Best 120mm fan to replace stock power supply fan?

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PizzaBread
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Best 120mm fan to replace stock power supply fan?

Post by PizzaBread » Mon Jul 18, 2016 4:00 pm

Hi,

I recently bought a G550M power supply from cooler master, mostly because it was cheap and because many reviewers said it was quiet. It is however not quiet at all. The stock fan makes an annoying humming sound and a when you listen closely it makes a ticking sound as well. I want to replace the fan of it with a better one and know how to do that. Basically I have to open the power supply, disconnect old fan, reconnect new fan with 2 pin to 3 pin adapter (which I have already. 80 cents from ebay). I did quite some research about fans already, but niticed that the more I research it the harder the choice gets for me. Things like: Static pressure, airflow, ball bearing, dual ball bearings, focussed airlfow, sleeve bearing, hydro bearing, fan design etc. makes making a choice too hard for me. The fan is going to be mounted horizontally. So I thought, lets ask it from the experts. Which fan (under 25 dollars) would you recommend for me?

Thanks a lot.

lodestar
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Re: Best 120mm fan to replace stock power supply fan?

Post by lodestar » Tue Jul 19, 2016 1:04 am

Searching for online reviews of this PSU should tell you the specification of the fan originally fitted. In this case it is a Yate Loon D12BH-12 which is a 120 mm fan with a top speed of 2300 RPM and ball-bearings. The nearest readily available replacement is the Yate Loon D12SH-12 which is not ball bearing and has a top speed of 2200 RPM. This should cost somewhat less than $25 from sources such as eBay. The only downside with this fan is that it has sleeve bearings which is not ideal for a PSU. An alternative would be the Scythe Kama Flow 2 120mm 3-pin fan SP1225FDB12H. This has better quality Fluid Dynamic bearings, and a top speed of 1900 rpm. The slightly slower top speed would not be significant. If you can find one this would be a better option and should be within your $25 budget.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Best 120mm fan to replace stock power supply fan?

Post by quest_for_silence » Tue Jul 19, 2016 1:18 am

PizzaBread wrote:I recently bought a G550M power supply from cooler master, mostly because it was cheap and because many reviewers said it was quiet. It is however not quiet at all.

OMG... sometimes what looks like a newbie-like question makes me react in a tad too snarky way, even if I actually don't want to mock my interlocutor: I hope to get a grip on myself, this time.

Ok, ranting mode OFF.

You said that "Things like: Static pressure, airflow, ball bearing, dual ball bearings, focussed airlfow, sleeve bearing, hydro bearing, fan design etc. makes making a choice too hard for me", so please, may you let us know which PSU's fan is enough quiet for your ears? Knowing your references and personal expectations may help us to advice.

With reference to your PSU, there aren't so many about 50 bucks PSU which offers 550W of real continuous power, 5 years warranty, decent electrical performances, Haswell compatibility and an advanced DC-DC design.
Its stock fan, the venerable D12BH-12, is provided by Yate Loon and uses double ball-bearings to increase its lifetime; albeit this fan is a really strong one (2000-2300rpm), it's usually well regarded when properly operated (it's a design very similar to the highly praised Nexus Real Silent D12SL-12): in this case it is restricted to very low speeds most of the time (it should spin at about 600rpm up to about 350W DC with at least 42°C of intake temp and feeded with less than 8V up to about 450W DC), and that's the reason why this PSU is usually regarded as actually quiet.

Seemingly there would not be apparent reasons why this PSU sounded loud to you: as you actually complained about, we may think either your expectations were just too high for it, or it's defect, or eventually it's not properly operated.

About the first possibility, I've asked about right above: in my experience seldomly PSU stock fans sounded quite right, out of the box, even the ones sported by high-end PSUs like Seasonic Platinum, or EVGA SuperNOVA G2.

With reference to the third possibility, it would help to advice if you can describe how you operate the PSU: which hardware it feeds, which is the enclosure and all the cooling options, how the PSU is mounted, where the PC is located with reference to your usual position.

With reference to the second possibility (defect), the usual complain about ball bearing fans is whistling, not humming, and/or a rhythmic rotating noise: on the other hand that Yate Loon is a very cheap fan, so it's well possible its rotor is out of balance.

Broadly speaking for a fan swap you should need a very similar fan, given the very relaxed fan curve: so you should look for a 1800-2300rpm 120mm fan, with an about 3V starting voltage (and a suitable speed up to about 7-8V), no more than 0.5A of power draw (to not stress the PSU header), and 60-80CFM of airflow.
Static pressure should not be that important (as the rotational speed is too low to be so), while about the shaft bearing your mileage may vary: said that ball bearings (usually duall ball) are not well-regarded as good sounding, reliability-wise FDB-like ones come to mind, albeit they may be plagued by ticking noise too. Sleeve bearing is apparently less suitable for the use, even if I'd like to read about PSU mounting: however, it may worth to note that the smaller G450M actually do use a sleeve bearing fan, the slower spinning (~ 1600rpm) D12SM-12.

ATM I'm not aware of a current ~2000rpm FDB/rifle fan with a 3V starting voltage, the SP1225FDB12H adviced by lodestar is discontinued since about three years ago, but I'll think about that: take also note that the G550M fan use a standard 2 pin receptacle, as Seasonic, so you don't need any cable adapter, but just to gently remove the whole assembly and use the naked pins for the new fan (the 2 pin and 3 pin females have a compatible pace).

quest_for_silence
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Re: Best 120mm fan to replace stock power supply fan?

Post by quest_for_silence » Tue Jul 19, 2016 1:38 am

quest_for_silence wrote:but I'll think about that

Noiseblocker eLoop B12-4: it might work, as it should start around 3.1V/3.2V

About its sound, I guess YMMV, but it should be better than a supposedly defective dual ball bearing Yate Loon: you may give a read to the eLoop SPCR test.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Best 120mm fan to replace stock power supply fan?

Post by quest_for_silence » Tue Jul 19, 2016 3:23 am

quest_for_silence wrote:but I'll think about that

Cooler Master JetFlo 120: POM bearing (improved, sealed, self lubricating, long duration sleeve), 2000rpm/0.4A/1.5V start up voltage, 90/100CFM at most (PWM and LED are free "bonus", if any).

At about 3V (the supposed G550M supply up to 350W) it should run under 800rpm, at about 7-8V (the supposed supply up to 450W) it would look like a bit too speedy/noisy: the blade and struts look enough suitable to quiet operation, blade plastic a lot less, definitely YMMV but there a chance it may end up louder than the Yate Loon (which pushes a lot less air than the JetFlo).

lodestar
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Re: Best 120mm fan to replace stock power supply fan?

Post by lodestar » Tue Jul 19, 2016 8:24 am

quest_for_silence wrote:...the SP1225FDB12H adviced by lodestar is discontinued since about three years ago...
Yes, which is why I said 'if you can find one'. There are stocks still around and currently you can find one on eBay.com from this source for $14.99.

PizzaBread
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Re: Best 120mm fan to replace stock power supply fan?

Post by PizzaBread » Thu Jul 21, 2016 7:57 pm

Thanks for all the replies. My current system is:

i7 2600k
Gigabyte Z7X-D3H
crucial m500 960 gb
4x4gb 1600mhz ram
212 evo cpu cooler with arctic f12 PWM fan
no hard drive, no dedicated graphics card (waiting for rx 470)

My 212 evo heatsink with arctic F12 PWM is silent at idle or low load (web browsing etc.) while my power supply is not. My room is very quiet so I notice it quite quickly. The fan might be defective, but returning the psu for replacement is not possible because I need to use it (I have no other power supply). The power supply is almost never under much load as my current system uses only about 150 watts under full load. With a GPU that will be around 300 watts.

Would it be possible to use a noctua F12 1500 rpm fan wired to my motherboard and just control it using pwm (with no fan in the psu fan slot). That way I can manually set the speed very low at idle (400RPM) and increase it when my system load increases. 1500RPM should be plenty to cool the psu. According to the techpowerup review the yate loon went up to 1900RPM under full load but the temps were low and the yate loon isn't that good of a fan so should be less efficient.
Thanks for your help by the way. I replied late to your questions because I thought that my post was rejected, but apparently it's not.

CA_Steve
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Re: Best 120mm fan to replace stock power supply fan?

Post by CA_Steve » Thu Jul 21, 2016 8:09 pm

The first few posts are moderated and don't immediately appear.

quest_for_silence
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Re: Best 120mm fan to replace stock power supply fan?

Post by quest_for_silence » Thu Jul 21, 2016 9:21 pm

PizzaBread wrote:Would it be possible to use a noctua F12 1500 rpm fan wired to my motherboard and just control it using pwm (with no fan in the psu fan slot). That way I can manually set the speed very low at idle (400RPM) and increase it when my system load increases. 1500RPM should be plenty to cool the psu. According to the techpowerup review the yate loon went up to 1900RPM under full load but the temps were low and the yate loon isn't that good of a fan so should be less efficient.

Seemingly you miss to point out in which case that rig is mounted, which is important, and where it's placed, which is also important: also ambient temp misses.

BTW, 300W of expected power draw is a lot of heat (40-45W of heat just in AC loss): reliability wise, albeit it's always possible, it's not that advisable to drive the fan by the mobo, as you have virtually no way to precisely know and react to the right load/temperature.

Moreover your Gigabyte board is not known for flexible fan control: did you already try the F12 that way? The CPU fan header is different from all the others, are you going to use it? SYS fan 1 & 3 headers seem to have compatible pinout, but what about the relevant minimum? With reference to SYS fan 2 header, take also note the F12 has an about 6V starting voltage (700-750rpm).

But above all, one of the major selling point of the GM-series is the 5 years warranty despite the questionable parts selection: if you're voiding the warranty, it's even less advisable to do that, and probably it should be better to resell the PSU and buy another you may like more.

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