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Recommended 80mm fans

Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 12:27 am
by Elcs
Hello,

I have recently made up a nice little mini-ITX build with the Antec ISK 300-65 and an ASUS AT3N7A-I and I love it! It has become my new, main PC for online stuff, movies and general home use... relegating my "quiet" PC to gaming only.

As SPCR noted in their Antec ISK 300-65 review, the 80mm Tricool fan is CRAP! I have left it in and have it running on 'low' because it's bearable Despite my verdict that it's crap, it is still quieter than my gaming PC.

I have a couple of 80mm Panaflo L1A's (Made in Japan) from my days of Socket A and when Panaflo L1A's were the best, one of which is inside my case now but is not performing great at 5v, silent but barely moving.

I am wondering whether there is a significantly better 80mm fan in the same quietness bracket as the Panaflo L1A which is suitable when undervolted.

As I read it, the ASUS AT3N7A-I board cannot control fan speeds via the onboard headers by ASUS Q-Fan or by Speedfan. As this is probably the case, is there a suitable way of controlling fan speed by an alternative method? Soldering and re-wiring is not my forte but a simple variable resistor, twist or click variety would be great.

Thanks in advance.

Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 2:06 am
by SebRad
Hi Elcs, for simple fan speed control I suggest a Zalman Fanmate (£3.29) One on each fan you need to control, great as long as you can have a "set it and forget it" speed that quiet and covers full load. Some people find ways to mount with little control knob sticking out the back of the case.
For lots of fan control they have MFC1 with can control 6 fans and mounts in a drive bay, also 5 + PWM version.
Also can get PCI bracket controllers as seen here.
(Go to eBay and put in "Fan control" and get lots of items too.)

For fans SPCR had a round up of 80mm fans some time ago. Also a recommended fans list.
SPCR love the Nexus 80mm fan (£4.58 ) but only goes to 1500rpm. Scythe fans are mostly very good, the near legendary, S-Flex line includes 1000 & 2000rpm (£12.25) 80mm models.

80mm Fans I've used and like include Xilence 80mm 1500rpm(£3.05), Sharkoon "golf ball" 2000rpm (£6.08 ), Noctua NF-R8 (£12.26!) and currently using several Arctic Cooling F8 (£3.06). The Panaflo is still a great fan, if 5v is too slow try it on a fanmate (or similar) and run it a bit faster, should still be quiet.

My take on fan blade geometry is that for airflow it seems to make little difference. I compared a 7 shallow bladed Noctua fan and 9 steep bladed Xilence fan in VF-900 heatsink at the same fan speed. Theory says the Xilence with more and steeper blades should be better, my test found more-or-less no difference at all! SPCR talk about the angle the blades pass the support struts as being important but I think of blade geometry as an aesthetic feature :lol:
Good luck! Seb

Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 2:29 am
by Elcs
Thanks for the tips.

I just need to control two fans and was looking at the best way of doing it. I have seen a couple of single-fan variable resistors like the Fanmate but I learn my stuff from reading online and sometimes it's easy to miss something small or simple but can make a lot of difference.

As for 5 1/4 inch bays and PCI brackets, the ISK 300-65 only has a slim 5 1/4 bay and 1 PCI slot so that route is not ideal, especially with only 2 fans to control.

As you can see from SPCR's pic here there is a nice space for a couple of twiddly knob fan controllers or one Zalman Fanmate 2. I am not sure whether SPCR put both Noctua fans on the Fanmate or not.... so as to whether I could have both Panaflo's on 1 Fanmate would be debatable.

Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2010 6:40 am
by SebRad
Hi, I used to run a pair of Panaflos off a single MFC1 channel. The MFC1 uses very similar control circuit to the fanmate so two fans off one fanmate should be no problem at all. The fanmate is, IIRC, rated for 5-6w and even two Panflos will be well below this. Only when you get in to mega (3000rpm+) fans can the current be a problem and such fans have no place in a quiet system anyway :D
If don't want do your own fan wiring example fan splitter cable: here.
Good luck, Seb

Posted: Sun Mar 07, 2010 3:06 am
by loimlo
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article68 ... l#panaflol

According to SPCR's measurement, Panaflo drew 1.28W at most, so you should have no problems running two 80mm Panaflos concurrently. Or you can just use 5V trick to control two other 80mm fans anyway.

Posted: Sun Mar 07, 2010 7:49 am
by ces
The Panaflos are good. Why not see if they work for your purposes.

Probably the newer high end 80mm fans will be better.

Noctua and Nexus 80mms should be good. I actually own one of each but haven't made any use of them yet.

Enermax (and I think maybe Silverstone) have some PWM fans that are temperature controlled. I suspect they aren't available as 80mm though.

Silverstone has a fan that is 92mm but mounts as a 80mm fan. You should go to their website and take a look at their line of 80mm and 92mm fans.