy fans. If i had read the SPCR roundup noting it was average for cooling (with a particularly high temperature rise for lower speeds) I would have stayed away.

Aerocool Dead Silence @ 7V
CPU Idle 35 C
CPU Stress load 61 C (Intel Extreme Tuning Utility)
GPU Idle 34C
GPU Stress load 78 C (Furmark) - CPU rises to 58-60 C also.
CPU + GPU Stress Load N/A, didn't do it before I got rid.

Silent Wings @ 7V:
CPU idle 42C
CPU stress load 68C (Intel Extreme Tuning Utility)
GPU idle 34-35C
GPU stress load 80C (Furmark) - CPU rises to 68 C also
CPU + GPU stress load 80C for both.
Abula wrote:Well your temps don't seem bad to me, im coming from a i7 4970K that could reach 93C if i load it on 1.2V on 4.4ghz, i had to do some tweaking to get it under 80C, losing 0.2ghz on the clocks and below 1.2V helps, those last mhz really push it too much for the gain in performance, thus the rpms i need to sustain it, aka increasing the noise, not worth it to me.

One thing that you should look into is how is the ambient temp vs the inside case temp, maybe the fans are doing their job fine, its more the cpu cooler or vice versa. Also test open case, see if there is a dramatic drop on temps. Or even on an open bench to check how good or bad the case fans are working.

You could try higher static pressure fans, like scythe gentle typhoons, that SPCR has reviewed and came out really well in tonal, performance, but they are hard to get now a days that scythe broke their contract with nidec. But i wouldn't expect a much dramatic difference. On 140s, check SPCR First 140 mm Fan Roundup: Noctua, Phanteks, Xigmatek and First 140 mm Fan Roundup: Noctua, Phanteks, Xigmatek, pay close attention to the phantek on the 1st and the antec 140 on the second, both seem like very good option.
93C? Ouch! I'd never bother getting into overclocking enough, as I am purely a gamer I'm quite happy with my modest overclock at the moment.

Actually, as I'm running stock fans at the moment i'm just running stock. Its regularly hitting between 26-30C (glorious weather) ambient at the moment so temps are a little higher, but all my readings [above] were taken in similar ambient temps.

You've reminded me by suggesting I take the sides off; with the silent wings, as soon as I took the sides off (which was rather like opening an oven door) the temps would drop back to idle temps. If i didn't remove the sides after stressing, the temps would remain around the 50-55C idle mark. Would this indicate insufficient intake, or exhaust?

CPU Cooler should be fine, its a Dark Rock Pro 3 and does its job very well.

Thanks for referring to the article. Phantek exhaust + M12-S1 for the other fan slots seems like a good idea at the moment, but I'm here to be told otherwise!

--

Finally, can i simply add cfm ratings to one another to calculate total airflow so that I can deliberately spec for higher airflow than I was getting (approximately) from the silent wings and closer to the aerocools?

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by CA_Steve » Fri Jul 25, 2014 2:03 pm

You can try reducing the (for lack of a better term) impedance of the case:

- remove the unused HDD cages/trays so the front fans have unobstructed flow.
- I don't know how much exhaust air you'll get out of the top fans..having the air redirected to the sides is a huge obstacle to overcome.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by xan_user » Fri Jul 25, 2014 3:10 pm

CA_Steve wrote:You can try reducing the (for lack of a better term) impedance of the case:

- remove the unused HDD cages/trays so the front fans have unobstructed flow.
- I don't know how much exhaust air you'll get out of the top fans..having the air redirected to the sides is a huge obstacle to overcome.
also, dont forget about cable tidiness... it all adds up to better airflow.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by MikeC » Fri Jul 25, 2014 4:10 pm

We haven't reviewed this case, but I do recall seeing it in some tradeshows. IIRC, despite the 3 140mm fans in front, it's not exactly an easy flowing case design. The front intake vents are only only the right edge of the bezel; the top vent is similarly only on the left side. Whatever you can do to open up the in/out vents will help.

Krydel
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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by Krydel » Fri Jul 25, 2014 10:18 pm

I've taken all the hard drive bays out which I don't need and it's cabled tidied quite meticulously; I recall it did help a couple of degrees or so when I did it properly.

I'm guessing I need static pressure fans because of the restricted vents?

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by SebRad » Sat Jul 26, 2014 4:04 am

Hi, I think you need to balance intake with exhaust potential so my somewhat radical suggestions for the poor case air flow:
  • Cut out the rear fan grill, remove any unused slot covers, water cooling grommets etc, basically get as much air flow out the rear as possible.
    On the roof and door remove the hole/mesh that is behind the intake vents to improve air flow.
    Turn the roof fans from exhausts in to intakes, the restrictive nature of them plus the front intakes should then equal the now freer flowing rear so its air in top and front and out the back.
The effect of convection won't hinder the top being an intake, even the slowest of fans far over powers it.
And you can always turn the top fans back the right way round easily if it doesn't work.

Regards, Seb

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by quest_for_silence » Sat Jul 26, 2014 7:16 am

Krydel wrote:Phantek exhaust + M12-S1 for the other fan slots seems like a good idea at the moment, but I'm here to be told otherwise!

The M12-S2 would seem a more sensible choice, over the S1 (refer to the relevant SPCR article).

Krydel wrote:can i simply add cfm ratings to one another to calculate total airflow so that I can deliberately spec for higher airflow than I was getting (approximately) from the silent wings and closer to the aerocools?

At first glance, I don't think so, as turbulent flows are an highly complex matter.

Krydel
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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by Krydel » Sat Jul 26, 2014 10:33 am

quest_for_silence wrote:
Krydel wrote:Phantek exhaust + M12-S1 for the other fan slots seems like a good idea at the moment, but I'm here to be told otherwise!

The M12-S2 would seem a more sensible choice, over the S1 (refer to the relevant SPCR article).

Krydel wrote:can i simply add cfm ratings to one another to calculate total airflow so that I can deliberately spec for higher airflow than I was getting (approximately) from the silent wings and closer to the aerocools?

At first glance, I don't think so, as turbulent flows are an highly complex matter.
I think you're right about it being more sensible. I could run it at a low RPM for idle and set a fan curve for it to ramp up a bit if it gets too hot. 1dB louder than the S1 at the same rpms is probably fine. One of my concerns with the S1, despite its praise in the SPCR article, was that its static pressure rating is quite low and it seems that with my suffocated case a decent rating would be helpful. Judging by the official website's datasheet, the S1 is rated at 0.39 max with the S2 at 1.12 at max, so the option to cool much more effectively if needed is nice.

The NZXT Grid+ hits the UK in August, so that would mean I could have 6 x Noiseblocker M2s controlled with that in CAM (a slightly more elegant solution that splitters and a bit more tidy, though i do have an MSI board allowing for 10% increments from 50%-100%), and probably Phanteks 140mm in the back plugged into the motherboard so I could control them all. I have considered the PK1 or PK2 for my 140mm rear exhaust, though I'm a bit funny in that if its not tested by SPCR, i don't trust the review!

Thanks for the CFM thing too.

As a sidenote, what a breath of fresh air it is to come to a forum where people offer constructive advice and spend time on replying to posts, rather than just rocking up and declaring 'Noctua am best fan, buy it'.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Jul 26, 2014 6:59 pm

Until you provide more airflow by opening up the case, more fans probably won't help. I bet you'd get the same temp results with just 2 decent 140's in front and 1 in back. Analogy: no matter how hard you suck, how much air can you pull through a small straw?

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by Krydel » Sun Jul 27, 2014 3:07 am

CA_Steve wrote:Until you provide more airflow by opening up the case, more fans probably won't help. I bet you'd get the same temp results with just 2 decent 140's in front and 1 in back. Analogy: no matter how hard you suck, how much air can you pull through a small straw?
I appreciate that, though the fact remains I am running on noisy stock fans at the moment so it's not so much a case of 'I want more airflow' because stock temps are acceptable to me, it's that I want to get quieter fans without sacrificing too much cooling performance from the status quo. This is why the silent wings got sent back. The aerocools were great but made annoying noises, even if they were quiet. Stock fans are 45cfm each in the front at full speed so presumably a few m12-s2s in there instead wouldn't heat it up too much and a pk2 or phanteks exhaust would be fine too, no? The top fan slots I know other h440 users have success using with regard to bringing down temps, which I currently have nothing in.

That said, you have made me wonder wether 6 x 120mm and 1 x 140mm would even be better than just shoving 5 x 140mms in it.

For reference, stock temps are 35C idle, 65C load / prime or 61-62 with Intel Extreme Tuning Utility. GPU never goes above 78.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Jul 27, 2014 5:12 am

Krydel wrote:I want to get quieter fans without sacrificing too much cooling performance from the status quo.
...snipped out...
For reference, stock temps are 35C idle, 65C load / prime or 61-62 with Intel Extreme Tuning Utility. GPU never goes above 78.

Which are your average current fan speeds? All of them please, both idle and load.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by lodestar » Sun Jul 27, 2014 5:46 am

The point about the H440 is that it is supposed to be a quiet case. And the stock 3 x 120mm 1200 rpm and 1 x 140mm 1000 rpm fans ought to be enough to keep even an overclocked Haswell system reasonably cool. However as part of being a quiet case there is a solid metal front and top, and the path between the front placed inlet fans and the CPU cooler is somewhat obstructed. The solution I think is to move the 3 front fans to the top positions but not as exhaust fans but as inlets blowing inwards (downwards). This would give a cool air flow directly to the area of the case where the hottest components are located, particularly the processor. The existing 140mm fan exhaust can be left where it is. The back of the case looks to be fairly unobstructed with a grill and slotted expansion slot covers - this would fit in with the revised inlet fan positions.

The other issue is that I think better results would be achieved by plugging the fans into the motherboard chassis fan headers and controlling them thermally rather than with a fixed voltage via the case fan controller. This approach would allow the BIOS and/or board manufacturers fan control software to be used to tune air flow to get the preferred temperatures. The same applies to the CPU cooler; this has I assume a PWM fan and could be tuned with the same BIOS/fan control software combination to achieve a target temperature.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by Krydel » Sun Jul 27, 2014 6:01 am

quest_for_silence wrote:
Krydel wrote:I want to get quieter fans without sacrificing too much cooling performance from the status quo.
...snipped out...
For reference, stock temps are 35C idle, 65C load / prime or 61-62 with Intel Extreme Tuning Utility. GPU never goes above 78.

Which are your average current fan speeds? All of them please, both idle and load.
They're NZXT FN V2s all running at 100% because it doesn't really seem worth undervolting the stock fans imo when I can get better quality stuff. So 1200RPM (+/- 15%) all the time. The 140 will be 1000RPM (+/- 15%) all the time.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Jul 27, 2014 9:55 am

Krydel wrote:They're NZXT FN V2s all running at 100% because it doesn't really seem worth undervolting the stock fans imo when I can get better quality stuff. So 1200RPM (+/- 15%) all the time. The 140 will be 1000RPM (+/- 15%) all the time.

Well, broadly speaking you can't compare 1000/1200rpm fans (NZXT) with 7V fans (BQ), to say those latter are unsatisfactory, you should compare both within the same metric, rpm or volt.

Again, broadly speaking, whether it's true that at 1000/1200rpm some fans (like - you say - those NZXT, but I can name several Cooler Master or Enermax ones) may have a nasty "sound signature", *any* large fan at 1000/1200rpm is quite noticeable, even better, in my humble opinion it is loud.

So if you want a very quiet setup, you will pay an hefty temps penalty; on the contrary, with much more comfortable temps, you will get a moderately noisy system (per SPCR standards).
In my experience I strieve to not pass 600-700rpm with 120mm fans, and to not pass 500-600rpm with 140mm fans: in my opinion, above these limits, a system cannot be called "quiet".
But at these mentioned speeds, you will have a pretty toasty rig, and if I understood you correctly, you don't want that, do you?

Next step could be trying upper limits, maybe around 800rpm for 120mm fans, 700rpm for 140mm fans: if I were you, using either the MSI UEFI/software, or SpeedFan (which usually works on MSI boards), I would make some tests manually fixing the fan speeds at those limits, in order to record which will be the actual heating.

As suggested by several other co-forumers, if you have top exhaust fans, I would perform those test both with those ones as exhaust, and with those ones flipped as intakes (even if, by your after-stressing temps with the sides in, it would seem that you mainly lack some exhaust prowess).

Whether the recorded temperatures were still unsatisfactory according to you, then you should iterate the process using higher fan speed limits (to say, 900rpm for 120mm fans, 800rpm for 140mm fans).
All these tests should help you to determine a temperatures baseline, which is necessary to evaluate any possible better candidate (or cooling strategy). Obviously, IMHO.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by Krydel » Sun Jul 27, 2014 10:08 am

quest_for_silence wrote:
Krydel wrote:They're NZXT FN V2s all running at 100% because it doesn't really seem worth undervolting the stock fans imo when I can get better quality stuff. So 1200RPM (+/- 15%) all the time. The 140 will be 1000RPM (+/- 15%) all the time.

Well, broadly speaking you can't compare 1000/1200rpm fans (NZXT) with 7V fans (BQ), to say those latter are unsatisfactory, you should compare both within the same metric, rpm or volt.

Again, broadly speaking, whether it's true that at 1000/1200rpm some fans (like - you say - those NZXT, but I can name several Cooler Master or Enermax ones) may have a nasty "sound signature", *any* large fan at 1000/1200rpm is quite noticeable, even better, in my humble opinion it is loud.

So if you want a very quiet setup, you will pay an hefty temps penalty; on the contrary, with much more comfortable temps, you will get a moderately noisy system (per SPCR standards).
In my experience I strieve to not pass 600-700rpm with 120mm fans, and to not pass 500-600rpm with 140mm fans: in my opinion, above these limits, a system cannot be called "quiet".
But at these mentioned speeds, you will have a pretty toasty rig, and if I understood you correctly, you don't want that, do you?

Next step could be trying upper limits, maybe around 800rpm for 120mm fans, 700rpm for 140mm fans: if I were you, using either the MSI UEFI/software, or SpeedFan (which usually works on MSI boards), I would make some tests manually fixing the fan speeds at those limits, in order to record which will be the actual heating.

As suggested by several other co-forumers, if you have top exhaust fans, I would perform those test both with those ones as exhaust, and with those ones flipped as intakes (even if, by your after-stressing temps with the sides in, it would seem that you mainly lack some exhaust prowess).

All these tests should help you to determine a temperatures baseline, which is necessary to evaluate any possible better candidate (or cooling strategy). Obviously, IMHO.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.

I'll happily concede I'm comparing apples to oranges when attempting to compare stock 1000/1200rpm fans with 7v Bequiets (700ish rpm), but the other comparison to the Aerocool fans remains. I tested these at both 7v and 5v and the gpu/cpu never got any higher under load than the stock fans do at max rpm, which lends credence to the suggestion I can fully equip my fan slots, running the new fans [whatever they may be] at a lower rpm, and maintain temps (or at least, not sacrifice too many degrees). Having fans controlled would mean I can always turn them up when gaming and such when peace and quiet doesn't matter, should the temps be overly high.

With regard to 'I don't want a toasty rig' this is partially true. I'll quite happily sacrifice non-load temps so that I can work at my desk on office applications and read textbooks in peace, gaming isn't so much of an issue as I'll have speakers or headphones on.

I think, as you said, the next step is to set some baseline temps to work off by attaching my current 4 stock fans to the 4 headers I have spare, setting their speeds in the BIOS and doing some tests to see what I should be aiming for.

EDIT** Plugged all my fans into the headers and switched them all down to 800rpm (lowest i can get them for some reason, even though 50% of 1200 is definitely not 800rpm). CPU load is 65C, idle 32-34C. GPU 32-34C idle, 77 C load. It is a bit cooler ambient than it has been, so I can probably add a few degrees onto those for a hot day. After stressing the GPU, idle temps for the CPU seemed to stay around 38-40 and took a good 10 minutes to drop down again whilst the fans tried to get rid of all the hot air.

This seems like a good base level to aim for and although the sound profile is poor, the actual noise level isn't bad, and its performing much better than the silent wings, and about the same as the aerocools.

EDIT 2** Updated original post for clarity.
Last edited by Krydel on Sun Jul 27, 2014 12:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by lodestar » Sun Jul 27, 2014 11:33 am

Krydel wrote:...took a good 10 minutes to drop down again whilst the fans tried to get rid of all the hot air...
It sounds like the 140mm exhaust needs beefing up. Rather than guess at a better spec you might want to consider fitting a PWM exhaust fan with a significantly higher top speed than 1000 rpm and chaining it off the CPU header using a PWM splitter cable (unless your motherboard has a second CPU PWM header, in which case you could use that). Chaining the exhaust fan off the CPU header (or a second CPU header) in this way means that both fans work in unison but under the control of the CPU fan settings. Finding an all black 140mm PWM fan with a significantly faster speed than 1000 rpm does not seem to be all that easy. Although not cheap, the Noctua NF-A14 IndustrialPPC 140mm PWM would fit the bill (the dark brown plastic bumpers are removable). Its range is 500 to 2000 rpm, you would see the low end speed under idle conditions, probably the same or less than what you are getting now with the existing 1000 rpm fan. I'm not suggesting it would get near the top speed in practice but it would give the headroom for much higher speeds if needed due to exceptional factors such as high ambient temperatures.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by quest_for_silence » Sun Jul 27, 2014 1:34 pm

Krydel wrote:I'll quite happily sacrifice non-load temps so that I can work at my desk on office applications and read textbooks in peace, gaming isn't so much of an issue as I'll have speakers or headphones on.

Idle temps are usually not an issue with contemporary hardware.
Broadly speaking you can have slow running fan on idle, while faster spin them on load.
What hampers you seems mainly the heat build-up in your enclosure, due to lack of airflow (or exhausting prowess).
So you need a longer recovery time, and that translates in longer time when fans spin at a fast pace: the overall results is an averagely noisy system, because those fans will spin fast even at idle/low load because they have to recover from the previous high load temp.
If you should think that a fast fan (to say, a 2000-2500rpm one) may help you, unfortunately almost always such a fan can't spin at really low rates (I mean under 1000rpm), with some exceptions (like the Scythe Grand Flex SH-P, a PWM fan usable from 600 to 2400rpm, which doesn't have one of the best noise signature around).

Krydel wrote:EDIT** Plugged all my fans into the headers and switched them all down to 800rpm (lowest i can get them for some reason, even though 50% of 1200 is definitely not 800rpm).

AFAIK that percentage is a percentage of the supplied voltage (so about 6 volts): broadly speaking a fan power supply curve is not linear, and it varies on a case-by-case basis, so that it's not given that a fan spins at half the rated speed with half the rated voltage.

Krydel wrote:This seems like a good base level to aim for and although the sound profile is poor, the actual noise level isn't bad, and its performing much better than the silent wings, and about the same as the aerocools.
Well, you might give a look into SPCR articles looking for the better performing fans at about that speed (usually corresponding to the 12-14dB(A) range), and then look among the better sounding one among those. My personal, not-so-educated bet, it's that something like a Prolimatech Blue Vortex (or Antec TruQuiet) for the 140mm mounting holes, and a Scythe Slipstream M for the 120mm ones could offer one of the best balance between noise signature and cooling prowess at those above mentioned speeds (if you're thinking to voltage controlled 3-pin fans).

I'm curious to know whether you flipped the top exhaust fans, or not, in your testings.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by Krydel » Sun Jul 27, 2014 2:26 pm

quest_for_silence wrote: Well, you might give a look into SPCR articles looking for the better performing fans at about that speed (usually corresponding to the 12-14dB(A) range), and then look among the better sounding one among those. My personal, not-so-educated bet, it's that something like a Prolimatech Blue Vortex (or Antec TruQuiet) for the 140mm mounting holes, and a Scythe Slipstream M for the 120mm ones could offer one of the best balance between noise signature and cooling prowess at those above mentioned speeds (if you're thinking to voltage controlled 3-pin fans).

I'm curious to know whether you flipped the top exhaust fans, or not, in your testings.
Thanks for clearing up the fan control query.

I did not flip the top exhaust fans during my tests i'm afraid, though I have read some people who swear by having the 6x120mm slot as intakes and 1 good 140mm exhaust. I'll no doubt experiment with this whenever I get my new fans though.

As for looking at SPCR articles i've read them pretty thoroughly hence being thus far set on 6x Noiseblocker M12-S2 (super-quiet at low rpms, but versatile enough to be able to ramp up when needed) but I'm sort of waiting for this thread to die out before I make any decisions and if nobody goes 'thats a stupid idea' then I'll go ahead and buy them.

With regard to the Slipstreams, are these what you are referring to? There seem to be better options available now. (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =FG-021-SY)

For the 1x140mm fan choice, I had considered the Antec TrueQuiets as they're excellent, but they're also quite low RPM (This is fine, as i'll be running them like that the majority of the time, but I'd like the option to spin up more when things get really toasty) and in any case the Phanteks fan seems to be the better bet if the roundup is to be believed.

Vanity is a bit of an issue with having white frames on the Phanteks, so I've also turned my attention to the Noiseblocker Blacksilent Pro PK2 (1200rpm) or PK3 (1700rpm) to have as my rear exhaust; although not reviewed here on SPCR, reports seem to be good and noiseblockers in general have a good reputation so should be fine.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by Abula » Sun Jul 27, 2014 4:51 pm

Remember not always more is better, same applies to fans, upon certain point there are diminishing returns into the amount of air you are entering is not giving you equal proportion to the cooling you get, but for us is particularly important as noise comes from moving parts, and now a days with ssds, practically fans are out main source of noise.

Read the following articles, Fan Test System, SPCR 2010,
Over the years, we have observed one clear phenomenon about fans and cooling: The relationship between airflow and temperature invariably becomes exponential at some point. Increase airflow from nothing to something, and the drop in temperature can be dramatic. Keep increasing airflow, and the cooling improvement becomes less and less significant, until at some point, the temperature hardly drops at all. The trick, for the PC builder who seeks both good cooling and low noise, is to find the point where any decrease in airflow (or fan speed) effects a significant increase in temperature, while only a very large airflow increase effects a significant temperature drop. In other words, once you have enough airflow, additional airflow has very little cooling effect, so all you're doing is increasing noise. "Enough airflow" is not a constant, of course, it varies for each system of components.
And Bit-Tech The Big Air Cooling Investigation,
With four or more fans, concentrate on traditional front to back cooling and creating one strong, continuous air flow. Fill the front intakes and the roof and rear exhausts first. More fans does mean more cooling, but expect diminishing returns when going above three or four fans.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by Krydel » Sun Jul 27, 2014 5:08 pm

Abula wrote:Remember not always more is better, same applies to fans, upon certain point there are diminishing returns into the amount of air you are entering is not giving you equal proportion to the cooling you get, but for us is particularly important as noise comes from moving parts, and now a days with ssds, practically fans are out main source of noise.

Read the following articles, Fan Test System, SPCR 2010,
Over the years, we have observed one clear phenomenon about fans and cooling: The relationship between airflow and temperature invariably becomes exponential at some point. Increase airflow from nothing to something, and the drop in temperature can be dramatic. Keep increasing airflow, and the cooling improvement becomes less and less significant, until at some point, the temperature hardly drops at all. The trick, for the PC builder who seeks both good cooling and low noise, is to find the point where any decrease in airflow (or fan speed) effects a significant increase in temperature, while only a very large airflow increase effects a significant temperature drop. In other words, once you have enough airflow, additional airflow has very little cooling effect, so all you're doing is increasing noise. "Enough airflow" is not a constant, of course, it varies for each system of components.
And Bit-Tech The Big Air Cooling Investigation,
With four or more fans, concentrate on traditional front to back cooling and creating one strong, continuous air flow. Fill the front intakes and the roof and rear exhausts first. More fans does mean more cooling, but expect diminishing returns when going above three or four fans.
Interesting stuff, thanks for pin pointing these. It might save me pennies on a fan (£15 a piece for the noiseblockers!)

I do wonder how useful the first exhaust on the top would be anyway, considering its so close to the highest intake fan, would it just scoop the cool air from the top intake straight back out of the case before its had chance to flow through the case, or does it not work like that?

For reference:
Image

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:48 am

Krydel wrote:I did not flip the top exhaust fans during my tests i'm afraid, though I have read some people who swear by having the 6x120mm slot as intakes and 1 good 140mm exhaust.

It's just sort of a positive pressure setup, it requires some specific arrangement on case openings (as seen on some Silverstones), but I can't help if it can work that well on your H440.

Krydel wrote:I'll no doubt experiment with this whenever I get my new fans though.

I think you should do it priorly, as you might end up buying less fans.

Krydel wrote:I'm sort of waiting for this thread to die out before I make any decisions and if nobody goes 'thats a stupid idea' then I'll go ahead and buy them.

No, the M12-2 is an high-end fan, and it has a nice noise profile, preferable to the one of most of 140mm fans, so that no one can tell that they are not enough good. Probably NB are just more than a tad on the expensive side, as well as the Noctuas, and as any 120mm fan it moves less air, particularly at the higher speeds.

Krydel wrote:With regard to the Slipstreams, are these what you are referring to? There seem to be better options available now. (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =FG-021-SY)

I don't think so, among the 120mm fan that "old" Slipstream M (the one you found) is still one of the best all arounder available: a reference-class sonic signature, while performing more than adequately (differently from the BeQuiet), as you may easily check in the latest published charts (third position, besting the M12-S1/S2, which has a more sophisticated bearing on its own). Like the SPCR reference Nexus, those SS are both relatively inexpensive and though to beat.

Krydel wrote:For the 1x140mm fan choice, I had considered the Antec TrueQuiets as they're excellent, but they're also quite low RPM (This is fine, as i'll be running them like that the majority of the time, but I'd like the option to spin up more when things get really toasty) and in any case the Phanteks fan seems to be the better bet if the roundup is to be believed.

I think those Phanteks are really good, my bet on Prolimatech is based upon personal experience (just owning both Noctuas P14 and that Prolimatech, I consider this latter a worthy contender at those speeds, sonic-wise: just FYI, that's what SPCR said about the relevant LED version, though it was a slightly different fan: "The acoustics of the Red Vortex fans were impressive... The Red Vortex fans performed noticeably better than our reference Noctuas.").
Anyway, as said just above, the Phanteks are a very fine choice, IMO.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by Krydel » Mon Jul 28, 2014 4:30 am

Okay, after careful consideration of the advice given by everyone and re-reading the relevant SPCR articles, i've gone ahead and ordered 5 of the Noiseblockers instead of six (being mindful of diminishing returns) and 1 Phanteks exhaust (was tempted by the PK2 or the Red Vortex, but stuck to my gut for now). I shall experiment with having the top two fans as intakes and exhausts as suggested (would've done already, but i don't own any fans to put in the top currently!).

Let me know if anybody wants to hear the results/some testing.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by quest_for_silence » Mon Jul 28, 2014 6:00 am

Krydel wrote:Let me know if anybody wants to hear the results/some testing.

I think all of us are interested to know your findings.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by Krydel » Mon Jul 28, 2014 12:49 pm

Will do. Fingers crossed! They should be here at some point tomorrow.

For reference:

Baseline Temps w/Stock Fans @ 800rpm, 950rpm for rear (won't slow down for some reason)
CPU w/ Prime95 (Small FFTs) for 30 Minutes. 66C max
GPU w/ Furmark for 30 Minutes 78C max
CPU + GPU w/ Prime 95 + Furmark Together for 30 Minutes: 76C max for CPU, 78 for GPU.

Little quirk of my fan curve is apparently that after the Dark Rock Pro 3 has spun up to 100% (1600rpm) as it naturally did for the CPU + GPU joint stress test it decreases the fan speed VERY slowly over the next few minutes to allow the temps to drop. Not sure if this is a feature or not, but its certainly very handy with a case that needs a bit of time for recovery.
Last edited by Krydel on Tue Jul 29, 2014 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by lodestar » Tue Jul 29, 2014 4:05 am

Part of the issue maybe is whether actual use is ever really going to stress your system as much as those two artificial tools, Furmark and Prime95. Have you considered using say Unigine Heaven as a benchmark since particularly on maximum settings it is probably more representative of 'real life' gaming.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by Krydel » Tue Jul 29, 2014 9:41 am

Yeah i've accepted that Furmark + Prime95 together is an insane amount of stress to put on a system that will never reach that, so I'm happy with 76 C for the two really, in real life gaming temps remain fine and in individual stressing its fine too, so that'll do.

Fans arrived; installed them all. Noiseblockers are so quiet, Phanteks is quiet but has the most horrific electrical noise coming from it at all speeds. Nonetheless, I shall go ahead and test, i've already sent an RMA for the Phanteks and have a Blacksilentpro PK2 ordered.

*EDIT*
Okay, first results are in. 3 x Noiseblocker intakes, 2 x noiseblocker exhausts and 1 x phanteks exhaust.

Noiseblockers at ~800rpm w/ Phanteks at 700rpm (30 Minutes)
CPU Idle 30C
CPU Load 62C (Small FFTs, Prime 95)
GPU Idle 30C
GPU Load 77 C (Furmark) (CPU hitting 55C max)
GPU + CPU Stressed together = 78C for GPU, 75C for CPU.

VERY happy with the results so far. Shame that the Phantek is so annoying but hopefully the replacement i've ordered will be fine too.
Last edited by Krydel on Tue Jul 29, 2014 11:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Silently Air Cooling an H440 effectively: trying and fai

Post by xan_user » Tue Jul 29, 2014 11:17 am

id try just try 3 exhaust, no intake. or 3 intake, no exhaust. bet it still wont go much above 80, and will be much quieter at low/moderate usage.

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