Quiet fans

Marci said:
The annoying motor/controller chipset "whine" is partially dependant on HOW you reduce fanspeed. A fan with it's speed reduced by PWM tends to generate a whine where the same fan done by good old-fashioned reducing of voltage (instead of PWM) doesn't whine.
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So would a fan controller like the vantec nexus ones make a fan whine or not? What does PWM mean?
 
suicidle_tramp said:
So would a fan controller like the vantec nexus ones make a fan whine or not? What does PWM mean?
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No idea about the controller but PWM stands for Pulse Width Modulation. It's a more energy efficient way of controlling the fan motor over voltage control.

It does seem to produce a "whiney" kinda sound though a lot of the time.
 
I use an Akasa amber along with a Vantec Nexus fan controller and its a nice quiet combination, @ 7v it doesn't whine at all but it is by no means silent. I think most of the noise im hearing is the sound of air rushing past the foam dust filter and the steel honeycomb grill?. When i hold the Akasa 120mm fan in my hand at 12v is is very quiet and provides a nice blast of cold air :) .

Mark
 
I like the Antec Tri Cool fans. I have an Antec SLK3000B with a 120mm Tri Cool at the back and a 120mm Akasa Amber at the front. There seems to be a bit more motor noise from the Akasa, and the Antec comes with 3 speed settings via a dongle. When the computer is in normal operation it is pretty silent, with no motor noise and when i game I put it on medium and I can only hear the rush of air. Of course that is soon drowned out...
 
I had two Akasa Amber 120s, and they were too loud for me at low volts (they produced an irritating clicking noise). Switched to Nexus fans, and I'll never look back!

It was mentioned above that you sacrifice airflow for quiet with these fans; this is true. Whether this is important depends on your setup. For me, since all my CPU heat is transferred outside the case (to the Reserator), case flow can be slow with no loss in performance :cool:
 
I have Ambers in my rig and I wished I'd nevered bothered with them. I had SilenX ones before and they were whisper quiet. I reckon my Ambers will be going on to the MM soon. :(
 
So im seeing the 2 favorites as nexus and amber?

I want to replace my 2 standard antec case fans with either of these, at the moment im swaying towards nexus but cant make up my mind! :confused:

someone do it for me ;)
 
Nexus for the quietest, but lower airflow and more expensive.
Ambers for the cheapest, but slightly better airflow and still pretty quiet.

Want the decision made for you? I've had both: get the Nexus
 
either of the two will be quieter then stock so either of the two would do the job fine. Just remember trying to get silent is never ending, when you get silent fans you just hear other things like heatsink, psu and graphics so can end up being costly.
 
yeah but its somethin to do isnt it :p

I'm starting with the cheapest and moving up to the more expensive... my current case fans arnt controllable either so im after some 3 pin jobbies.

i think i'll go nexus then, seems to be a trend of whoever has one hasnt complained but i've seen a couple of "not that impressed" about the ambers.
 
twiceborn said:
Nexus for the quietest, but lower airflow and more expensive.
Ambers for the cheapest, but slightly better airflow and still pretty quiet.

Want the decision made for you? I've had both: get the Nexus
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Forgot to mention i'll be variating the speed of my fans according to temp so would i be better off with the ambers seeing as u rekon they will push more air if need be but be quiet when slowed down?
 
Mark A said:
I use an Akasa amber along with a Vantec Nexus fan controller and its a nice quiet combination, @ 7v it doesn't whine at all but it is by no means silent. I think most of the noise im hearing is the sound of air rushing past the foam dust filter and the steel honeycomb grill?. When i hold the Akasa 120mm fan in my hand at 12v is is very quiet and provides a nice blast of cold air :) .

Mark
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If possible you really want to keep the intake side of the fan clear of any obstruction, with a distance of at least the width of the fan. These kind of fans are very sensitive to anything that creates turbulence on the intake side, and its the turbulence that creates a lot of the noise.

You can make a notable improvement for example by mounting your exhaust fans outside the case and PSU rather than inside. This gives the fan an extra 25mm of unobstructed intake which should help reduce turbulence - increasing airflow and decreasing noise :)

Marc
 
Just in case anyone is interested (although on reflection it was probably only me after 60mm fans) got my Akasa Ambers today and hooked them up to my ancient desktop for a quick test.

My word they are quiet! Quite surprised at the volume of air they seem to push for the amount of noise they don't produce.
 
I'm starting to be of the opinion that the best solution to the performance/noise/omg what is THE best fan to own problem is a fan controller. Most fans at a similar CFM will also be at a similar noise level. Maybe it's best to get high performance fans that you can turn down when needed with a controller?

I've become a noise masochist using YSTech fans on full speed 24/7. Great cooling and the wooshing helps get me to sleep :D
 
ACPCUP said:
Still can't beat the Nexus for quietness.
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I'm sure thats true but they do spin at 1000rpm where as the ambers go to 1400rpm... has anyone compared the 2 when running at the same speed?

I went for the ambers in the end as id rather have the extra airflow there if i needed it, im sure i'll be running them around half speed most of the time anyways ;)

i'll give my impressions when they arrive...
 
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