Replaced the A64 fan with a panaflo.....and it's more whiny

RTF · Post by **RTF** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 1:58 pm

The story is a little more complicated than the title suggests. This is a mATX system(in a roomy desktop case) which was using the stock cooling. It was decent when idle but got much noisier under load. However, I had gotten a 80mm panaflo with it and wanted to try replacing the cpu fan with it, but hadn't tried anything to rig it up on the smaller heatsink until today. I got a pack of sticky velcro and tried to find a way to stick it so that it would be held in place.

There don't seem to be many options for suspension, and I didn't want to try to directly attach it to the heatsink(yet) but there is a bar that goes across the top of the case. So I took the sticky velcro and tried to make the fan hold on two corners from that. Didn't work, so I tried the next best thing: angle it on its side, with the high end attached to the bar and the low end resting on some power cables. It held pretty well like this when I jostled the case, so I plugged it in with the case open and saw how it worked. It *seemed* like an improvement at that point; the cpu temps were down a bit, with the heatsink still only slightly warm after several minutes sitting in the bios and I wasn't hearing more than a woosh and what I thought was hard drive whine.

So I put the whole case back together(a pain on this one because sliding off the top to do work is done most easily with all of the plugs out) and started it up and THEN I noticed the whine. I'm pretty sure I imagined that the whine would be lessened when I got the case back together, so I'm going to have to shut it off and try again in a sec, but I'm trying to think of some reasons for this to happen:

-The angle is bad.
-The fan's running too fast(though I doubt this is the real issue, with C+Q enabled)
-Resting on the cables is bad.

I may try just letting it sit on the heatsink unattached for a little while and seeing what happens.

RTF · Post by **RTF** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 2:29 pm

I moved the velcro to two corners of the heatsink and played with the fan until I found the optimal side. It's stable there, but it runs too fast, I'm pretty sure of it now. There is still a whine but even so, it seems like an improvement over the stock fan. And now that I have the velcro technique to use, maybe I should try something a little bigger?

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 3:55 pm

Hello:

Not knowing anything about the HS or the case (can you post some pictures?), it will be hard for us to help you figure a good solution.

The first question that comes to mind is, what about a new HS that is designed for an 80mm fan? I can only assume that it is an Athlon 64 -- how much room is there above and around the CPU? Have you considered/tried undervolting?

RTF · Post by **RTF** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 4:28 pm

As I said before, this is stock cooling(on a regular desktop 2800+). The board unfortunately does not allow me to do any undervolting although it has some pretty decent integrated graphics and sound. I couldn't find enough information when I got it and took a gamble...oh well.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 024&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage.asp ... 244-06.jpg

There's the case and mobo used. I might take pictures of the actual setup later. The heatsink sits slightly left of center to the bar. I don't have specific measurements but it looks unlikely that I can put a really wide or tall one in there(plus, since I actually broke the cpu pins seating the heatsink the first time around, and had to replace it, I'm scared to try again)

In any case I don't think a new HS is justified. The temps are already pretty reasonable, between 45-55c. What I noticed was that when I put the cpu under some load(just gaming) there was NO ramping up at all, unlike with the stock fan, which makes me suspect that either the panaflo really does work that well, or CNQ isn't working on it. The RPMs were staying around 2500 in the bios...

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:08 pm

1) The Panaflo is bad when it comes to PWM regulation. If you're using that method to undervolt, then it may buzz all the time.

2) You could just have a bum fan. That's happened to me before where I just get a crap fan out of the box.

3) It is rather whiny at normal 12V. You MUST undervolt to get it quiet.

burcakb · Post by **burcakb** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 11:00 pm

err, exactly which panaflo are you using? The one most talked about here is the L1A which does NOT have RPM monitoring. If it's a BX fan which version is it? 2500 rpm sounds like a M1BX which is a medium flow fan and WOULD make noise unless considerably undervolted.

RTF · Post by **RTF** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 2:29 pm

This is indeed an L1A. I'm going to order some more kinds of fans and some Zalman fanmates to toy with, now that I've gotten my feet wet with fan manipulation

(I hit the blades twice trying to find the optimal placement while the fan was in motion....fortunately only one of those times did I get cut!)

Replaced the A64 fan with a panaflo.....and it's more whiny

Replaced the A64 fan with a panaflo.....and it's more whiny

What about a new HS?