Seasonic Super Tornado 400W - what's the best fan mod?

[aston]

I'm only mildly satisfied with my Seasonic Super Tornado. At the lowest fan speed, it's quiet enough, but the instant I close the case, or put the CPU under load, or even put my hand close to the vent, it starts spinning up and is unacceptably loud.

Putting a 80mm Panaflo L1A in the back of the case, but blowing inward, seems to prevent the PS fan from spinning up, but the L1A is just too loud and 7-volting the L1A doesn't push enough air.

So, what kind of fans should I mod this PS with? IIRC, I've read in these forums that the PS supplies a different voltage for different types of fans?? I'd like to hear from other Super Tornado owners about what success (or otherwise) they've had with their various fan mods.

I've been thinking of a Panaflo M1A, but only because it's one of the few 120mm fans that are readily available around these parts. I've also heard good things about the Papst 4412FM, but I can't find it anywhere....

Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated. I live in the Vancouver area, so if you can recommend any Canadian shops that sell good 120mm fans, all the better.

[dukla2000]

... but the instant I close the case, ...

Classic symptom of poor case ventilation. The standard questions would be what CPU & other heaters you have in the box, and what is the case ventilation. Possibly if you open whatever vents you have at the lower front of the case (like cut a 80mm diameter hole or equivalent slots etc through tin and bezel!) you may solve all your problems without playing with fans.

[Storm]

I dont think theres a case anywhere that provides enough ventilation for the Tornado.
I have an Antec Soho, none of the noise dampening material I have covers ANY vents, I also have a side panel case fan.
But if I open the side panel the tornado spins down about 100-200 rpms

When it comes to heat just look at my profile, my heatsink is barely warm to touch, graphics card is the same. Infact I can feel more air being pulled through the front vents of the case since I installed the Tornado.

Its a simple fact the Tornado is for Hardcore 'delta screamer' Gamers. Because these 'freaks' want the best cooling and reliability, seasonic made a PSU for them.
I think this way about the ST because the air coming out of my Tornado with the default fan is the coldest I ever felt in a PSU exaust.

I used a Papst 120mm 4412FGL voltage was 7v at first, this provided enough cooling for my setup, and i believe its enough for higher end systems. Noise wise it was a bit louder than a Q-technology 300w when under load.
This was too loud for me, so I 5v the papst. at idle the air coming out the back is cold. At load the air is as warm as the Q-technology, so is the PSU case.
So right now im relying on the Seasonics quality to be as good as the Q-technology, and with-stand the heat while not affecting reliability much.

[aston]

Thanks for the tip, dukla. I've always been told that case ventilation is important, but I have never, ever had a case that allowed for that. I've tried putting fans in the lower-front of my case before, but even the loud ones never pushed enough air to make a difference. But your post got me thinking about the problem again....

So here's what I did: first, I removed my case's front panel to allow for some airflow. I moved my CD-ROM drives as low as possible, then put a 7-volted Papst 8412NGL in the upper-front of my case (resting on top of the CD-ROM drive). Instead of having it blow in, though, which did nothing to help, I have it blow out. Now the PS fan never spins up above 1000RPM (I think... that's what Motherboard Monitor says. It doesn't give me an accurate reading until the RPMs are > 800RPM; anything lower and it tells me the RPM is at 18750 or 21093). Of course, now my case is ugly as sin, but I'll figure out some way to fix that later.

Funny that blowing in cool air from the front of the case didn't work anywhere as well as evacuating heat from the front the case. Acutally, now that I think about it, it makes sense: if I blew in cool air, that air has to travel a long way to reach the PSU, and along the way, it's going to get warmed up by the air inside the case. PSU gets fed warm air, so its fan spins up. This relates perfectly with what MikeC postulates in his "Evacuate the heat" role for the PSU thread -- the PSU should not have the job of evacuating heat from the case.

This setup will work perfectly for my plan of installing a fan in the back of the case blowing inward -- cool air will blow in from the back, and leave from the front. This post from MikeC's thread also makes a lot of sense to me... why blow air out from the back? That only means that the PSU fan will be fighting with the rear case fan for air, which is noisy and inefficient.

Anyway, long story short... I've solved my noisy PSU fan problems, and I'm a happy camper.

However, I think I can make the PSU fan even quieter, so my question still stands... what's a quieter replacement 120mm fan that'll work well with the PSU's temperature sensor?

[aston]

Bump

Surely someone can give me some suggestions as to what 120mm fans they've tried in their Seasonic...

[Bri]

I cut off the 120mm grill and installed a 120mm Papst 4412F/2GL with rubber isolators. I wired it to a Zalman baybus. I can both control and monitor the RPM's . It works and sounds good.

-Bri

[dukla2000]

As per my sig I replaced 1 of mine with a Papst 4412FGL. Also as per Bri hacked out the grill (on both of my Tornados - might as well once you have trashed the warranty): didn't bother with fancy rubber mounts - just re-used the rubber washers that came on the fan SeaSonic supplied.

[Burdy]

As per my sig I replaced 1 of mine with a Papst 4412FGL. Also as per Bri hacked out the grill (on both of my Tornados - might as well once you have trashed the warranty): didn't bother with fancy rubber mounts - just re-used the rubber washers that came on the fan SeaSonic supplied.

How much volt does that fan get?

[dukla2000]

Probably around 6.5V. I dont have an easy way to measure it in action (the fan is wired to the normal psu fan header). Check my post on 14 December in this thread for variations on start voltages in a Tornado depending on the fan.

[aston]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'd like to find a 120mm fan that will play nice with the PSU fan header if possible, though, so I probably won't go with your setup, Bri.

dukla, I found your excellent post here. It's a pity that the Papst doesn't sound any quieter than the default Yate Loon when plugged into the PSU fan header.

Any chance you can get a hold of a 120mm Panaflo to compare?

[cmcquistion]

You could just use the stock fan, but mod it to run at a constant voltage, instead of being dependent on intake air temp. This is what I've been doing with Fortron FSP300 PSU's. I remove the fan from the temp controller and wire it straight into 5V. Low noise, adequate cooling, zero cost.

[dukla2000]

It's a pity that the Papst doesn't sound any quieter than the default Yate Loon when plugged into the PSU fan header.

Well in normal operating mode I cant say it is any noisier either: all I do know is it is shifting more air (to be expected as the 12V cfm ratings are similar, and the Papst runs at higher voltage from the Tornado) and that both are damn quiet - the noise from my CPU fan is much louder which makes any assertion about my psu fan dubious.

[And also my system is tending toward silent so this is all relative: from my chair I can hear 7200.7 seeks from my bungee mounted hdd on a quiet night but not the psu fan. I can only hear the psu fan (Papst or Yate Loon) above the CPU fan if I stick my ear right next to the rear psu exhaust. And really I can only hear the CPU fan at 9V on a quiet night or if I stick my head at the back of the box.]