Pob's (mini) LED fan round up

[Pob255]

I'm probably not going to be able to finish this untill tomorrow

Well in continuing my plan to build a pc in my new casecom chassis http://forums.hexus.net/chassis-syst...eview-pob.html I've ordered some 120mm Blue LED fans, I was mainly after a single 140mm and a single 120mm to combine with some of my other blue LED fan for it and I thought I might as well do a comparison of them as I have them.

Here's the fan line up for this test.



Top left to right, Antec - Tri-cool (my base line fan), Akasa - crystal blue, Xcilo - cooling fan extreme, CaseCom - Fan that came with the KM-6788
bottom left to right, Lian-Li - CF-1409A (140mm), ThermalTake - Cyclo Pattern Fan, ACRyan - Blackfire4 UVLED Fan

The top fans I already had the bottom ones I got today, I'm thinking of picking up some more as I'm not 100% happy with this selection.

Now as before I'm using one of the Antec Tri-cool's from my p180 as a base fan to compair them too, as it's a fan anyone with an antec case will know and as I don't have any measurement tools other than what I can make and my own senses.
And of course you cannot trust the manufactor specs for any fan as there's no standard testing.
So the Antec forms a base line that I can rate the other fans against.

That's all for now but I will leave you with a teaser, here's a funky pic I took while trying to find a good setting on my camera.

[Pob255]

Part one - the Fans.

Antec Tri-cool
no photo, but it's a tri-cool

Listed specs
RPM 1200 / 1600 / 2000
CFM 39 / 56 / 79
dBA 25 / 28 / 30

Now there's three sets of numbers as the Tri-cool has a built in 3 speed selection switch.
I'll admit I've much maligned these in the past, esp. when I first got hold of them, they didn't seem to move much air at all, however the more I've tested them more I've realised they are not that bad.
The first thing you notice is that the blade are not very aggressively shaped or pitched, however there does seem to be a very good reason for this.
Sound pitch, the Tri-cool's have one of the lowest pitched sounds I've come across of any fan, also it has one of the widest air cones of any fan I've looked at.
It's the wide air cone that make them deceptive to the amount of air they move, if you just stick your hand behind it doesn't feel that much esp. compared to fans with narrower cones, but when you test it you realise the difference is not that great at all.

I use these as my base comparison as they are a nice well rounded fan, they don't massively excel at any one point, however they are not poor in point ether, infact as I type this there is one point they excel at, namely being a good well rounded multi purpose fan.
They also come free with every Antec case.

Xclio - cooling fan extreme

note the black bits on the corners are foam rubber pads I added a while back to reduce vibration

Listed specs
Ummm, I cannot find the listed specs for this fan, they were stupidly cheap.
From memory.
RPM 2000
CFM 50
DBA 20
Sounds about right, they are stupid specs that are nothing like true.

This fan is the 2nd worse fan I’ve ever used second only to the black framed single LED version of this xclio

I thought I still had it but no, I cut the connector off to use on another fan and binned it.

As you can see the blades are just flat bits of plastic glued onto the hub, this makes for hideously unbalanced blades, which generates lots of vibration.
To make it worse the frame is very soft plastic, you can see the hub wobbling as the vibration makes the struts twist.
If you just stand these fans on their side on a flat surface and plug them in they vibrate so much they actually “walk” about.
Screwed into a case they are even worse as the frame cannot move so the twist on the struts increases and they make a hideous Buzzing as well as feeding vibrations into the case.

Luckily these things don’t spin at 2000rpm, I’m pretty sure that number is more likely to be an equivalent.
i.e. because there are twice as many blades it’s the equivalent of a normal fan spinning at 2000rpm
This is good because if it did spin at 2000rpm I recon it would spin itself apart.

These fan have long been my base Bad fan and the reason I never go for very very cheap fans.
The only thing they ever had going for them was the sub £3 price and long lead (nearly 50cm)

Akasa - crystal blue, ball baring



Listed specs
RPM 1700
CFM 59.05
dBA 29.75

Another fan I’ve had for a while, this ball baring version has a higher rpm than the sleeve baring version.
It comes with a large yellow rubber band around it (I’ve no idea for the reason for it)
Edit: I’ve just found the reason, it hides the wires to the LED's, on all the other fans the wires run along the back of the 4 struts, on the crystal they run around the outside of the frame and are protected and hidden by the rubber band.

I originally got it thinking it was the same as the well loved Akasa Amber but an LED version, it’s not.
The plastic of both the frame and blades is definitely softer and has more flex in it, although not as bad as the xclio fan.
The 7 blades are a relatively aggressive shape, with a sharp leading edge.
Lead is 3pin and 20cm long, came with the nice Akasa 3pin to molex + 3pin monitor lead adaptor.
One other thing to note is this is a closed corner fan.

Casecom fan from the KM-6788



Listed specs
Unknown, I cannot find any info on this fan, even the sticker on the back just says “Casecom DC 12v”
My Guess is around 1000-1200 rpm and 20-25 dB

This fan is a real oddity as it’s only 20mm wide rather than the standard 25mm wide.
The hub is larger than normal, the 9 blades are aggressively shaped with a steeper than common pitch, however this leaves them relatively narrow and with large gaps between them.
The cable is fairly short and molex only.

Lian-Li - CF-1409A



Listed specs
RPM 900
CFM 44.78
dBA 26.95 (Max 27.6)
Interesting that Lian-Li list an average and max, also this info is on the website not the packaging.

I got this fan especially for the top of my KM-6788 and while I did want a Yate-loon 140mm blue led fan, I couldn’t find any in stock, so as this fan has the same basic specs and looked identical I decided to go for it.

And it is almost identical, (I’d not be surprised if Yate Loon was the OEM for this) the 7 blades are the same shape although a little narrower and clear rather than smoky.
The frame is of a harder ridge plastic than the Akasa, while the blades are of a softer plastic.
This fan also comes with a 140mm wire fan guard, with the addition of that and the fact this is a close cornered fan, making this a very solid feeling fan.

The wire is both 3pin and 4pin molex, which is sort of odd and I’d much prefer an adaptor to be added to the package like most other 3pin fans.

ThermalTake - Cyclo Pattern Fan



Listed specs
RPM 1500
CFM 64
dBA 17

This is the fan that I’ve wanted to get since I first saw the video of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXsWUZTx2ZM
However I’ve never really had a case that would show it off until now, I looked for reviews but couldn’t find anything helpful to tell me what it’s like as a fan.
So I though why not and got it.

Well as first look it’s a strange beastie, other photos I've seen show that fan guard as domed but it’s fairly flat. However this does make it a full 42mm wide.

The fan it's self is very solidly constructed, not cheap & soft plastic, there's no flex in the frame at all.
The fan blades them selves are not very aggressively shaped especially at the ends, the pitch is actually quite steep as the blades actually stick out above the base 25mm frame, which actually make them quite wide.

The fan hub sticks out above the frame and the funky led patterns are achieved by a PCB arm sticking out of the hub above the blades, this has 4 LED's on it.
So the patterns are made by turning these LED's on and off at precisely controlled times.
The down side is this spinning arm must have an effect on the noise, the edges of the PCB arm are rough (like most cut PCB's) which probably will not help ether.

The lead is a very short 4pin molex only connector.

ACRyan - Blackfire4 UVLED Fan



Listed Specs
RPM 2000
CFM 77.7
dBA 28.95

I got this fan because they where on sale for £4 so I just got it as well to give it a try.
This fan is different in the fact that it’s not a blue LED fan, but is actually a UV LED fan made from blue UV reactive plastic.

If I was to compare the build quality to another, it would have to be the Akasa crystal, the plastic seems to be of almost identical softness, the frame of the Akasa does have a little more rigidity thanks to it’s closed corners as apposed to the open corner design of the Blackfire4.
The 7 blades seem to totally identical to the Akasa in both shape and cross section as well.

The difference here is the leads, the B;ackfire4 has two leads a 3pin fan lead with an additional 3pin header and a second 3pin lead for the LED’s, which can ether be plugged into the extra header or separately.
Here’s a photo to show you what I mean



As you can see both leads are also braded in blue UV reactive braid, however the ends are just cable tied and not shrink wrapped

From just outward apperance and feel, the most solidly constructed fan goes to the Tri-cool, but I'm not surprised there, the solid matte black plastic always seems to be of a higher density and more ridged plastic than any clear and/or glossy plastic I've yet seen.
The 2nd place goes to the ThermalTake, again that matte black plastic frame, but the blades are of the softer clear plastic.
3rd place to the Lian-li, closed corners and a screwed on fan guard make the frame feel far less flexable.
last place is the xclio, although it's not as bad as my original single LED xclio fans.

And a special award goes to the ACRyan, for most enthusiastic use of glue gun glue, they must be scared of the LED's doing a runner, because they really made sure they would go no where.

[Pob255]

Part 2 - first round testing.

In the past I've used simple "hold two fans up to my face and feel which blows stronger" tests, after that I've tried a (slightly) more scientific "blow the bit of string test"


It was the differences between these tests that first gave me the realisation of the deceptive width of the air flow cone of the Antec Tri-cool.
Holding it up to my face to "feel" the air means a more diffuse air flow so it feels less, with 2 solid surfaces to deflect to air back into the stream and it suddenly does far better.

So this time as I still lack and form of air flow meter, I've piniched a test from this review.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/coo...est-case-fan/1
Inflate the bag it also gives me a use for my old case side panel.
One bag and some tape later.



And yes I know it looks like a giant condom.

The fans are attached by the, still inplace, hair band trick.



This is simply two hair bands cut in half, you feed the ends through the holes in the fan and pull tight.
As the elastic contracts again it grips the fan to the surface very tightly.
And I left the original 120mm wire guard in place to help simulate a fan vent/grill.
The Paxmate one the panel closely surrounds a 120mm fan and also helps seal the edges of the fan.

To test these fans I used an enermax pro82+ 550w psu (better than my old 80mm fan el-cheapo psu as it's dead slient)
I connect the fans up to the molex or via a molex to 3pin adaptor and jumpstart the PSU.

I don't know the exact capasity of this bag so I cannot calcuate CFM, I'd also point out that this test does have one flaw to it, static pressure.
Simply put as the bag fills up the air pressure in the bag forces back against the flow of the fan, which reduces the fan's effeciency, some fan can resist the back flow better than others and so will perform better in this test.
The more agressive the shape and pitch of the blade, the smaller the gaps between them and the higher the rotational speed the better a fan can resist this back pressure.

I laid the panel flat to squish all the air out, timed the length of time the fan took to refill it on power on, I ran each fan 3 times and took a rough average, here are the resaults.

Antec Tri-cool (low) = 15.5 seconds
Antec Tri-cool (medium) = 7.5 seconds
Antec Tri-cool (high) = 4 seconds
Casecom KM-6788 stock fan = 13 seconds
ACRyan Blackfire4 = 5 seconds
Akasa crystal (ball baring) = 4.5 seconds
ThermalTake Cyclo = 6 seconds
Lian-Li CF-1409A = 13 seconds
Xclio cooling fan extreme = 17.5 seconds

Some intresting numbers there, The Xclio well at the bottom, no surprise there.
the casecom doing as well as the lian-li and beating the tri-cool on low is a bit more surprising.
However in the Lian-li's defence it's a very low rpm 140mm fan tring to blow through a 120mm hole so this fan would of had the highest amount of static pressure issues and a low rpm fan will not cope well in that situation.

The ACRyan and Akasa I would expect to be the other way around, due to the slightly higher speed of the ACRyan, but this could be down to my not very controlled conditions.

There may also be some power issues as I'm putting such a low load (just one fan) on this psu.
I did start to do some 5v tests, but noticed the LED's on the akasa fan pulsed at 5 volts which shows there's deffinate issue with such a low load with this PSU with only 1 fan at 5v, so I stoped that for now and moved on.

LED brightness/fan prettyness test

Here I just laid all the fans down flat on my paxmated side panel, and pluged them all in.



and this is where my camera and camera skills fail me, if I had a nice expensive SLR with a decent lens I might be able to do something that look like these fans do to my eyes, but I don't.
Although it does give you a good idea of how the ThermalTake Cyclo works.

I battled with all the different preset settings untill I got this which is sort of close.



Top left to right, xclio > ACRyan > Lian-Li
bottom left to right, Akasa > ThermalTake > CaseCom

As you can see the CaseCom fan is really quite bright, and the smoky plastic of the blades catch the light better than the clear blade of the Lian-li (although it might be the bag behind it makeing it look lighter)
The Xclio and ThermalTake battle for least bright, but the TT is a very different type of fan and the patterns look amazing

[Pob255]

Part 3 . . . umm . . . ok not really Part 3, I should of done some detailed "by ear" sound comparisons, but I got impatient and had to get them into my KM-6788 just to see how they might look.

And here's the resaults.



Doh, more camera skills fail.

after more battleing with the pre-sets



Still not exact but better.

One from the front



I couldn't get a decent no-flash photo, esp showing off the ThermalTake in the front.

The fans are:
Front: ThermalTake Cyclo at 7v (mod)
Top: Lian-Li at 12v
Rear: Akasa at 5v (off the ACRyan fan header)
Side: ACRyan at 5v (mod), LED's at 12v

The Voltage mod's are to get a level of noise I'd be happy with in a case, I'll go into more on this when I get around to doing the full sound "by ear" tests.
Promise

[Great Eastern]

Pob - Thanks for this, very interesting and useful.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A flashy review indeed!!

[Pob255]

Part 3 - First Sound tests for real this time

As I don't have any actual measuring tools other than my ears I cannot tell you exact sound levels, which is why a use a tri-cool to compair my fans to it.
The Tri-cool is a sort of odd beastie, sound wise at low it is very quite, at medium it's not so bad and on hight it's quite loud.
The high build quality of the tri-cool means there's almost no vibration from it, the same goes for the near non-existant motor and baring noise.
The one oddity of the tri-cool compared to other fans is the pitch of the sound, the shape of the blades not only give this fan a wider air cone than most but also give the sound a lower pitch, which makes it sound quieter to the human ear.

My first test is just a straight 12v test, two fans are stood up on my coffee table, approx 50cm apart, I sit on the floor between them approx 50cm away from both.
I'll then move far closer to each, esp when it's hard to tell which is louder.

Here's my list from loudest to quietest

Thermaltake Cyclo
Tr-cool (high) / ACRyan Blackfire4
Akasa crystal
Tri-cool (medium) / Xclio
CaseCom
Tri-cool (low) / Lian-li CF-1409A

As yoou can see I had difficulity telling which was higher on 3 of the comparisons.
However at the same time this table is still deceptive because of additional factors, so I'm going to try to also describe my results as well.

Thermaltake Cyclo - this was easily the loudest fan of the bunch, but only just, while it's the loudest it's also a low pitch, I had difficulity telling if it was louder than the tri-cool as both are a low pitched sound.
However the tt is a slightly lower pitch than the tri-cool and it was definately louder than the ACRyan Blackfire4, which is why it's gone to the top of my list.

ACRyan Blackfire4 - now I had a really hard time trying to decide between this are the Tri-cool on high, they really are very close.
The noise of the ACRyan is a higher pitch than the tri-cool so it's actual dBA might be lower, but in sound to my ear they are too close to call.
One thing to note here is that the ACRyan blackfire4 is making some hidious vibrations, when free standing it really walks about on my table, I had to use one hand to hold it in place to stop it walking off the table, this paticular fan must have some very badly balanced blades to make that much vibration.
However the frame is better than I originally thought, as when it's held down the hub seems to remain constant, so the struts are holding it solidly and not twisting with the vibration, screw this into a case and this fan will be putting a lot of shake into a case, this fan would be a must for suspension or rubber fan plugs, not screws.
(I'll probably doubt check that later)

Akasa Crystal - not much to say on this one, no noticeable motor or baring noise, not over the noise of the moving air.
Louder than the tri-cool on medium but not by much.

Xclio cooling fan extreme - Well this fan has not only got the worst air flow of the bunch but it also has the loudest motor whine of the bunch as well.
With my ear right up to the fan I can only just hear the actual sound of the being moved over that motor drone.
The motor is so loud it rivals the tri-cool on medium by its self.

CaseCom KM-6788 - This again has some bad motor noise, not as bad as the Xclio but again much louder than the sound of the blades moving through the air.
The end result is louder than the tri-cool on low but not so bad that it overpowers the tri-cool on medium.

Lian-Li CF-1409A - The 3rd fan of my list that has motor noise, although the Lian-Li has the lowest amount of motor noise of these 3, still some is more than none.
It's the motor noise that make this fan as loud as the Tri-cool on low, I can just hear the actual blade noise over the motor when very close to the fan.
It's a shame as if this motor noise wasn't there then this fan would easily be far more quiet than the Tri-cool on low.

5v tests to follow . . .

[Pob255]

Part 4 - test round two - 5 volts

To start with I was having issues with my enermax pro82+ on the 5v with nothing else plugged in, as I found when I ran the Akasa fan, the led's started pluseing, to counter this I pluged in the ACRyan LED lead in as well as a Cold cathode tube kit, this supplied enough 12v load to iron out the issues on the 5v rail and the LED's stopped pluseing.
So all these tests wher run with the CCT and ACRyan LED only lead also plugged in.

Same basic set up as the 12v tests but this time with my head between the two fans, so each fan is only about 10-15 cm away from my ear, again I had to move in closer some times, in almost every test this time.

All the fans where powered by a 5volt fan mod (ie swaped the pins of a molex conector over)
then plugged the fan in if 4pin molex or via a 2nd adaptor if 3pin only.
The Antec Tri-cool was kept at 12v to continue being a base line.

Results nosiest to quietest.

Tri-cool (high)
Tri-cool (medium)
Xclio
Thermaltake
Akasa
Casecom
Tri-cool (low) / ACRyan
Lian-Li

At this closer range it's easier to hear a slightly louder fan but at the same time baring noise (ticks) and motor noise is far louder and often the deciding factor in my placement in the list.
I had to run a couple of the fans against each other as well as against the Tri-cool as it was getting very hard to rate them solely against the tri-cool.
Again I'll go over each fan and why it's where it is.

Antec Tri-cool, While I didn't much notice it in the first test in this closer range test the tri-cool does have a slight baring tick on low, it's easy to miss as the tick noise is very slight and almost the same pitch as the fan itself.

Xclio cooling fan extreme - again failing badly, at 5v the motor noise is less but still loud and you can now hear the added ticking of the baring.
not quite as loud as the Tri-cool on medium but closer to that than the tri-cool on low.

ThermalTake Cyclo - louder thhan the Tri-cool on low but not as loud as the tri-cool on medium, almost squarely between the two setttings.
There was a slight baring noise but quieter than the fan itself.
Other things to mention is that the LED's took a few seconds to brighten enough to be seen and even then they are so dulled that the patterns are not very noticeable.

Akasa Crystal - Quieter than the ThermalTake at 5v but louder than the Tri-cool.
There was only a slight baring noise.

CaseCom KM-6788 fan - The noise of the fan itself was almost impossible to hear over the motor&baring noise, which was loud enough to push it above the Tri-cool on low.
The motor noise is now much less than it was at 12v however now the baring tick can be heard.
Other things to mention, at 5v not only are the LED's less bright but only 2 of them actually came on, I tried a few times, including reconnecting it at 5v and at 12v to check all the LED's still worked, but still only 2 would light up at 5v.

ACRyan Blackfire4 - This fan did very well at 5v the results were surprising
The sound was so close to the Tri-cool on low, right down to a very slight tick, that I just couldn't call it as to which was quieter even with my ear up close.
A sound meter probably could but they are not effected by pitch so much as a human audio test.
Other thing to note, the vibrating massively drops off at 5v, it's still the most vibration of any of the fans, but now it's more of a slow wobble and far far weaker than it is at 12v.
Due to the separate lead for the LED's this fan can run at the lower voltage while to LED's can be fed 12v so don't lose any brightness.

Lian-Li CF-1409A, eaisly the quietest fan of the lot at 5v, the motor noise drops to nearly nothing, and you can now hear a slight baring noise, but it is slight and still more quiet than the tri-cool on low.

At 5 volts the cheaper fans really show themselves for where cost corners have been cut, with both the Xclio and casecom fan hardly dropping much in sound levels, while the noise generated by the blades turning might have dropped off the cheap motors and barings have let them down.
The ACRyan did very well here and makes me wonder why they didn't run this fan at a far lower rpm to start with? I can only assume that as ACRyan mainly seem to aim their products at the modding and watercooling market they decided on a higher rpm knowing that the user is probably going to tune it down anyway if they want less noise or run it at full speed for the high airflow.

I'm going to have a go at running my air flow tests again at 5v to see how much it has effected these fans performance.

[Pob255]

Part 5 - CFM tests at 5 volts

Same test as before but this time with all the fans at 5v, tri-cool still at 12v as to base line

Antec Tri-cool (low) = 15.5 seconds
Antec Tri-cool (medium) = 7.5 seconds
Antec Tri-cool (high) = 4 seconds
Casecom KM-6788 stock fan = Fail
ACRyan Blackfire4 = 16.5 seconds
Akasa crystal (ball baring) = 14 seconds
ThermalTake Cyclo = 17 seconds
Lian-Li CF-1409A = Fail
Xclio cooling fan extreme = Fail

Interesting results here, I had 3 semi-expected fails as the fans just cannot produce enough static pressure to over come the back pressure to inflate the bag, I did give them a full one and a half minutes to try to inflate the bag, then I intervened and manually pulled the bag into shape while the fan was still on to see if it could keep the bag inflated or if it would collapse again, they all did to some extent with the Lian-Li doing the best at trying to keep it inflated.

The Akasa seemed to perform the best at 5v not only being the best but also losing the least in overall performance.

The problem of back pressure makeing fans that generate low static pressure really show up when I was testing the ThermalTake, when the TT fan is first started up at 5v it takes a couple of seconds for the led's to come on and it's obvious now that this is because it's taking a couple of seconds to get up to speed at 5v.
How do I know this? simple because while the LED's did come on, well to start with it took longer for the LED's to come on and as the bag filled they got a bit duller.
Then once the bag is fully inflated the back pressure greatly increases, this increase would cause the TT fan to slow down slightly and the LED's would go off again the moement the bag was fully inflated.

Compared to the Antec Tri-cool all of these fans fail to beat it at it's varying settings and while I still would quiet happly use some of them esp at a reduced voltage, my results do call into question the performance of ED fans over non-LED fans.

However the number of LED fans I have available to me for these tests is small and there's not really many LED fans out there that stack up to higher quality non-led fans.

I've love too get a scythe kama LED, enermax Appollish and antec led version tri-cool to test out, but I'd have to buy them first and I'm not that well off
Unless someone out there want to supply me with some

Even so I'm still not fully happy with these fans so I may buy some more in my continuing search for a good (and hopefully low cost) LED fan.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Your review is very illuminating!!

[Pob255]

As I'm not exactly happy with the fans I have I've gone and ordered some more 120mm bled LED fans from Fleabay.
All are lower rpm fans and around £10 inc P&P

Xilence Pro 120mm Fan XPF 120BL Blue LED
RPM 1300
CFM 44.71
dBA 20.5
Hydro Bearing (could be a fluid bearing or just another way of saying Sleeve Bearing)

Yate Loon D12SL-12+4LED Blue
RPM 1350
CFM 46
dBA 23
Sleeve Bearing

Coolermaster 120mm Silent LED Fan
RPM 1220
CFM 42.734
dBA 22
Sleeve Bearing

Xigmatek CLF-F1251 Crystal 120mm Case Fan Blue LEDs
RPM 1500
CFM 68.33
dBA <20 (some how I don't trust that number)
Rifle Bearing (another way of saying Sleeve Bearing)

I'll do some more tests and put up photos when I get them.

And I just realised I've used the wrong spelling for Bearing all the way through, Baring means something else totally

[Great Eastern]

Bending the subject slightly, but along the line of fans. What's your opinion on fans in the side of the case?

Possibly opening a can of worms here - Its a bit like the old Bicycle Helmet debate on cycling forms. Do side fans help in any real way, as I've seen some people state that it ruins the air flow inside the case?

[Pob255]

Depends on the set up of the fans and case.
In some it can be benefitial, in some detremental.

You want the air to flow through the case and break up any possible air traps, the main one in trems of side fans is graphics cards.
They can often form an effective shelf within the case, while putting out a lot of heat into the air around them, that heat can get trapped in the air under the card, by blowing cool air from out side in under the card you can effectively break up that trapped air or feed the graphics card cooler with colder air thus improveing the cooling of the card.

However a fan over the cpu, can be detremental to the air flow, as normally air gets drawn in from the bottom of the case front, move diagonally across the motherboard and out at the top rear of the case, sticking a side air flow in this path can dissrupt this flow.
If you're using a tower cooler then blowing air down onto it does nothing and will probably interfear with the air being moved through the fins of the cooler by the cooler fan reduceing the cpu cooler effectiveness.

Actually the same can be said for excessive air vents as well, the air vent in the side panel in most basic mid-tower cases, may help reduce the cpu temptures, as cool outside get gets sucked to the cpu cooler, however at the same time they will reduce the amount of air getting drawn in from the fron of the case, there by reduceing the cooling of the hard drives.

[Pob255]

Pob's (mini) LED fan round up: 2nd round
Well I finally got around to taking photo's of the 2nd round fans

Here are the contenders

Top Left to right, Xilence XPF, Yate Loon D12SL
bottom Left to right, Xigmatek Crystal, Cooler Master LED Silent Fan

While Yate-loon don't make anything special out of their packaging, they could easily make clames on low envrionmental impact, as all it is is a simple cardboard box just larger than the fan itself.

Let's get them out and have a good look at them.



Xilence Pro 120mm Fan XPF 120BL Blue LED
RPM 1300
CFM 44.71
dBA 20.5

As you can see this fan has molex and 3pin fixed to it rather than an adaptor, so no molex chaining these fans.
A 9 bladed fan & agressive shape (should be better static pressure) and oddly it's got the basic approvel symbols things on the sticker on the hub, the sticker on the back is just flat grey, so there's no model number or voltage numbers on the fan, details are just on the packageing.




Yate Loon D12SL-12+4LED Blue
RPM 1350
CFM 46
dBA 23
This is the first fan from both sets that didn't come with some form of molex connection.
In fact the whole thing is very sparse, showing it's OEM roots, just the fan in the box.
Not many details on the box, no adaptor, not even a sngle screw (if you don't have spare case fan screws or rubber fan plugs, then you'll need to buy some seperately)

The blades are not very agressively shaped and look exactly the same shape as the ones on the Lian-Li (I would not be surprised if the Lian-Li fans where originally made by Yate-loon)
Of these 4 fans the Yate loon had the longest fan lead, at the same time the most simple and plane wires.




Xigmatek CLF-F1251 Crystal 120mm Case Fan Blue LEDs
RPM 1500
CFM 68.33
dBA <20
The thing that stands out at once about the Xigmatek is the braided cable (please ignore that hole, it's my fault )
The wires inside the braid are tightly twisted together, the heat shrink on the plug end goes right up to and touches the plug.
At the fan end it stoped about 2cm short, so I tried to pull the braid a bit tighter and slip the heat shrink up the wire a bit more . . . and pulled the heat shrink off the braid
I just about managed to work the heat shrink back over the end of the braid, so I tried to shrink it a bit more to tighten it up and grip what little of the braid I had maneged to get in under the heat shrink.
And I melted the braid.

Some days I should just leave well enough alone and shouldn't poke stuff




Coolermaster 120mm Silent LED Fan
RPM 1220
CFM 42.734
dBA 22
At first glance this fan is almost exactly the same as the Xigmatek, execpt for the joind wire instead of a twisted braded cable.
However instead of the LED's being in the corners of the frame pointing inwards, they are actually within the struts, half way along their length.
This means the LED's are smaller than on all the other fans and point "Upwards"
On a fan the direction of air flow is refured to as the vertical axis, Up is the direction the air is being pulled in from, although I might of got it mixed up and the direction the air is pulled in from is down.
I did do a quick test of all these fans just to make sure they worked and this arangement of the LED's make this fan cast out far more light than the rnormal LED layout, which does throw out more light to the sides.
This fan should work very well as a rear or top extraction fan for lighting up the insides of your case, but less so as an intake fan where the light will be pointing out of the case.

Well thoes are the new contenders and after my quick working test these sound far better Hopefully I'll have one or two that can give the tri-cool on low a real run for the money.
I'll get my fan rig out at the weekend and see how they fair.

[matty-hodgson]

Pob.. without wanting to divert the thread or anything.. can i ask you how good that "sound proofing" material is at actually sound proofing?

i recently bought a large amount of fans and new heatsinks for everything to make my computer as silent as possible, and it's now VERY quiet (and cool ), but there's still a slight wirr, so.. would you recommend that stuff? and where did you buy it from?

and i hate to rain on your parade, but i feel this could help the thread by expanding on what you've already done here
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=get...54&articID=892

[Pob255]

Pob.. without wanting to divert the thread or anything.. can i ask you how good that "sound proofing" material is at actually sound proofing?

i recently bought a large amount of fans and new heatsinks for everything to make my computer as silent as possible, and it's now VERY quiet (and cool ), but there's still a slight wirr, so.. would you recommend that stuff? and where did you buy it from?

Sound damping foam, does help reduce the noise, esp resonence within a case and not by a great deal.
It does depend a lot on the fans, case and setup.
The only stuff I've used is Akasa PaxMate, which is not highly rated by reviews as the best of stuff, it's too thin & light density to have that big an effect.
However it is far cheaper than the thicker or higher density stuff like Acoustipack and it is sold is far more places. I've got mine from Scan.
Acoustipack is the stuff spcr recomends for real silence nuts, short of removeing all the fans from a pc in the first place.

and i hate to rain on your parade, but i feel this could help the thread by expanding on what you've already done here
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=get...54&articID=892

Ooo that's a fairly nice review, they don't go as far into the test setup details as the spcr round ups, but it does include LED fans.

The reason I started this thread was because I wanted some decent & quiet LED fans for my Casecom 6788 and I couldn't find any round ups for LED fans, so I thought that while I was going to buy some anyway I might as well run a test.
I've done this with other fans as well, mainly to show that you don't need to spend £12+ on a fan when you can get some fans which are almost as good for half the price.