Best silent 120 and 80mm fans?

Caporegime
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Hey I'm thinking of modding my case (ancient xaser 3) to have a 120 mm side fan (maybe 2) and a 120 blowhole.

Mainly because I can't use the side 80mm fans because the bracket wont fit with the cpu cooler but should be ok if they're straight onto the case.

ATM the thermaltake fans are quite noisy and want something nice and quiet, airflow doesn't have to be massive.

Currently looking at Scythe Gentle Typhoons for the 120mm fans and akasa ambers for the 80 (used to have a 120 one and know they're quite silent).


But if anyone knows any better ones :p

What are the 140 mm ones like?

Was thinking of using one for the side panel they any good?

And do you know of any fan-filter/cover I could use to cover a 140mm hole?

Also anyone know a good fancontroler?

possibly 5-6 fans?
 
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Gentle typhoons are high pressure fans, somewhat wasted on what you're asking of them. Almost any fan is capable of acting as a good case fan, what're the thermaltake ones like at 7V (just need to pull two pins out of a molex plug and swap them around)?

If budget isn't too much of an issue I suggest the 1600rpm scythe s-flex running at 7V. I'm pretty anal about silence and use these on radiators. The 1200rpm ones at 7V will be quieter, but I'm reluctant to recommend them as I have no personal experience of them.

A side intake is rarely the way to go with cases, it messes up the front to back airflow and provides another hole for noise to escape through. A blowhole, especially near the back, is a good thing for cooling. I'd want to couple it with a front intake though, say a 120mm fan mounted in some optical bays, rather than use the side as an intake.

140mm fans have potential to be better than 120mm fans, but they're newer, harder to make and fewer designs are available. In a few years they may well have replaced 120mm, but probably too early to adopt them now. Imo of course.

Tights make an excellent dust filter. Can't help on fan controller I'm afraid, I run mine at 7V by default and turn them off through software when appropriate. A tidy solution is to only use pwm fans and run them all from the cpu header using the akasa adapter, this draws power from a molex so doesn't kill the board, and every fan then spins up/down with cpu temperature. Between this, undervolting (7 & 5V are ridiculously accessible) and software control, I don't really see the appeal to having a manual controller.
 
Ah ok on the typhoons.

The scythe seems a bit pricey, but there's only really going to be 1-2 120mm fans as the case is all 92mm by default


The thermaltake fans are really old and the bearings are ****ed and every so often decide to rattle to hell :p.

The side one i was thinking of using as an exhaust because the gfx card cooler doesn't really vent out the back but more straight out the sides back into the case.

Yeah manually undervolting might be the way to go.


The front intake's are crappy on this so yeah I might remove the built-in (and seemingly useless/broken fan controller and move the dvd drive up there and use the rest of the bays for a 120 fan.
 
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Ah. When the fan bearings are gone, it's probably time to make shrouds out of them.

Exhaust makes more sense than intake, but have you looked at the pci slot coolers as an alternative? You'd want to undervolt them, but I've got a few of the £3 akasa ones and they work astonishingly well. I think a 120mm exhaust in the bottom left corner would work better, but I'm not sure. Is the psu at the top or bottom of your case?

Loads of options for manually undervolting. if the fan is molex or uses a 3 pin to molex adapter 5 or 7V are immediately available. Or you can buy a (variable or normal) resistor with 3 pin male/female soldered on. Or solder any number of diodes/resistors you like inline. Or the really easy option:
25r1frp.jpg

Costs about a tenner, first competitor I found calls it "InLine Multi Power Fan Port". It's just the standard molex mod, but prettier. I quite like it :)
 
PSU is at the top, and there's plenty of space below the card for a 120 mm exhaust.

Never thought of a pci cooler are they very noisy?
 
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Top psu is a good thing, but does mean an exhaust at the base is likely to help deal with the graphics card. The exhaust fans I've got are loud but a pleasant whooshing noise, and likely much improved by undervolting them. Given I bought the absolute cheapest ones I could find I suspect the more expensive ones to be superior in build quality and noise. Probably only cost a quid or so to post you one 2nd class if you're not in any particular hurry.

It's tidier than anything I could make too, but sadly doesn't let you switch between them without unplugging things. I'm torn between getting one of those and a terrible mass of solder with switches involved.

Only 80mm fans I've got are zalmans from here. They came with a resistor and some really crap rubber pins, can't say I'd recommend them. The resistors are certainly useful, but the fan is pretty rubbish.
 
Noctua for both if cost is not an issue and you don't mind their strange choice in colour.

Really are light years better than the Ambers, especially where noise is concerned.

As for fan controller, the Zalman MFC are very very nice, and give controls for 6 fans.
 
Yeah these fans are whiny/rattly atm so anything is an improvement :p


Probably only cost a quid or so to post you one 2nd class if you're not in any particular hurry.

Yeah great mate send am email to my trust please

Thanks for all the help :)

Just remembered where I recognised your name from

Did you ever Get l4d1 or 2 or cs:s in the end?

If you did add me on steam mate :)
 
Update for anyone who cares:p

went for some Sharkoon Silent Eagle 2000 80mm fans.

Because they were half the price and claimed the about the same db and cfm as the Noctua's.

Used that multi fan adapter that JonJ678 posted and have 4 on 5v and the two front intakes on 7v case the case really blocks them.


I can say they are very good at 5v they are completely silent, at 7 very faint hum that can only really be heard with the side panel off, at 12v they are noticeable with a bit of a high pitched hum.


Never realised how noisy my CPU fan was :o

Think I'm going to replace that soon :)



Thanks for all the help especially JonJ678 :)
 
get some Coolink
SWiF2-12P or Coolink SWiF2-12

the P is the faster model which is slightly louder but pushes a lot more air

pretty awesome looking fans, and from reviews pushes about 10cfm more than xilent redwings and are only a few DB louder


wish OCUK would get some of these in :/
 
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