noise and cooling w/ fan adapter

[scholtz]

Quick question: anyone have experience/opinions about using a fan adapter for a CPU cooler fan? Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Nexus-80mm-92mm- ... B002C7IQ1O

Wondering a) if the funnel shape will cause more wind noise, and b) if the separation between fan and heatsink is a bad idea.

I ask because I just built a new Ryzen 1300 system and installed the stock Wraith Stealth cooler. The fan on it is noisy. I could replace the whole cooler, and may later, but I'd rather not spend more time building for now and am feeling lazy about installing a new cooler (taking out the mobo, cleaning paste off the CPU, etc.) So I thought I'd try just replacing the fan, because so far my CPU temps are fine.

Problem is that it's a 92mm fan but w/ 80mm mounting holes (per this thread https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threa ... 952/page-3) which is a non-standard size.

So one answer seems to be to get an adapter that would allow me to use a standard 92mm or 120mm fan. Bad idea or good idea?

And if I do do this, what makes a good CPU fan? Different than what makes a good case fan? Seems a CPU fan has to be quiet at higher speeds, yes?

Thanks for all the help on this thread and others! My rig is quieter and will get quieter still.

[scholtz]

Never mind. Just tried to remove the fan to see if I could get a good look at the mounting holes, to make sure the bracket would fit. And I failed to get the fan off of there. Odd-sized screws torqued down tight, partially covered by a fan shroud. Screws were gonna strip before coming out of there. Found a couple forum threads saying the shroud can only be removed from the other side, meaning I'd have to take the cooler off the mobo. If I'm gonna have to do that, I'm just gonna replace the whole thing.

So goodbye Wraith cooler!

[Olle P]

I'll jump in to help other readers:

Wondering a) if the funnel shape will cause more wind noise, and b) if the separation between fan and heatsink is a bad idea.

a) Probably a bit more noise, yes.
b) [A ducted] separation between fan and heatsink is, from a typical cooling perspective, the best idea! As a rule of thumb the distance should be at least the thickness of the fan (because traditional fan design use hubs whith a diametre proportional to the fan thickness). Can't say if/how it influence the noise though...