BQE 120mm fan Suggestion

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

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MajereXYU
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BQE 120mm fan Suggestion

Post by MajereXYU » Sun Jan 25, 2004 3:07 pm

Hi!

Buying an Antec SLK-3700BQE soon.

Need uggestions for 120mm fans to put in.

I have decided on a Panaflo 120mm H1A for exhaust (I have a fan controller and I prefer to have some headroom for when I overclock... Already have a Panaflo 92mm U1A and noise is bearable to me)

But I think that the 120mm Panaflos can't fit for intake on a BQE.

So... any suggestions? I need around 70-120 cfm, and fan must be reasonably quiet even at 12v (like panaflos).

Thanks.

P-S : what about Evercool 120mm aluminum fans?? any good?
I live in canada , so if you can mention shops to find the suggested fans, that would help.

Tim_U
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Post by Tim_U » Mon Jan 26, 2004 4:55 pm

The BQE comes with a 120mm Antec branded fan which they expect you to use for the exhaust...

And you're right, a 25mm Pana will not fit in the front intake..

I've stuck a 120mm Pana L1A as my exhaust fan, and used the Antec one as the intake. It's actually relatively quiet, even at 12V
Nice, easy & cheap.

BTW, you don't been the H1A, even if you're going to OC…
I've got a 2800XP clocked to 2.36Ghz (equiv of an XP3200), got the RAM & FSB clocked to 430MHz (DDR), and run an OC'd Radeon 9600Pro (with the standard cooler). I've got three disks in my setup, plus DVD & CDRW drives. Also have an additional USB/Firewire card, & an Adaptec SCSI card inside too. As you can see, it's probably not the most cool-friendly machine around...

The temps?
At idle with the case fans at 5V, and the CPU fan at 12V: CPU=36C MoBo = 32C
At idle with the case & CPU fans at 12V, CPU=31, case=28.
When I'm gaming or benchmarking, I switch all fans to 12V: CPU rarely peaks over 45, and mobo rarely over 34.

So I wouldn't particularly worry about lack of airflow or needing any extra headroom for OC'ing…

Not sure of the noise-making difference between the H1A & L1A tho…

HTH,
Tim.

chylld
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Post by chylld » Mon Jan 26, 2004 6:10 pm

The H1A is severe overkill. I'm just running the stock antec case fan @7v with a 2500 oc to 2.2ghz and my temps are fine.

Fromwhat I've read, the evercool aluminium 120mm moves the most amount of air for a given noise level. A lot of people here like it. The other favourite seems to be the papst 4412fgl. Also the 120mm L1A isn't bad.

And btw, i doubt you need 70-120 cfm. You'd probably have a tornado-sounding machine by the time you reach that figure. All you need is an adequate amount of air passing through the right places, and the stock bqe rear case fan will do just that.

Ralf Hutter
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Re: BQE 120mm fan Suggestion

Post by Ralf Hutter » Tue Jan 27, 2004 6:39 am

MajereXYU wrote:So... any suggestions? I need around 70-120 cfm, and fan must be reasonably quiet even at 12v (like panaflos)..
That much airflow is just not needed in that case, especially as an intake fan. I'm cooling my entire 82W P4 3.0C with one 5V L1A Panaflo as an exhaust fan. That's enough cooling even in the 95°F+ summer temps here in Sunny SoCal.

You can get plenty of cooling with an Evercool, Papst 4412 or an adjustable Enermax at 5 or 7 volts and any of these will be pretty quiet.

MajereXYU
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Post by MajereXYU » Tue Jan 27, 2004 9:30 am

Thanks alot guys!

I'm a bit paranoid about temps... I currently have an Antec SX-1000 series with 3 Antec 80mm 30dBa fans and one Vantec Stealth 80mm ~22dBa fan.
Heatsink is a Swiftech MCX-462+ with a Panaflo 92mm U1A 43dBa fan.
As you can guess, this isn't the quietest system around....

But my temps stay around :


CPU : idle 28C Load : 38C
Mobo : idle : 18C load : 22C (Around 18C ambient room temp in winter here in snowy Canada)

CPU is a Barton 2500+ Overclocked to 2.2 Ghz on a Abit NF7-S.

So i was worried that when switching to the BQE I would loose airflow over my hard drive compared to the inline design and directed airflow of the SX-1000 drive cage...

I have a Vantec fan controller so I can go anywhere between 0-12v for my fans... Do you guys think that a 5V 120mm Panaflo M1A would be as silent as a 7V L1A ? That way, I could calm my paranoia for high temps (having headroom) and still get the benefits of silence?

MajereXYU
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Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2003 4:33 pm

Post by MajereXYU » Tue Jan 27, 2004 9:33 am

I know that my components aren't the quiestest so I don't need to go to 5V L1A level because then, my other components would annoy me (Antec True Power 480 PSU, AIW Radeon 9600PRO stock cooler :cry: , NF-7 Northbridge)

PSU stays, AIW Radeon is getting Water Cooling in a couple months, CPU is getting WC too, Northbridge is getting a Zalman NB47J soon. So may I expect to get a sleeper with those components in the BQE with the stock fan plus a Panadlo M1A?

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