Shock horror! Thermaltake lies about its big fan!

Share your experiences about noisy computers and components, and vendors responses to your valid complaints.

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Felger Carbon
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Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 11:06 am
Location: Klamath Falls, OR

Shock horror! Thermaltake lies about its big fan!

Post by Felger Carbon » Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:35 am

I recently purchased a Thermaltake replacement side panel for the Armor/Kandalf case with a large fan mounted thereupon. The box the side panel came in celebrates the 25cm fan, repeatedly. There's even a picture of the fan with a protective cover and a red arrow showing that the diameter is 25cm.

There is a small problem.

The fan is not 25cm. It's 22cm. The portion of the fan and its cover with an arrow showing its 25cm diameter is in fact 22cm in diameter.

If I buy a 5 foot ladder, I expect it to be 5 feet in length. What gives?

Well, the fan has mounting ears. If you measure to the outside of the mounting ears, the fan is 25cm. Similarly, if you measure the diagonal on a 120mm fan, the diagonal is almost 17cm. That doesn't make an ordinary 120mm fan a 17cm fan, IMHO.

I suppose a lawyer would argue otherwise, however. As to how the dimension in the photograph is wrong, I suppose the same lawyer would claim that's a typo. Sigh.

I won't even mention the noise spec printed on the box. :lol:

Pgh
Posts: 176
Joined: Sat May 24, 2003 6:25 pm

Post by Pgh » Mon Aug 21, 2006 11:27 am

I know the specs are probably bs... but subjectively how is the noise level for the big fan?

Gojira-X
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Location: Southend, England, UK

Post by Gojira-X » Mon Aug 21, 2006 12:56 pm

you do realise that the sizes of fans are measured by the frame it uses as opposed to the actual diameter of the blades....

By your description, it sounds like TT are spot on

mikellpp
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Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2003 12:26 pm

Post by mikellpp » Mon Aug 21, 2006 2:24 pm

Check out 'Dan'sData' for a review of a case with this fan:
http://www.dansdata.com/bigfans.htm

He talks about the real "size" of the fan and how effectively it cools:
And, of course, the actually-22cm fans really do work. Along with a minimal contribution from the front-mounted PSU, the big fans will definitely provide enough air flow to cool a midrange PC. If your CPU doesn't run too hot - the new wave AMDs and, very definitely, Intels are big winners in this category - you could build a really fast PC in one of these cases and not have to install any more fans.

Tibors
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Location: Houten, The Netherlands, Europe

Post by Tibors » Mon Aug 21, 2006 2:35 pm

Gojira-X wrote:By your description, it sounds like TT are spot on
Maybe you should read the description again.

Fans are indeed measured by their frame size. But the side of the frame is measured, not the diagonal.

Felger Carbon
Posts: 2049
Joined: Thu Dec 15, 2005 11:06 am
Location: Klamath Falls, OR

Post by Felger Carbon » Mon Aug 21, 2006 8:51 pm

Pgh wrote:I know the specs are probably bs... but subjectively how is the noise level for the big fan?
When adjusted to be inaudible from the computer user seated position, the fan provides more air (and cooling) than my usual 120mm exhaust and PSU fans together. If I remove those two fans, and cut out the exhaust grill so there's a 110x110mm unimpeded hole, the cooling will be even better. (I'm gonna do that, but to a different chassis.)

When turned up to maximum, it still isn't what you'd call noisy. The YL D12SL-12 is rated at 0.3A and so is this 220mm fan! :)

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