A couple of questions about fans and db...

epoxy5

epoxy5

epoxy5

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30 Jun 2004
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247
Hello all...

Getting a little tired of all the humming and noise coming from my Thermaltake Tsunami case, so I started to examin what made all the noise, and to my surprise the front and rear 120mm case fans were to blame. When I bought it, the add said with "silent" front and rear fans, so I never thought they were to blame...

But I can see that they are both 22db each, I have found some rather expensive 11db 120mm fans - would that make a LOT of difference in terms of noise?

The fan on my Asus 6800gt also makes some noise, allthough not so irritating as the casefans, how are normal/stock fans on those Nvidia boards rated in terms of db? - what is the best fan solution for such cards?

Thanks in advance :)
 
11db isn't half the noise of 22, its actually a LOT more quiet than a half. Maybe 1/4 as loud.

But you need to see how much air it pushes (CFM rating) as the way they get around noise is often to just slow it down, or give it less air resistence, and therefore pushing less air.

Akasa ambers are great, as are silenx.
 
The CFM is similar to the Akasa Ambers and unless you are a complete silence freak or don't mind spending twice the price I'd get the Akasa Ambers.
 
Ahh ok.. I can see the Ambers are 18db, is that also a big step down compared to 22db?
I am not sure if I am a silence freak, but those two 22db Tsunami fans are VERY annoying.
 
You can always get a HDD case...
I personally use SilenX fans at 5V, and have a Seagate Barracuda. Have a XP-120 on the CPU and a V-700Cu at 5V on the GPU.
The power supply is a Thermaltake SmartFan, on a fan controller, and the Northbridge is passive.
I bought a very quiet DVD Writer.
HOWEVER

Despite all this, my computer still makes noise. It's a whoosy noise, the air moving through the case, and I'm stuck with that.

It really is a battle you'll never win.
 
Decibels are a log10 scale. Every 10 extra dbA doubles the sound level.

1 Decibel is very quiet
10 Decibels is twice as noisy
20 Decibels is twice as noisy again.
30 Decibels is twice as noisy again.

>100 Decibels for more than 1 hour is likely to result in some hearing damage.
 
epoxy5 said:
Hello all...

Getting a little tired of all the humming and noise coming from my Thermaltake Tsunami case, so I started to examin what made all the noise, and to my surprise the front and rear 120mm case fans were to blame. When I bought it, the add said with "silent" front and rear fans, so I never thought they were to blame...

But I can see that they are both 22db each, I have found some rather expensive 11db 120mm fans - would that make a LOT of difference in terms of noise?

The fan on my Asus 6800gt also makes some noise, allthough not so irritating as the casefans, how are normal/stock fans on those Nvidia boards rated in terms of db? - what is the best fan solution for such cards?

Thanks in advance :)
Click to expand...

Mines exactly the same mate,drives me nuts,i disconnected them once to see and boy it was heaven,but temps went up as expected,so i was gonna start a thread to see if i could just half the volts getting to them to slow them down,just need to know where and how to do it in bios.
If that doesnt work or temps go up to much i will just have to buy qiueter fans i guess.
 
WJA96 said:
Decibels are a log10 scale. Every 10 extra dbA doubles the sound level.

1 Decibel is very quiet
10 Decibels is twice as noisy
20 Decibels is twice as noisy again.
30 Decibels is twice as noisy again.

>100 Decibels for more than 1 hour is likely to result in some hearing damage.
Click to expand...
You are right about the 10log thing but the correct furmula for doubling sound is: N = 10 log(2) = 3.013dB up re. 1mPa

So for every 3db increase the sound is doubled, therefore an increase from 10db to 20db wouldn't be twice as loud, it would be:

13db = twice as loud as 10db
16db = twice as loud as 13db
19db = twice as loud as 16db

so at 19db it would actually be about 8 times as loud as 10db
 
Considered a fan controller? Potentially less expensive than replacing the fans and you can always turn them back up if you find the lack of airflow gives you problems.
 
Don't discount nexus fans either, whilst the new strain of Silent X Fans are very good (i've 1 120mm one) I've just picked up a nexus and it's very silent indeed and also cheaper than the silent x ones. Ambers also seem very good.
 
Ambers are very good especially at 5v, ive never tried the nexus or silentx fans though. If anyone has both the akasa amber and the silentx and could say which is quieter that would be good, and is the silentx blue led fan really 14db?.

Mark
 
Teggs - My technology of music course i took a little while back didn't give the formaula for working out sound volumes, but it said for our workings that a 6db increase is a doubling of volume. Is my course worthless?
 
As i understand it 3db is double the sound pressure, but that doesn't mean we perceive it as double the volume. It is more like 10db increase for a perceived doubling in volume.

Epoxy5 ... I'd suggest first trying 7 or even 5 volting your existing fans. That may be enough on its own to bring the noise down to an acceptable level for you.

For my htpc I'm looking for extreme low noise levels - which means only one option fan wise IMO - the nexus 120mm. I currently have mine 7volted, but have built myself a fan controller that gives it a 2second blast of 12volts on boot up to get the thing spinning, then it switches to 5volts (ensuring that it starts up reliably at such low voltage). I doubt you'll need to go to such extremes though :)

Marc
 
For the 6800GT get a Zalman cooler. They are totally silent even under heavy load. Think the Nvidia one is 39db @ full load. Mine used to only ever get to 55c max so you also get another -20c temps over the std cooler.

As for the case fans sometimes the airflow can also add to the noise as the fans suck it through the case grills and this can cause even more noise depending on how powerful the fans are & how many holes in the grill.

I have 5x Asaka Amber in mine and the 80mm are definately silent on full power. The 92 & 120 are not silent though unless you use a Zalman fanmate or casefan controller to turn the volts down a little.

Also ensure your PSU+CPU are silent or very low noise as anytime you reduce the noise from fans you will always notice the next loudest device until they are all either silent or nearly silent. This is something which can cost a lot of money as well. I ended up spending over £300 with OCUK to get a very low noise case (Passive silent PSU, lots of silent fans, XP90C HSF etc etc).

http://www.silentpcreview.com/index.php

Is a very good starting point on the long road to silence.
 
Soul Rider said:
Teggs - My technology of music course i took a little while back didn't give the formaula for working out sound volumes, but it said for our workings that a 6db increase is a doubling of volume. Is my course worthless?
Click to expand...
lol, is that a rhetorical question?

okay to put things right i got this link : http://www.answers.com/topic/decibel

to save you reading everything i've taken out the approipriate snippet:
On this scale, the normal range of human hearing extends from about 0 dB to about 140 dB. 0 dB is the threshold of hearing in healthy, undamaged human ears; 0 dB is not an absence of sound, and it is possible for people with exceptionally good hearing to hear sounds at −10 dB. A 3 dB increase in the level of continuous noise doubles the sound power, however experimentation has determined that the frequency response of the human ear results in a perceived doubling of loudness with every 10 dB increase; a 5 dB increase is a readily noticeable change, while a 3 dB increase is barely noticeable to most people.

so my claim of noise doubling every 3db is kind of right/wrong lol i.e. "A 3 dB increase in the level of continuous noise doubles the sound power"

and the guy who said 10db and yourself saying 6db is also kind of right i.e."however experimentation has determined that the frequency response of the human ear results in a perceived doubling of loudness with every 10 dB increase"

so it depends how good your hearing is!! :)

and i should have checked it out before posting!! :o


edit: i just read marc's post and he says exactly what i just wrote!! :o
 
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