Has anyone else encountered a clicking 80mm Nexus?

Slayer of Noise · Post by **Slayer of Noise** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 5:00 pm

Well, I've just about given up in this endeavor to make my power supply remotely quiet. First I ordered an 80mm Panaflo. Apparently I got one of the junkers from China, because that thing clicked like there was no tomorrow. (On a separate note, the earlier two Panaflos I had tried to use for case fans also exhibited the same problem. I should have known better than to go back for more Panaflos.)

My 80mm Nexus is doing the same thing! This is pretty stunning to me, because the two 92mm Nexus fans in my case are brilliantly quiet. I really don't understand why this is happening, but I'm probably just going to cave in and throw out another $100 for a new, hopefully quiet power supply. (I calculated it up previously, I've spent around $300 already making this stupid computer quiet. And I didn't go crazy with esoteric things like water cooling, acoustic padding, etc.)

Sorry for the mini-rant, but I really do resent having to pay a "noise tax" on my components when they could be quieter if manufacturers actually cared about that. Not to mention all the hours I've spent installing the stupid stuff. Anyways, has anyone else encountered a clicking 80mm Nexus "real silent" case fan?

Elixer · Post by **Elixer** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 5:41 pm

Are you certain it's the fan? Sometimes power supplies make some weird noises including clicking. Also could be related to the fan controller in your power supply, PWM causes clicking in some fans. What power supply do you have?

Slayer of Noise · Post by **Slayer of Noise** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 6:46 pm

It's not the power supply. The stock fan starts off nearly silently, and no clicking is evident.

I did think the fan controller in the power supply could be a possible problem, somehow. I plan on testing out the Nexus on the motherboard once I get the power supply back in the case, to see if the clicking is still there.

The power supply is an Allied/Apex (apparently the same thing) 500 watter. It can be found here: Apex PSU. It has been rock steady, and it starts off extremely quiet. Unfortunately the fans rev up, irregardless of load, quite quickly.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 6:50 pm

Greetings,

They must be using a PWM to control the fan, and there are some fans that "don't like" PWM's... What about adding a resistor in series with the stock fan? Or running it on 5v or 7v?

You don't need to spend $100 on a new PS -- the Fortron "Green" is pretty reasonably priced, and the SeaSonic S12 are just a bit more. You almost certainly don't need a 500watt PS, btw.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:01 am

My 80mm Nexus is doing the same thing! This is pretty stunning to me, because the two 92mm Nexus fans in my case are brilliantly quiet....has anyone else encountered a clicking 80mm Nexus "real silent" case fan?

I bought a brand new 80mm Nexus, and it was silent. I bought a used 80mm Nexus from Ebay, and it was noisy as hell (clicking, whirring, the works). So my advice is, buy brand new Yate Loons from Silencio:

Silencio_777's Shop

They're as good as Nexus fans, but half the price.

I'm probably just going to cave in and throw out another $100 for a new, hopefully quiet power supply. (I calculated it up previously, I've spent around $300 already making this stupid computer quiet. And I didn't go crazy with esoteric things like water cooling, acoustic padding, etc.)

Sorry for the mini-rant, but I really do resent having to pay a "noise tax" on my components when they could be quieter if manufacturers actually cared about that.

You don't have to pay the "noise tax". Remember the old saying, "If you want something done right, do it yourself"? That applies in this instance.

Unfortunately the fans rev up, irregardless of load, quite quickly.

Bypass the PSU's fan controller and run the fan off a normal Molex connector. The PSU might get hot, but it will be quiet.

nutball · Post by **nutball** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:18 am

Yeah I've got an 80mm Nexus which has developed a growl over the past twelve months. It's a PITA, 'cos I'd sort of had the Nexus as a default, reliable solution to the 80mm fan problem... clearly it's not a guaranteed win in the long-term.

Rory Buszka · Post by **Rory Buszka** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 10:12 am

I wonder how hard it would be to add a series inductor to form a low-pass filter so that the PWM noise could not pass through.

Slayer of Noise · Post by **Slayer of Noise** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 11:45 am

Ok, I resolved this a couple of days ago. When run off a normal fan connector the 80mm Nexus still made an annoying clicking sound. That being said, it was probably only 1/3 as loud. Maybe we should conclude that it had a minor click to start with, and this PWM made it worse? Either that or just having it in a tight space amplified the clicking vibrations.

Jaganath, how would I run the fan off a normal molex connector? Are you talking about a connector within the power supply? If not, how would I accomplish that without having the PSU case off or modified? My power supply has a two-pin connector on the circuit board (as seems to be standard), which the 92mm fan goes into by default. It also has a black wire (I’m guessing it’s related to the automatic fan control) that connects to a little circuit board; this circuit board is screwed into the fan. The fan connects to the board, and the board has a knob to manually adjust RPM.

I’m kind of at a loss for what to do. Connecting the 80mm fan to the main circuit board would make it start up quite loud, I think, unless I risked it on another fan that would hopefully be quiet. Using the current configuration makes it jack up the RPM and again become quite loud. Does anyone have solutions?

Adding in an edit here: I think I may try hooking the 80mm fan directly into the main circuit board. However, I'm afraid my motherboard won't let the computer boot because it may detect the PSU as having no fans active. Would removing the connection between the PSU and the motherboard's "pwr fan" connector possibly stop it from monitoring RPM and let me boot? I could see that making a problem, too...

I did read Mike’s article (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article9-page1.html) and it seems that Enermax is largely similar to mine. I don't recall seeing a thermistor, but I guess it has to be there somewhere. Oh, the joy of modding a power supply...

niels007 · Post by **niels007** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 7:30 pm

I can only speak about one sample but my Nexus 80mm is greatly inferior to their 92 and 120mm brothers. It whirs too loudly, vibrates too much.. It is still the best 80mm I have tried but doesn't come close to the bigger variants.

zhenya · Post by **zhenya** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 6:24 am

I too have a recently purchased Nexus 80mm that clicks. It's really bad at anything above 5v. I first tried a Papst that was extremely quiet, except for the clicking. The Nexus was supposed to solve that. Anyone have any other suggestions for a silent 80mm fan that works well at 5v?

Aleksi · Post by **Aleksi** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 7:01 am

Rory Buszka wrote:I wonder how hard it would be to add a series inductor to form a low-pass filter so that the PWM noise could not pass through.

Hi Rory,

Actually the problem is not so much the PWM signal itself. The bigger problem is DC fans. This should require a long reply, but in short: The fan itself chops up the voltage you feed it to move it around the coils. Now add PWM and you get more voltage chopping. This can cause miss-phasing and harmonics.

Basicly you need to have adjustable PWM (like the T-Bal) to experiment with your fans at different PWM frequencies. I've been pretty happy with fans (Panaflo, Papst, Yate Loon, Globe yadda yadda. Your basic SPCR fans) controlled by PWM when I was able to test around to find the most suitable PWM attributes. I did have some trouble with one 120mm Papst fan at low duty cycles.

If you want to add something between the PWM controller and the fan, a cap is a simple thing to use to smoothen the voltage a bit.

Slayer of Noise · Post by **Slayer of Noise** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 7:00 pm

Poking my head back in here again... I'm trying to get this power supply at a manageable volume. It's basically the only source of significant noise in my system.

Aleksi, correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be saying that you need to do some testing if you want to find fans that work with PWM, right? I guess this will vary by power supply, because I know the Panaflos and Nexus fan I put in there didn't like the PWM. I don't really want to gamble on another fan without knowing the results. I've already lost enough money trying to make this power supply quiet.

Could anyone elaborate on some other things I could do to reduce the PWM clicking? Aleksi mentioned a "cap," but I have to admit I'm not aware of what that signifies when it comes to power supplies.

Finally, one last (somewhat unrelated) thing. My power supply is apparently thermistor controlled, because it gets about twice as loud when I do anything stressful. Do you folks reckon that, with a quiet fan in there, it should be quiet enough when the power supply ramps it up to a higher speed?

Aleksi · Post by **Aleksi** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 1:03 am

Hi Slayer,

Finding fans that work with PWM... I would actually say you have to find PWM that works with fans. If you can control the PWM signal attributes you can make it work with most fans. That's why I mentioned the T-Balancer. With enough control over the PWM signal you can make it work with most fans without any extra noise. It's probably more important to be able to vary the PWM frequency than the smoothing of the signal.

Actually, I haven't come across any PSU that uses PWM to control the fan(s). OK, that is probably caused by the fact that I haven't seen enough PSUs, but I'm a bit sceptical about yours too. You said it clicked out of a normal power connector. Are you sure that the clicking isn't caused just by running the fans at a too low voltage? Or actually, are you sure your fans don't click all the time, but it comes more clear when you run them at low voltages and don't have any airflow noise to mask it?

By "cap" I mean a capacitor that is used to smooth the PWM signal, although the implementation of the smoothing part depends on the actual PWM control's implementation.

If your PSU is thermistor controlled, then just inserting a slow speed fan won't help. The PSU will still ramp up. OK, it will most likely be quieter, but the better solution would be do a fan swap and trying to get cool air for the PSU so that the fan won't have to ramp up.

You could wire the fan to a fixed voltage or re-locate the thermistor, but it would be good to monitor PSU exhaust temps, discuss your system airflow and components other wise, etc etc etc.

Slayer of Noise · Post by **Slayer of Noise** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 3:16 am

To be honest I wasn't even aware of the concept of PWM until I came across this thread. The idea that the PSU may uses PWM to control the fans was suggested by a few people earlier on in the thread, and it seemed to make sense.

I tested the fan outside of the power supply, connecting it to a fan controller, and there was significantly less clicking and motor noise. This was at maximum voltage, so it had to be running at a higher RPM than when it was in the power supply, yet it was still much quieter. A minor clicking was still there, but if I had to guess, it was about 20% as loud out of the power supply. I did try adjusting the voltage, too, just to be thorough... and there wasn't an appreciably difference in the clicking at different voltages. I also tried removing the fan grill on the power supply, and even ran the fan outside of the case while it was connected to the power supply. None of these improved anything. Something else has to account for the introduction of the excessive clicking when the fan is connected to the power supply.

You were talking about how, since the PSU is thermistor controlled, I need to get cool air in there. Are you talking about custom modifications, like a duct or something? I tried activating the 92mm fan in the unit (it seems to run much quieter than the 80mm fan, although I'm not sure if it revs up as well), hoping it would keep things cooler and prevent as much ramping up of the fans, but it just made things worse, so I disconnected the fan again.

In terms of the exhaust temperatures, I haven't stuck any equipment in there to get actual readings, but the air doesn't get past the "warm" stage. I definitely have adequate system cooling otherwise (based on temperature monitoring), as well, but I can mention the specifics if you think that's relevant.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 4:25 am

Do what I do: have the exhaust fan in the PSU connected to a Zalman Fanmate (ie running off a Molex connector) and run the fan as quiet as you want, ramping it up if the PSU gets really hot. Sure, I am probably shortening the life of the PSU, but it only cost about £10 so no biggie if it dies. Also most of the time the air coming out the back of the PSU is barely warm, so I really don't think the thermal stress is that severe. Make sure that the fan is still drawing cool air over the PSU heatsinks, and do everything that you can to improve airflow (ie ducting, cutting out intake and exhaust grills, etc). When you are trying to cool a PSU with low airflow (as most SPCRers will want to do) it's important that the airflow path is optimal.

Aleksi · Post by **Aleksi** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 4:53 am

Hi Slayer,

There are several aspects to your situation, I'll try to explain myself shortly:

The fan clicks especially in the PSU. That would indicate it could be PWM causing the noise. It also clicks with an external fan controller, but do you know if it outputs "normal" voltage, or does it also use PWM to control the fans?

The fan still clicks if you run it at full speed from the m/b fan connector, this would let me believe there is also something "wrong" with your fans as the fan should be getting a steady 12V when run at full speed from a motherboard connector. How noisy is the clicking, how far can you hear it?

If the Panaflo clicks, well... it clicks. The north american market is full off surplus/reject Panaflos (nothing to do with what the label says about the country. There was a point when you could actually buy a fan with the bearings manufactured in the same factory but some said China and some said Japan on the label.)

If the Nexus clicks... Well, it could be you have either gotten just a bad sample (You don't see people saying a Nexus 80mm clicks out of the packet on SPCR very often) or it can be it has been banged around in shipping or similar (going to the vendor, a vendor packager dropping the fan when packing your shipment, or the packet being banged up on the way from the store to you, etc etc etc).

In your case, what Jaganath suggested is not a bad option. Read up on PSU modding from the forums. In your case, if the PSU fan controller is giving problems then find an alternative way to feed voltage to the fan(s). Using a fan mate, external fan controller or wiring it/them to a fixed voltage.

But, when you use lowered voltage and lower speeds fan than what the original had you have to make sure the PSU doesn't run too hot. In other words making sure it gets cool air.

Slayer of Noise · Post by **Slayer of Noise** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 7:24 pm

The fan controller is the Vantec NXP-305, and I think I've seen others mention it as PWM controlled, but don't quote me on that. Some cursory Google searching does show that the earlier Vantec NXPs used PWM. If that is indeed the case it just boggles the mind even more, doesn't it? I guess they just may use "friendlier" PWM...

Sorry if I caused confusion, but I ran the Nexus at 12v (and other voltages as well) from the fan controller. I did this with an 80mm Panaflo, also, so unless both fans were exceptionally, strangely messed up, I think we should conclude the power supply made the clicking and mechanical noise worse. In any case, when connected to the fan controller and running at 12v, the clicking on the Nexus was probably noticeable up to a dozen feet or so. It would probably be audible at 50 feet or more when it was connected to the power supply. That sound was nightmare-inducing! Even if the unit was faulty, the power supply still greatly amplified the mechanical noise and clicking.

Do you have any good starting places for reading up on ways to control the voltage? I'd probably like to run at a fixed voltage, but that sounds like it could get pretty in-depth. On the other hand, I don't understand how external fan controllers or fan mates would work unless I left part of the power supply open. I can't even fit longer fan cords inside my power supply, so a fan mate is definitely going to have to be stored outside of the unit. And obviously an external controller also requires wires to go from the inside of the power supply to the outside.

Aleksi · Post by **Aleksi** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 1:39 am

I also remember reading that the Vantec uses PWM. I must say I'm puzzled. That's one serious clicking coming from your fans when inside the PSU.

A good place to start reading would be SPCR fan/PSU stickies and cpemma's site here. Basicly the idea is to either solder the fan to fixed voltage inside your PSU (5V, 7V or even 12V) so that the fan voltage is constant. The other option is to take fan wire/connector outside the PSU (from where all the other wires come through) and hook it up to an extenal controller like the Vantec or a Fan Mate. So no need really to keep the PSU open just because of the fan wires coming out.