am after some 120mm fans for my server
what do people recommend
noise isn't too much of a concern, neither is LED lit
cheers
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am after some 120mm fans for my server
what do people recommend
noise isn't too much of a concern, neither is LED lit
cheers
If you are truly not concerned by noise then just buy the cheapest one you can find. :)
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article63-page1.html has reviews on various fans, their prime concern is noise, but it might give you some suggestions.
Heard good things about Noctua fans. supposed to be really quiet
I buy the cheapest 120mm fans available..i find they do as good a job as more expensive ones. (if noise doesn't bother you :))
I have 3 99p 120mm fans in my case and it's very cool (the temps i mean).
@ webman, noctua are designed to be quiet, and at a premium price, not whats needed.
@pipTheGeek, agreed
If you want loads of cooling and dont care if it is REALLY noisy, then get something like this:http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/120mm...m-Ball-Bearing 190 CFM, but 59DB (for comparison the faster noctua is 48CFM @ 18DB)
holy cow
i might get one to give it a go
Hmmmm
three for the hdd 4into3 caddies
one rear
two blow holes
and
two side panel
i think then it might be a tad on the noisy side ... even for me
:D
lol, I actually laughed quite loud when I read the ...even for me:P. You forgot the two or three which you could attach to a CPU cooler, then you will struggle to breathe as all the air in the room is being sucked into the computer. And at £18 each they are not cheep. I would get this then:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/120mm...an-with-81cfm-!!!!
£6 each so saved about £60 already and they are still faster than most @2400RPM, with ~80CFM, but allot quieter - 39DB.
Remember your free scan shipping now you have over 20 posts (if you buy from scan over £20):
http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...tup-guide.html
http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...0-07-08-a.html
59db has got to be too loud. That is almost loud enough that if it was a work PC you would have to wear ear defenders!
@will404 80CFM?!?! That is over 1CF per second! That means it could empty your average pc case of air in around 1 second!
Maybe something less extreme is called for. Unless you (okay, I admit I want to try it) fancy the hovering PC?
:eek: :eek: :eek:
As asposium so aptly said, Holy Cow.
But unless he's trying to build a wind tunnel rather than a server case, that might be overkill. Still, it'd be good for sucking out any PC components that aren't bolted down as well as the hot air.
The only thing I'd suggest is that instead of just buying the cheapest possible, to look for decent bearings. Cheap ones tend to have sleeve bearings that tend to dry out, gunge up and slow down or stop. I'd look for a decent brand (like Delta) and for ball bearings. They tend to last longer.
I like Akasa Case fans, when I ordered my £10~£15 Zen case, I got like 3 fans with it, ventilation everywhere and a nice design for a good price.
They're not as quiet as advertised.
I have a Noctua 12 on my Noctua CPU cooler - it is quite loud tbh - however my mobo does insist on spinning it @1358rpm all the time !!!
If noise is an issue do not bother with Antec tri-cool fans - I've tried 2 and both sounded like compressors on turbofan engines......whooooooooooosh
If you want cheap high air volume air flow, I can fully recogmend these sharkoon fans, they move a heck of a lot of air :) However they are noisy but that's the trade off :juggle:
Depending on what your server is and how vital air flow is, I'd sugest ball baring over a sleeve baring.
and you may want to consider LED fans
ok that might sound odd but I've got a reason, simply that if a fan fails then the lack of light should show you stirght off if/which has died.
I would also strongly sugest, dust filters and regular cleaning, haveing high air flow running 24/7 will collect a lot of dust.
I recently bought a couple of Scythe Kaze Jyuni 1200rpm "slipstream" fans. Wanted something pretty silent and these fit the bill perfectly but still give good CFM performance. Were just £6 each too :)
- Air volume at full speed (12V), CFM ±10% 68.5
- Noise level at full speed (12V), dB(A) 24.0
- Fan speed at full speed (12V), RPM ±10% 1200
- MTBF 3.5 years
I use one on the intake and 1 on the CPU cooler in my Cosmos case and my CPU temp rarely goes above 42degrees even under load. The whole system is very very quiet - about as noisy as my Shuttle in fact :)
If you ain't so bothered about noise - they do a 1900rpm version too that pushes 110CFM with 34dba...
i have heard many good things about the Scythe fans.
What about the new Akasa Apache Fan??
I've been looking at that, mainly because it's a 120mm PWM fan, so I'm considering it for my cpu cooler fan.
But I've yet to find any reviews or here from anyone who's used one.:undecided
I've been swapping all my fans for nexus fans, super quiet. After I did that I had to move to samsung HDs the seagate write noise was to much to bear :) I agree with SPCR that the Noctura's are not as 'buttery' smooth.
I have recently purchased one of these. They have a Sony made "Fluid Dynamic Bearing", which should be quieter and last longer than either a sleeve or ball bearing. The fan is also available in 3 different speed ratings. Sadly I haven't had mine long enough to tell if it is going to last well.
The S-FLEX is very good, clarification on the speeds, it comes in 3 different models, 900rpm, 1200rpm and 1600rpm
the faster the more air and noise.
from my experience the 900rpm is so quiet you need to have your ear next to it to hear it, however the air flow is very low
the 1600rpm is still low noise and move a good amount of air but is not slient.
the 1200rpm one is a great ballance between low noise and air, however they are also the hardest to get hold of and tend to be the first to sell out when they are in stock.
If noise REALLY doesnt matter, then get cheap and cheerful XD. Any brand of fan (with the amount your putting in that system) should keep it cool enough, but it could get rather loud :mrgreen:
If youa re looking for quieter, but high preformance then Yate-Loons, they are a very good brand.
Also take a looka t Noctua p12's, zalman f-3's and Sythe S-flex's
Another vote for Noctua fans...but again a bit pointless as noise i not an issue. I replaced the Antec Tri-Cool fans that came in the P-182 case with the Noctua ones. The motherboard controls all three against case or CPU temps, and it works very well.
I would suggest that high CFM isn't necessarily what you are looking for, if you want effective cooling, especially for exhaust - I've a vague memory of reading somewhere that negative pressure in a PC case is a "Bad Thing" for heat, so you'd need to make sure you were blasting lots of cold air in....could be total BS of course...
Yes and no, it depends on the design and layout of your case.
The Antec p182 is a negative pressure case, at least in the main "cell" where the motherboard is, the lower cell where the psu and hard drives are is actually equal or positive pressure.
Negative pressure works by fans sucking air out of the case, the lower pressure inside causes new air to get drawn in trough any avaible hole.
Positive pressure works by fans sucking air in, raising the pressure inside and forceing air out of any holes.
The issue with cooling is to move the air through the case and not leave it trapped any where.
eg if you had a large air vent in the bottom of a side panel then a positive pressure design will not work so well with only fans pushing air into a case, as the air getting pushed in at the front by your fans is just going to flow out again without getting near the hot cpu.
If you only had fans sucking air out, then the air would get sucked in through the vent and not through the front, leaveing your harddrive in an air pocket to heat up.
The above is simplified but that's the basic principle.
ideally you want to blow air over hot components and suck away the resaulting hot air.
One thing to say about positive pressure cases is they are far eaisier to manage dust build up, you need to filter all the fans drawing in air, but as the resaulting positive pressure forces air out of every crack and hole dust does not get in.
With negative pressure you tend to suck air in from every hole so to reduce dust you'd ideally need to seal or filter every crack and hole which is not very easy.
Yate loon low speeds at 4quid a pop are the best for you I'd say :)
I'd have to go with the Akasa Apache's whilst their not the cheapest, extremely low noise and high airflow means they are very good, thinking about getting 2 or 3 for my Antec 900 :)
I use Excellence (I think I spet that correct) and recently Arctic Cooling, which are just awesome fans. not too expensive.
I have the sharkoon silent eagle 2000 - they have good airflow and don't make too much noise, and they also look quite interesting!
Got three of them Akasa Apache jobs a few days ago... I don't know how best to "review" them though.
They provide more airflow and are quieter than two AcoustiFan things and I'd say that noise-wise they're about the same as a Noctua NF-S12-1200 but provide more airflow. The colour scheme is different but I couldn't care less what colour they were as they're hidden in the case! :)
Two are PWM-controlled (one CPU, one system) the other is on a 3-pin header and runs at 1,300rpm - not exactly silent at 1,300rpm but I'm happy with 'em.
Ah when I built my first pc (about 5 years ago) the concensus then was that you wanted a flow of air round rather than just having all in or all out. Because of this I have front intake and rear exhaust, the front of my case is completely perforated. Is this no longer considered best practice?
No that's fairly standard, esp in newer case layouts, good eg is the antec 300, solid side panels and mesh front
I forgot to mention the 3rd setup which is netural pressure, it's quite hard to fully achieve.
Most cases reguardless of pressure use a fan at the front, to focus inflowing air over the hard drives to keep them cool
Then have a rear fan to extract hot air from around the cpu area, this helps keep the air flowing through the case and reduce the amount getting drawn in from other vents.
There's a lot of arguement over which is better, in the past negitive pressure was not so good for cooling as all cases pritty much used the psu above the motherboard layout, which means there's not a lot of places to put extraction fans
You want any fan that's sucking air out to be as close to the source of hot air as possible to be most effective, which is where the newer psu below the motherboard comes in.
The one main downside of negative pressure that I've heard of (ie take this next bit with a pinch of salt as it's internet gossip rather than founded on my own experimentation) is that graphics cards can't get enough air for their intakes in some cases. This isn't so much of a problem with positive pressure, although that has 'other issues' of its own.
Roo
Nah! This is what you need to do to keep things cool.
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget....-66casemod.jpg
Depends on the card the cooler and the amount of negative pressure.
Although it'll be pritty hard to generate enough negative pressure to starve a graphics cooler of air, the amount of pressure differential between outside and inside a case is very small.
Now I've got a Akasa Apache fan I can say that it's a very good fan, esp if your looking for a 120mm PWM fan
Fans i've used:
Akasa Smokey 120mm - Quiet, good looking and push good air
Revoltec Smoke Grey 120mm - Medium noise, Amazing looking and push alot of air
Xigmatek XLF 120mm - Medium noise, Amazing looking and push alot of air
Im using the XLF's now and their great. Seriously good looking.
@ oolon, You don't know how tempted iam to do that...
I've just installed an Xilence Red Wing 92mm Quiet Fan in a small form factor machine that I've been building and I'm impressed with the airfow and low noise so it may be worth checking out the 120mm version.
:¬}