Fan question

Didg · 5 Mar 2015 at 15:10

I've been running my new build for a few weeks now and even at low rpm's I find the fans aren't that quiet.

I have a Phanteks Enthoo Luxe case which comes with their 200mm SP and 2 x 140mm SP's fitted, although they don't look quite the same as the aftermarket versions. (No braided wires, no rubber mounts), although the fan blades / hub looks the same. It's mostly motor / bearing noise I'm talking about here, not air noise and the 200mm is a little 'clicky' too. So I'm looking at replacing them along with installing a 280mm rad in the roof.

The front intake 200mm I'm looking at swapping out for 2 x 140mm, possibly Silverstone Air Penetrators (I have removed all HDD drive bays so no restriction), the rest are all 140's too. 4 in push pull for the rad and one for the rear of the case.

So, I would like some advice on what to get in order to have a quiet system. I have 4 pwm fan headers + 2 cpu fan headers on the board, plus a fan hub to run non pwm fans. I would like to go with SP's on the push side of the rad and AF type for the rest. I've shortlisted Alpenfohn Wing Boost 2 Plus, better Phanteks like the MP or XP and as I said posibly the Air Penetrators just for the front intake.
Thanks in advance for any advice.

apeksdiver · 7 Mar 2015 at 18:08

I have a 280 rad and a 120 rad. I'm running 3 pairs of gentle typhoons in push pull all running from a phobia fan controller. You can't hear the fans at all.

Didg · 10 Mar 2015 at 14:34

Well, after reading many reviews I have replaced my intake and exhaust fans with Be Quiet - Silent Wings 2 - 140mm pwm's. 2 in the front and the usual 1 at the rear.

Initially my thoughts were that these fans were too expensive, but you get what you pay for. They are very high quality and I have to put my ear within a few inches of the fans to hear them, they are that quiet.

I've still not decided on SP fans for the rad yet....

ttaskmaster · 10 Mar 2015 at 16:13

I've always gotten on well with Noctuas, myself - As you say, you get what you pay for.
Corsairs would be my second choice, although they can get quite noisy at full chat and the noise reduction on their Quiet Editions is less than the corresponding performance loss, so IMO not worth it.
Silverstones are good for the money, but still at the cheap end.
Enermaxes have let me down almost every time (5/6 failure rate all within 6 months).

Unless you are going push-pull on the rad, I'd advise going pull-only, as pushing seems to trap a LOT more dust between fan and rad.
I'm also told that you need either the exact same fans both sides or, better yet, a slower fan pushing - Doing it the other way around can create turbulence in the spaces between the fan-rad-fan and result in a rotating stall (similar to a compressor stall in a jet engine), which means less air (if any) is getting through and certainly not all in the direction you want.

Additionally, it can force the slower pull-fan to spin faster than it's designed to go, resulting in damage, while the back-pressure from the stall also increases the drag on the faster fan, meaning it has to work harder and again burns out the motor.

Certainly when I tried it, I got much lower performance than slow-push:fast-pull. However I ended up going pull-only, as I didn't fancy taking the fans off to dust my rig out every week!