Odd sounding fans

[Lee`]

I decided I needed distracting from my PhD thesis so I decided to buy a new gaming PC. Being a pikey student I decided to go down the second hand route and got a i7, with SSD in a Antec 300 and crappy graphics card and upgrade that myself. I have received it today, and after re-connecting the fan controller on the front of the PC, I've found that the two fans on the front of the case make a odd sound, and the central axis seems to move. Clip of the sound;

http://soundcloud.com/lc485/case-fans

I'd rather have them on, (I'm assuming they are helping heatflow) but the noise is really annoying, and I already know what the other half is going to think of the noise (it's setup in our bedroom...)

Any help is much appreciated.

[smargh]

Which fan controller? Was this recorded with the controller set to low speed?

To me this sounds like a low-quality fan running at less than 12v.

[Lee`]

It is a Zalman ZM-MFC1 plus;

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=BB-001-ZA

It was set to the lowest speed, and then at about 7s in you can hear the fans getting louder as the speed is increased.

[chuckskull]

Sounds like the bearing is knackered, can happen in the post if it had a knock, or it's just worn with time.

I can only hear one problem though, so I think you might have one duff and one ok. If they're both making the exact same noise, in the exact same rhythm, then I'd change my answer to some kind of fan controller problem. Easy to rule out, just connect them to the mobo or molex.

Quickedit: Look at you rig you can probably survive with them off, so long as they aren't your only case fans. you'll want at least one moving air in/out ideally.

[Lee`]

Good job hearing that. Turning them both on independently I can hear them both making the same noise. Wouldn't surprise me if it took a knock in the post, tbh, there was no padding at all in the box! I'll try connecting to the mobo instead, and see if that helps. Considering the price of fans I'll probably just replace them.

Also, I am planning on replacing the graphics card, with a GTX 4XX, so I can play a few games. Currently there is three other fans, top, side and back. And the two that are noisy are on the front of the case.

Cheers for the advice!

[Ragga]

If its possible i guess you could remove all un nessasary fans from your system, i have an antec 902 with no front or rear fan just passive and top

[Pob255]

Could well be bad bearings, or it could be a damaged blade or something else.
Start off strip it down, get the fans out and check them, look for any damage or obvious things that could be causing the sound.
See is the blades turn smoothly, hook them up to a psu and jump start it with a paper clip, so you can check the fan's on their own.

[Lee`]

They look like cheap fans so I'm going to replace them, and as I have a single SSD, I suspect I can get away without the two front fans just now.

On the making it quieter in general front, I've went into the bios and turned the fan speed to minimal for all of them, and the whole machine is much quieter. But I can still hear it, and it still has the stock intel CPU cooler so I suspect this is the next thing to be replaced.

[Lee`]

Development, I bought 3 120 Nexus fans. But the front fans were attached using rubber gromets and the gromets won't fit in the new fans, so ended up replacing one of the fans at the rear with the nexus, taking out the 2 fans at the front that were causing problems, and replacing the front fans with one of the Nexus fans and the old rear fan that wasn't too noisy into the front of the case. (Bit of a ball ache but didn't take too long). I also removed a small fan that was sat on a heatsink for the motherboard, as it was the loudest fan in the case and it seemed utterly pointless...(waits for BOSD)... phew!

Result, it's much better now;

https://soundcloud.com/lc485/new-case-fans

My next step was going to be to replace the stock intel cooler to aim for complete silence, but after reading the below review;

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/coolin...-test/?page=12

It seems the stock cooler, means the CPU runs a little hotter, but it wouldn't actually make much difference in noise. I could replace it with a fan less solution;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Xigmatek-T...d=478248571639

But it's quite a large beast for my antec 300 case.

[chuckskull]

Night and day improvement already.

You won't need that little fan unless your mobo is under big strain, multi-gpu & big overclock etc

Stock coolers nowadays aren't to bad, not like the bad old days when the first job in any new build was throwing it as far as you could. Helped of course by lower TDP's but I reckon you'll see a nice improvement with an aftermarket cooler. CPU coolers seems to be more a case of noise vs temp rather than all out performance nowadays, I could get my overclock on a stock cooler I reckon, it would just be louder. I'd chuck a nexus fan or 2 on a xigmatech or similar, will give a smoother noise profile so it should be less noticeable even if it's not a drop in actual DB. If you're not overclocking then just one running at min speed will probably do. Fanless might work, but I've not done it so can't give you much advice there.

If you're going for silence, a HR-03 or similar on the 8600 might be an idea, the nvidia stock cooler wasn't great, assuming it's stock.

[ik9000]

and there I was thinking this would be a thread poking fun at regional dialects of football supporters....

I've found bitfenix case fans to be very good and really quiet (and to say they are at the cheaper end of the price range that is really quite handy)

[Lee`]

Update: got myself a new GPU, MSI GTX 470 (£50 if you interested). I'm going to see if it adds much noise to the system and then consider an after market cooler, but I'm hoping that it won't require it.

I suspect that if this doesn't add too much noise, this will be my last purchase for a little while. The gf is starting to notice all the time, money and work I've been spending on my computer...

[chuckskull]

4xx coolers aren't terrible, quiet enough at idle. Do start making some noise when they get warm though.