Silent fan advice

BluD · 9 May 2016 at 17:14

Yeah i think passive is fine for browsing watching movies etc but i wouldnt want it for heavy load as you would be limited.

doyll · 9 May 2016 at 17:55

BluD said:
What 360 rads you using doyll? Mine are the older ones that do have a small gap between the fans than needs sealing but it does give you a little more rad space, im getting more like 450cm rather than 300, do yours have big overhangs either end or summat?

Sorry, I missed your question. I'm using all air cooling now. I was seriously into water many years ago for many years, started when 'state of the art' was car radiators and aquarium / pond pumps.

I've thought about dabbling with it again, but the cost of good components is crazy. Radiator is one of the cheaper parts now. Pumps, GPU waterblocks, etc are mind-boggling, and I'm not even going to go near what fittings cost these days. :eek:

Quartz · 9 May 2016 at 18:05

doyll said:
Please elaborate. It sounds like you are talking passive case and CPU?

Yes. Take a Silverstone FT02 or FT05 case, a Nofan CR-95 CPU cooler, a CPU with a TDP of under 95W and you're good to go. You can get fanless PSUs up to 520W. And the only fan you need is the one on the GPU. You can forget overclocking, of course.

Quartz · 9 May 2016 at 18:06

BluD said:
Yeah i think passive is fine for browsing watching movies etc but i wouldnt want it for heavy load as you would be limited.

I never found this. Of course, my GPU wasn't passive.

doyll · 9 May 2016 at 19:32

Quartz said:
Yes. Take a Silverstone FT02 or FT05 case, a Nofan CR-95 CPU cooler, a CPU with a TDP of under 95W and you're good to go. You can get fanless PSUs up to 520W. And the only fan you need is the one on the GPU. You can forget overclocking, of course.

You can save a bundle and use any of several big air coolers instead of the Nofan CR-95. The only time the CR-95 out-performs big air passively is with big air setting with fins flat .. desk top case design. In a bottom to top Silverstone case with fins vertical they make nice mini-chimneys.

Personally I would go with something like the be quiet! PSUs. Their fans spin so slowly you can count the revolution and they are silent. I had a Gigabyte HD5770 Silent Cell passive GPU about 5 ago that gamed quite well all things considered.
Another option is to use a CPU cooler on the GPU.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZo...nnotation_id=annotation_3232083531&feature=iv

Quartz · 9 May 2016 at 22:53

doyll said:
You can save a bundle and use any of several big air coolers instead of the Nofan CR-95.

You're missing the point of the CR-95: it's not about processor speed but about noise. Big air fans make noise, and I can tell you that while they may initially seem to be silent, if you're in a quiet room after a time the noise becomes quite audible. The CR-95 doesn't make any noise.

Yes, silence costs. But for some people it's worth it.

BluD · 9 May 2016 at 23:33

You can have the best of both with a big water loop, ya just tell all your fans to stay turned off till your GPU reached 50 degrees, the evga PSUs dont turn the fans on untill they reach 50 either, so unless you start gaming you have no fans on, then when you do wanna game ya still have the cooling available. Not cheap also though

Telecaster · 9 May 2016 at 23:49

Quartz said:
You're missing the point of the CR-95: it's not about processor speed but about noise. Big air fans make noise, and I can tell you that while they may initially seem to be silent, if you're in a quiet room after a time the noise becomes quite audible. The CR-95 doesn't make any noise.

Yes, silence costs. But for some people it's worth it.

I think he meant that any of the big air coolers minus their fans are better VFM than the CR-95.

I use a Heligon HE02 this way.

doyll · 10 May 2016 at 08:29

Quartz said:
You're missing the point of the CR-95: it's not about processor speed but about noise. Big air fans make noise, and I can tell you that while they may initially seem to be silent, if you're in a quiet room after a time the noise becomes quite audible. The CR-95 doesn't make any noise.

Yes, silence costs. But for some people it's worth it.

I said "only time the CR-95 out-performs big air passively is with big air setting with fins flat" Passively is without fans.

BluD said:
You can have the best of both with a big water loop, ya just tell all your fans to stay turned off till your GPU reached 50 degrees, the evga PSUs dont turn the fans on untill they reach 50 either, so unless you start gaming you have no fans on, then when you do wanna game ya still have the cooling available. Not cheap also though

Indeed! Big water loop makes huge hole in pocketbook.

Telecaster said:
I think he meant that any of the big air coolers minus their fans are better VFM than the CR-95.

I use a Heligon HE02 this way.

HE02 is good. So are Thermalright HR-22, Le Grand Macho and Macho. but even top tier twin towers and flat single towers like PH-TC14PE, NH-D14, Silver Arrrows, Cryorig, etc. The only limitation is the fins need to be in a vertical orientation to create thermal airflow. In the video I posted above (@ 2:54) I think the CPU is under a Thermalrgiht Ultra Extreme and he's running If they are horizontal there is little air movement through the fins. In this case he is using a couple TY-140 fans in the bottom. They idle at about 500rpm PWM on 12v. The newer TY-147A idle at about 300rpm or slightly lower (mine bottom out about 275rpm).

Here is a video of "Cloud Unit" noise comparisons. Jump to 5:40 to listen to heartbeat compared to computer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3_..._id=annotation_2072826647&src_vid=RZoX7glIAS4

SimonTEHG33K · 10 May 2016 at 11:53

I have a mix and match in my machine, it's in a Corsair 400R so it's a small form factor with a lot of hardware to cool down, i tend the let the mobo sort the fans out personally. It can get a little noisey but it's not that bad in the long run, even if you have headphones on - I'd rather things be running perfectly with a bit of noise then hardware clocking themselves down due to poor heat displacement. It's a tricky area to talk about. unfortunately, we can't have both silent and super duper air pushing fans without expecting a bit of noise from them (not without spending stupid amounts of £££)

doyll · 10 May 2016 at 12:23

SimonTEHG33K said:
I have a mix and match in my machine, it's in a Corsair 400R so it's a small form factor with a lot of hardware to cool down, i tend the let the mobo sort the fans out personally. It can get a little noisey but it's not that bad in the long run, even if you have headphones on - I'd rather things be running perfectly with a bit of noise then hardware clocking themselves down due to poor heat displacement. It's a tricky area to talk about. unfortunately, we can't have both silent and super duper air pushing fans without expecting a bit of noise from them (not without spending stupid amounts of £££)

I guess it depends on definitions. Like what is 'stupid amounts of £££' and 'a little noisy' ? All of my my systems use CPU coolers that cost £35-65.00, cases that cost £60-200.00 new with stock fans and maybe a few added fans costing £4-15.00 each. While one of my systems uses aquaero 5 LT fan controller, all others like yours use motherboard control, some direct header to fan and some using PWM splitters with PSU powr or Phanteks PWM controlled variable voltage hubs costing £6-15.00 each. All of these systems are quieter then ambient noise level 99% of the time, and when under extreme load are still so quiet they do not interfere with radio or TV.

400R does not have great airflow, but it's not as bad as some. I would think set up properly it would be quiet even with heavy loads, depending on components are being used.

Shingyboy · 10 May 2016 at 12:48

Are fan controllers worth it at all?

doyll · 10 May 2016 at 13:08

It depends on how many fans, what controls motherboard has, etc. It seems most modern motherboards have all the fan control we need and if we need to use several fans on same control it can be done with hubs and splitter with ease.

This is a little old, but might help.

Controlling case fans with PWM signal from motherboard CPU fan header and GPU fan header.

There are some limitations:

Obviously motherboard and GPU must have PWM

Obviously fans must be PWM

Motherboard can only support 8-9 fans (PWM signal strength gets too weak)

No idea how many fans GPU can support.

Setting up motherboard PWM control of PWM case fans:

Use a PWM splitter with molex/sata connector. Gelid and Swiftech are my preferred.

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=17923

http://www.swiftech.com/8-waypwmsplitter.aspx

Plug PWM splitter to motherboard CPU fan header and PSU

Use CPU cooler fan as "master" fan. This is the fan that sends rpm signal to motherboard PWM header.

Additional CPU cooler fans and case fans will ramp u and down with CPU fan.

Can use a second PWM splitter on 3-way & 4-way PWM splitter.

Setup fan speed curve with motherboard bios or software. Gigabyte has EasyTune 6 and Asus has SmartFan. I set minimum at 30% fan @ 30c and maximum at 100% @ 65c. Than watch temps and see if you want more or less rpm to keep temperature and noise where you want them. My sig rig idles 24-29c @ 700rpm; 100% all cores is 42-48c :950-1050rpm.

Setting up GPU PWM control of case fans:

Obviously GPU fans need to be PWM. Because the GPU PWM header/plug is smaller than normal PWM we need a Mini 4-Pin GPU (Female) to Mini 4-Pin GPU (Male) / 4-Pin Fan (Male) Cable Splitter Adapter is needed-. The blue wire going to normal PWM socket needs to be cut off of mini PWM plug. (You can use this wire to monitor rpm on case fan by connecting it to a normal 3pin fan plug in the rpm position.) Plug a PWM splitter into the normal PWM socket and PSU for case fans.

http://www.moddiy.com/products/Mini-4-Pin-GPU-(Female)-to-Mini-4-Pin-GPU-(Male)-{47}-4%2dPin-Fan-(Male)-Cable-Splitter.html

Case fans hooked onto this splitter will ramp up and down with GPU fans.

Use GPU software or Bios to setup fan speed curve

Quartz · 10 May 2016 at 14:35

Telecaster said:
I think he meant that any of the big air coolers minus their fans are better VFM than the CR-95.

I use a Heligon HE02 this way.

With no fans at all (other than the GPU) in the case?

Telecaster · 10 May 2016 at 17:56

Quartz said:
With no fans at all (other than the GPU) in the case?

I have some fitted that are set with speedfan to come on in case of emergencies ( I was too paranoid to build it without) and they've been on about twice I think and that was when stressing my CPU under volt with an unrealistic load, even then they come on at 300RPM (Thermalright TY147a) to just move some air around. CPU idles at 25-30c depending on room temp, and during normal usage like gaming I couldn't get it to go over 55c with a room temp of 23c.

But yes, in answer to your question the only fans running in general use in my system are those on the Strix 980ti, and even they don't come on until 60c degrees, which is only reached when I game. PSU is the fanless Silent Flower 500W.

doyll · 10 May 2016 at 18:04

TY-147A are fantastic, (no pun)! I use a lot of them. Thermalright has made some square ones one. TY-147A Sq. I've used a couple and they are same as TY-147A in a square housing. Absolutely great!

faxfan · 10 May 2016 at 18:58

I've tried all sorts of fans but keep going back to my Scythe Gentle Typhoons....

BluD · 10 May 2016 at 19:02

I just got a load of them second hand, theyre amazing.....why on earth did they stop been made?

Telecaster · 10 May 2016 at 19:47

doyll said:
TY-147A are fantastic, (no pun)! I use a lot of them. Thermalright has made some square ones one. TY-147A Sq. I've used a couple and they are same as TY-147A in a square housing. Absolutely great!

Yes, I wait until the price drops to under £5 on Amazon and pick up a couple just so as I always have some.

Easily the best fans I've used.

Telecaster · 10 May 2016 at 19:50

doyll said:
TY-147A are fantastic, (no pun)! I use a lot of them. Thermalright has made some square ones one. TY-147A Sq. I've used a couple and they are same as TY-147A in a square housing. Absolutely great!

Are you UK based? only I struggle to find Thermalright stuff, I did have a moment of madness and ordered a HR-22 a while back but they just cancelled the order after a few weeks because they couldn't get one.