How To Mount Case Fans Cheaply

[amjedm]

Hot on the heels of the thread in the Graphics sub forum on how to cool a graphics card cheaply, I thought I'd share my idea on how to mount case fans on the cheap and cut out vibrations.

White Tack is available from Poundland and (I think) 99p stores. As stated in the other thread, IMO the White Tack is much better than the Blu Tack as it doesn't dry up as much and is much softer to be begin with.

Put a block of the tack on each corner of the fan and press the fan against the case as much as you can. Then feed a cable tie through a couple of the fan holes and use some more tack on the other end (I don't seal the cable tie with another one). See pic below



The above method I've been using for 1-2 years, without any problems (thank God).

Why use expensive fan mounts when the above will cost about a £1 (assuming you have cable ties).

[ScottY_]

Why use expensive fan mounts when the above will cost about a £1 (assuming you have cable ties).

Looks much nicer

But it's a inexpensive and quick way to mount fans.

[staffsMike]

I've amounted a healthy amount of fan mounts over the last year. Got enough for another case at least lol.

I like the white tac idea though.

[Ciber]

I'd be worried about the fan potentially falling off inside the case and possibly jamming a fan on say the graphics card. The sharkoon fan I bought came with rubber mounting bolts included, much better.

[LegacyOne]

Why not get two long cable tie (or 4 small & connect 2) and loop it through the case & fan than back out through the fan & case then tie both ends up?

[Bhuvsta]

You could buy some rubber washers and slip those in.

[Pob255]

Well as I said in that other thread, Hair band (also called hair elastics)
Cut them in half and tie them through, the elastic in them can soak up vibrations unlike a cable tie.
On my case with some rather vibration prone Xcilo fans I found that I can arrange the elastic so there's about 1-2mm gap between the case and the fan so that the fan is not touching the case at all.

One other idea to consider is a hot glue gun, granted it'll perminately fix the fan in place but the rubberyness of the glue once cooled does help reduce some vibrations.

Although from my experience with fans so far the best advice is buy better fans.
My Xcilo fans has badly ballanced blades which cause the vibration which is transfured into the light weight frame.
If you hold it in your hand it's quiet but you can feel the vibration, stand in on something smooth and hard (eg the case top) and you can hear the differnce.
Compair that to my S-Flex, the frame is far more solid and heavy. there's no noticeable vibrations when held in my hand or differnce in sound level when placed on top of my case.

Standing a fan on top of a case is a good way to check vibrations, esp a cheap case as the metal is thiner and will resonate better

EDIT: one other thing I've found usefull in the past, I got a load of foam rubber speaker feet from work (the speakers come with stick on foam rubber feet but we wall mount them so the feet are not used) the ones I have are about 2 inches in diameter cut into quarters they fit nicely on the 4 coreners of a fan, add some rubber washers to the other side (or a 2nd foot cut up) and it works quite well.
This is what I used to do with 80mm fans on my old case which worked well, however when I tried it with the supervibratory xcilo fans but it wasn't enough

[amjedm]

Looks much nicer

Ok, to make it look better, get some Black Tack , not sure if it exists though!

I'd be worried about the fan potentially falling off inside the case and possibly jamming a fan on say the graphics card. The sharkoon fan I bought came with rubber mounting bolts included, much better.

I've been using it for 1-2 years and if you do it properly, not much chance of it falling off . I've also got some Sharkoon fan mounts but prefer this method.

Why not get two long cable tie (or 4 small & connect 2) and loop it through the case & fan than back out through the fan & case then tie both ends up?

With the method I use, you don't end up wasting any cable ties, you can re-use them.

Although from my experience with fans so far the best advice is buy better fans.

I've tried a fair few fans and believe the ones I currently use are some of the best (Nexus, Sharkoon Silent Eagles, Coolermaster 80mm Blue LED, GlobalWin NCB, NorthQ NCB).

[s3ds]

i just got some of these

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

they came with rubber mounts

[amjedm]

i just got some of these

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

they came with rubber mounts

I'm using a couple of those at the moment. One in a Seasonic Tornado PSU and the other as a exhaust fan in a P180.

I'm not using the rubber mounts with the exhaust fan as you've guessed

[s3ds]

i got 3 for my server that was sounding loud i didnt know they had the rubber mounts when i ordered