After a coupe of good 140mm case fans

[strumpusplunket]

I want to add two 140mm front intakes to my Enthoo Pro M case to go with the single 140mm rear exhaust it already has.

I'm looking for PWM controlled fans that can spin down to quiet levels at idle but move some serious air when turned up. I'm not too bothered if they're a bit noisy at load so long as they're nice and quiet when my system is idle and doesn't need the airflow.

I was initially looking at the Corsair ML140s. At £30 for a pair they're not the cheapest, but not too expensive. Then I saw that the new Cryorig QF140 is slated to move more air at load (128 vs 97 cfm). I don't know if that's a reliable figure or just marketing guff akin to stated contrast ratios on monitors?

I had them in my basket here, but then I saw a couple of comments on review sites that the cables are very short, which would be a pain and would require me to buy extensions as well.

Then there's the Noctua AF14 Industrial, which goes up to a whopping 3000rpm. Surely very noisy at load, it seems they have a minimum speed of 2000rpm, which is not going to be very quiet.

I also looked at the Arctic Cooling P14 PWM fans, but there seems to be some inconsistency about the max speed of these - some places it say max of 1350rpm, others 1700rpm. I'd not want one of the slower ones if there are two versions. These are really cheap, though!

Any reason to prefer one over the other of these? Any other recommendations?

 

[strumpusplunket]

Have seen artic cooling fans mentioned
Are those the ones you can daisy chain?
Seen them recommended as cheap and quiet

Yeah, I think they are. I'm sure I've had people recommend them too. They're so cheap, though! Almost seems they can't be that good at the price!

Phanteks PH-F140MP are quite good and 2-pack is only £16.26. Assuming your Entho Pro M is not too old exhaust fan is probably same impeller with variable voltag motor. if older it's PH-F140SP. Not as good but still good fan.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/two-...140mm-fan-radiator-performance-bu-003-pt.html

In my Pro M I removed all PCIe back slot covers to improve vent area around GPU and use 2x PH-F140MP front intakes with all other opening in front fan mounting panel blocked off so air can't leak back up front. I don't have any other fans, no exhaust fans. Have built 20+ systems this way over they years with great cooling results.

Cheers.

My case is 18 months old, but I've not checked the fan model. I did look at the PH-F140MPs, but the state airflow is a lot lower than the others. As I say, I have no idea where you can set any stock by the quoted airflow figures or not, though, in all honesty. It seems they have a narrower rpm range than the AC P14s too.

 

[strumpusplunket]

Nice price for those phanteks thanks for that
Didn't recommend phanteks as thought would be more expensive

Oh wait - I somehow completely missed that that price was for a pair of Phanteks fans!!

That changes things somewhat!

 

[strumpusplunket]

Very good price
And guessing he mentioned those as static pressure in front fans can be more useful than just airflow
As usually there's stuff behind front fans impedes airflow

Yes, I can see that. In my case there isn't anything behind the front intakes, but they do have to draw air through the mesh and dust filters, which might be a bit restrictive of airflow too, I guess.

 

[strumpusplunket]

CoolingTechnique tested PH-F140MP (same fan as PH-F140HP II on coolers). You can see their pressure rating is much higher than NF-A15 at same rpm, and this translated into being able to overcome airflow resistance thus giving much better airflow. Keep in mind CFM rating is free airflow, no resistance .. and mmH2O is how much pressure fan can build when mounted to a sealed container. Neither gives us any idea how much air they will flow in our uses, but when we combine them we can get at least a little idea of how they will perform.

Thanks, that's very interesting. I think that has swung it for me!

Thanks for your input!

 

[strumpusplunket]

Well, it's a bit late now, unfortunately (or fortunately, who knows?). I got my dispatch notice this morning for the Phanteks fans.

Having two intakes and one exhaust, hopefully the high static pressure of these fans will help with case cooling. I don't know if postive pressure actually makes a real difference, but I have seen it recommended a lot over the years. Things are a bit toasty with just the single exhaust fan, anyway.

I'll be doing a new build for my eldest on his birthday in a couple of months so I might the P14s then and compare for myself.

 

[strumpusplunket]

The fans arrived today and I've just installed them.

My existing exhaust fan was a three-pin, so no PWM on that, and it looks like it tops out at 1250rpm. So I shifted that fan to the uppper front and put my new PH-F140MPs in the exhaust and lower front slot.

First thing I noticed was more noise. Well, duh - I just tripled the number of case fans! It hasn't made much of a noticable difference with temperatures, though. Airflow has definitely improved, and it now feels like the air blowing from the exhaust fan is cool rather than warm. But running OCCT CPU test, my CPU temp dropped by one degree! Okay, this may be due to the stock cooler just not being able to dissipate enough heat so I wasn't overly surprised by that. My motherboard temperature in HWinfo only dropped by one degree as well, though. I was hoping for better, tbh.

New CPU cooler next, clearly. And I need to set a BIOS fans profile to quieten it down at idle.

 

[strumpusplunket]

Guess you still had reasonable air flow before after all
But yes not going to really affect cpu temp much if you weren't lacking air flow to a bad degree before
Or as you say you are already near enough as cool as stock cooler can do
And may depend where on the board temp sensor is for motherboard temp

Yeah, possibly so!

I can tell the air coming out the back is a lot cooler, but I guess the problems are with heat dissipating away from components probably due to poor heatsinks (I am not a fan of the plastic shrouds a lot of manufactures use on their motherboards these days) rather the case air actually being too hot.

Incidentally, what's the best way to set fan profiles these days? I've not done it since Speedfan was the go-to app. Is this best done in the BIOS? Ryzen Master? Another app? It would be good to quieten things down until the CPU actually gets decently hot.

EDIT: Nvm. I was being lazy (again!). After posting I decided to just got into the BIOS and set a fan profile. Ahhh. blissful quiet now when on the desktop.

 

[strumpusplunket]

After a bit more monitoring, one thing I've noticed that's really pleased me is that, whilst load temperatures haven't fallen markedly, the idle temperatures of my CPU and motherboard have come down - even when the fans are spinning more slowly.

I'm now using the PC with Chrome and Word open, with idle temperatures (slightly) lower than they were before but with the case fans now all but inaudible at 550rpm. All I can hear is the whir of the CPU fan (which makes me want to grab a better CPU cooler, of course...)

 

[strumpusplunket]

Just to clarify, you got PH-F140MP fans? And after adjusting temp/rpm profile system is running cooler and quieter than before?

What case, motherboard, RAM and CPU cooler do you now have?

Yep, got two of them, put one in exhaust, one lower front intake and moved existing three-pin exhaust to upper front intake.

It's only quieter because I actually bothered going into the BIOS and setting up a fan profile since without it the sound of the three case fans was too much for desktop use.

The temperatures with this fan profile are (very slightly) better and the noise profile much quieter than they were with just the single exhaust spinning faster.

I have a Phanteks Enthoo Pro-M and running the stock CPU cooler on my 2600X. The CPU cooler is now the only thing I notice the noise of with the PC under my desk and about 60cm off to one side.