Would a 120 mm fan make any difference in my system?

frosty · Post by **frosty** » Tue Aug 12, 2003 6:15 am

I have tons of room in my front case and I was wondering if I ran a large 120 mm fan down their but devolted it to 6v would it make any difference than the panaflo I have at 12v now?

Or should I just run two panaflo's at 6v each?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue Aug 12, 2003 7:08 am

What do you want to achieve with a front fan? Better case cooling? Cooler drives?

If it's case cooling, you may not benefit from a fan there at all. You'd need to try it and see what happens to your temps. Most of the decent cases I've worked with don't benefit at all with front fans supplementing rear fans.

If it's cooling your HDD(s) it would probably be real useful but you hardly need any airflow over the HDD to cool it quite nicely. I found that a 92mm L1A running at 5V does an excellent job of cooling my warm running Barracuda IV. If that's what you're going to do I's say to try running 1 or 2 80mms at 5-6V.

frosty · Post by **frosty** » Tue Aug 12, 2003 9:55 am

Stupid me, wait to be specific frosty!

Actually I am still battling a little nosie from the front fan at 12volts. Was wondering if I missed something by not using 92 or 120's in my case for more silent but sufficient cooling. If i devolt the current panaflo to 6v temps climb quickly.

I was also wondering about this over my cpu too.

I have several of those 110 volt dimmer switches at home and was wondering if I could wire them up as fan contollers and start the 120 mm at 12v then turn it down to 3/4 and maybe get enought airflow with less noise?

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Tue Aug 12, 2003 10:39 am

frosty wrote:I have several of those 110 volt dimmer switches at home and was wondering if I could wire them up as fan contollers and start the 120 mm at 12v then turn it down to 3/4 and maybe get enought airflow with less noise?

Not unless you're running AC fans

Those 110V dimmers work by altering the sine wave of the AC output. At least, those I have work that way.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 5:48 am

frosty wrote: Actually I am still battling a little nosie from the front fan at 12volts. Was wondering if I missed something by not using 92 or 120's in my case for more silent but sufficient cooling. If i devolt the current panaflo to 6v temps climb quickly.

I was also wondering about this over my cpu too.

Sounds like you may be the perfect candidate for running a 92mm or 120mm at lower voltage. You'd have as much or more airflow than with your current 80mm 12V fan but should have less noise by undervolting the bigger fan.

frosty · Post by **frosty** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:10 am

That's was I wash hoping to hear ralf, thanks now I have to decide which size and which brand, this of course would leave me with and extra panaflo 80L laying arund, but you can never have enough of these as spares.

Ralf do you have any suggests? I have a bit of room down there in the lower case so space is no big issue, should I go Panaflo, Pabst or NMB?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 6:25 am

frosty wrote: Ralf do you have any suggests? I have a bit of room down there in the lower case so space is no big issue, should I go Panaflo, Pabst or NMB?

That question seems to open up a can of worms around here. There's no consensus here at SPCR about which 120mm fan is the quietest. The ones you hear mentioned the most often are the L1A Panaflos, the Papst 4412's and the Enermax adjustables. There's a quiet NMB 9 the "B10") that isn't available and I don't think anyone's ever actually heard it anyway.

There's not too much choice in 92mm-land. Panaflo L1A at 5V is inaudible, at 7V it's very quiet. Zalman sucks. Nothing else comes to mind.

frosty · Post by **frosty** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 8:11 am

Thanks Ralf, I just found some Panaflo's over at new egg toke me a while to find the 92 and 120's seems most vendors stock only the 80's, new egg has some 92 and 120's for only 11.00 US.

Now I may also put a 92 over myhs if I have enough room. Or run a 92 in the case and 92 over the hs and run them together in sries at 6v.

dukla2000 · Post by **dukla2000** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 8:17 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:That question seems to open up a can of worms around here. There's no consensus here at SPCR about which 120mm fan is the quietest.

Yup.

Ralf Hutter wrote:There's a quiet NMB 9 the "B10") that isn't available and I don't think anyone's ever actually heard it anyway.

You mean the NMB 4710NL-04W-B10-P00? I got one - I think my Papst 4412FGL is quieter. (see point 1 above

)

frosty · Post by **frosty** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 8:24 am

I should have paid more attn to what you guys/gals were saying about 92 and 120's , somewhere in my alzy or lazy mind I had stuck with 80mm on evrything unless you were cooling some big 2.8 pentium gaming rig or what not, not that my temps are crazy, I devolted everything to 6v last night and my 24/7 temps were unreal, no change at all, but as soon as I do anything they jump up to the high 30's and low 40's, so I am just paranoid I guess or just can't stop tinkering with my pc. :}

Thanks for the .02 cents too Dukla!

ChrisH · Post by **ChrisH** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 8:28 am

frosty wrote:Thanks Ralf, I just found some Panaflo's over at new egg toke me a while to find the 92 and 120's seems most vendors stock only the 80's, new egg has some 92 and 120's for only 11.00 US.

Now I may also put a 92 over myhs if I have enough room. Or run a 92 in the case and 92 over the hs and run them together in sries at 6v.

You probably don't want any of the fans that are sold at Newegg. All of the 92 and 120 mm fans are the high or ultra-high airflow versions. These fans would be much louder than the low speed versions. You can tell which version by looking at the model name such as FBA09A12H1A. This is a high speed version as noted by the H1A on the end. A low speed version would have L1A on the end. The ultra-high speed versions use U1A.

frosty · Post by **frosty** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 9:24 am

Thanks Chris for the pointer, I am still hunting for them - gotta go google it!

frosty · Post by **frosty** » Wed Aug 13, 2003 9:57 am

Also can a person get too many fans in a pc?

Also am considering just running two more 80l's at 6v bringing my total fans to: 7?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Thu Aug 14, 2003 4:22 am

frosty wrote:Also can a person get too many fans in a pc?

Also am considering just running two more 80l's at 6v bringing my total fans to: 7?

Yes, too many fans is nuts. Every additional fan adds noise and may very well not help your cooling. I have one 120mm case fan cooling my 2.4GHz P4 system. Temps are just fine, even these days when it's 95°+F in here.

You said your temps "jump into the high 30s and low 40s"?!?! That's certainly not only nothing to worry about, that's downright cool!

Too many people obsess about their temps anyway. My feeling is that if you really want a quiet system you'll need to be content with your temps being a little warmer than the guys that are willing to have a case full of noisy fans. It really doesn't matter if your hardware is running at 40-50°C instead of 30-40°C. So what if it lasts 8 years instead of 10?

frosty · Post by **frosty** » Thu Aug 14, 2003 6:34 am

Thanks Ralf Hutter, WOW only one fan to cool your system!
I undervolted the psu and case fan to 6v and totally cleaned up wiring, taping it up ghetto style with black electrical tape, repositioned my fr case fan to get maximum air and let it run all night.

I can barely feel any air coming out the back, but, unless I stand within 1 meter you can't hear it! UNREAL! wow, the only thing prolly making noise is the hs cpu fan cos it is a panaflo 80 mm M fan @12v. I never seem to hear the MAxtor btw.

This morning it was like 25/29! but of course our home is now down to about 20c now that it has cooled down a bit here. Maybe it helped when I sealed up all those cracks with roofers tape?

Even after gaming for 30 minutes with Q3 I still don't even break into the low 40's right now!

So I will wait and see and next summer if I need to I will replace fr case with a 92 or 120 mm fan.
I guess I was just getting paranoid because some people told me I was stuped for modding my pc silent and said I'd burn her up like toast.
Thanks again Ralf, my current fan setup is as follows:

fr case case 80l @6v
rear exhaust 80l @6v
psu 80l @6v
fan over maxtor 80l @6v
psu hs fan over thermaltake 80m @12v

Seems like I luckily landed a perfect silent system, plus I undervolted the board to 1468.

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Thu Aug 14, 2003 7:58 am

Makes you wonder about all these morons that tell you to buy a 550w power supply and then put 13+ fans in your case AND if you dont then it wont be stable and it will overheat.

frosty · Post by **frosty** » Fri Aug 15, 2003 6:29 am

Gaminggod

Yes your comment reminds me of my Supervisor’s pc, I had to change out her vid card for her, how do we always get hooked into this?, anyways so I open the cae on her pc and it has this two super loud intake and exhaust fans and a funny sounding psu, like Sunflower or Sunrise or something like that. The fans drove me nuts and U just wanted to yank them out, top it all off the front cse fan barely had any airholes in front of it so whne the case was back on it whirled along! I suggested some more silent fans to her and she gave me that; what are you crazy look!

I have mentioned the a few others about SPCR and they think I am CRAZY to mod my pc, yet I believe I am actually running cooler now at idle than before the mod, not sure about after heating up cos I never checked temps before I modded.