May 16, 201115 yr That thread is making me think a 120mm fan wall and 3 yate loons are the best bang for the buck for my norco. I put my stock mid fans back in for now and i'm not seeing a huge differance from the craptastic ones i had put in. Try the Nexus line you wont be disappointed.
May 18, 201115 yr Author That thread is making me think a 120mm fan wall and 3 yate loons are the best bang for the buck for my norco. I put my stock mid fans back in for now and i'm not seeing a huge differance from the craptastic ones i had put in. Try the Nexus line you wont be disappointed. I just looked at the Nexus 120 Fan and it seems like it wouldn't do the job. I would think I need a fan with at least 47 CFM to equal the air flow of the ones I'll be replacing. I found the specs of the stock fans from here. Mid Fan: Model (Part #): AFB0812H Model (Function): -R00 / -F00 Size: 80 x 80 x 25.4 mm Rated Voltage (VDC): 12 Operating Voltage Range (VDC): 7.0 to 13.8 Input Current (Amp): 0.16 Input Power (Watt): 1.92 Speed (RPM): 3000 Maximum Air Flow (M3/min): 1.000 Maximum Air Flow (CFM): 35.31 Maximum Air Pressure (mmH2O): 4.04 Maximum Air Pressure (IN H2O): 0.159 Noise (dB-A): 31.0 PWM: No Rear Fan: Model (Part #): FFB0812EHE Model (Function): -R00 / -F00 Size: 80 x 80 x 25.4 mm Rated Voltage (VDC): 12 Operating Voltage Range (VDC): 7.0 to 13.8 Input Current (Amp): 0.90 Input Power (Watt): 10.80 Speed (RPM): 5700 Maximum Air Flow (M3/min): 2.270 Maximum Air Flow (CFM): 80.16 Maximum Air Pressure (mmH2O): 20.63 Maximum Air Pressure (IN H2O): 0.812 Noise (dB-A): 52.5 PWM: No
May 24, 201115 yr Yep. mid fans are 35 CFM x4, so 140 CFM for the plate. So you will be replacing them with three fans on a 120mm plate, so each fan would need to be at least 47 cfm. In the past two weeks I have researched probably over at least 40 different 120 mm fans. Originally I had selected the Enermax TB Silence line, because all reviews pointed to ultra quiet (and they are, I can't tell that my server is on). However, the one in depth review I found had incorrectly stated they were 52 cfm, and I didn't cross check. They are actually 42 cfm. So my drives run about 40 C in a Norco 4220, which is 15C over ambient. Too hot for my likes. So I can attest that 42 cfm is not enough. So instead of of pitching all three, I purchased a Schythe Slipstream Medium Speed (1200 rpm @12V). It was tested at 26 dBA at 66 cfm (box states 24 dBA @ 68.5 cfm, so within tolerance). I will replace one of my Enermax fans with this fan. It will take my fan plate up to 150 cfm, above the stock air flow levels. Hopefully this will cool me back down to the 35-38C temps I'm used to seeing with drives in Icy Docks. If not, I'll buy a second Slipstream (and a third) until they are. I should know if it works soon. I have a preclear on Step 10, 97% done. As soon as it is finished, the Scythe goes in.
May 24, 201115 yr Well, the Scythe fan dropped my temps a little, but not as much as I would have hoped. It looks like they are about 2C cooler with the one Schythe installed. Unfortunately my case noise went from about 20 dBA to around 27 dBA by adding that fan. While it is by no means loud, my Norco sits about 3 feet from me. At 20 dBA I could not hear it at all. The only way to know that it was on was to look at the lights. I can hear it now. It is no louder than my desktop now, but I can clearly hear it now (still vastly improved over the stock fans). Sort of a bummer I only got a 2C gain out of that much noise increase. I guess now the decision is whether to go back to my 16 dbA fans and live with 40C temps (certainly not drive killing temps, but hotter than I like), or to add two more Schythes. Two more would only increase the noise level to 29 dBA. One more to 28 dBA. I probably wouldn't hear a difference adding two more, but cfm would drastically increase, maybe dropping drive temps another 2C per fan. Decisions....
May 24, 201115 yr there is still another option.. put higher RPM/higher CFM 120's in there, use a fan controller to turn the fans down to an acceptable noise to heat ratio... Depending how you controlled the fans (bio, software, script, smart hardware) have it kick them up when the drive drive temps kick in. or you can go old-school and use a manual knob or flip switch controller and kick them up when you are pounding on your server generating a lot of heat. maybe 3 of those slipstreams are all you need with a fan controller. maybe you could get a higher CFM and spin them down so if you need a turbo cool, you can? I'm back on my stock fans with 1 manual knob controlling the whole fanplate for now. I have it turned back maybe a 1/3 of a twist. It is holding at about 32-36c. the server is not as silent as my enermaxes, but it is a bit a cooler. it is not graceful, but it does the job until a better solution is purchased.
May 24, 201115 yr Actually, the fan controller won't get me much, if anything. If you look at all the 12 cm fans on the market, they basically fall into two catagories, 9 blade fans (like the Enermax) and 15 blade fans (like the Scythe). The are some 7 blade fans, but mostly those are pretty crappy. No matter what brand you buy, the cfm and noise levels for a a certain speed are almost all identical. So I can buy a 1200 rpm 9 blade fan that produces 55 cfm at 21 dbA. I can then use a fan controller to slow it down to 800 rpm. Then I have a 9 blade fan producing 40 cfm at 16 dBA. Or I can just buy a 800 rpm Enermax, and get the exact same results. So if I slow the Slipstreams down to where they are 16 dBA each, they will roughly be around 800 rpm, and will produce roughly the same cfm as the Enermax's I already have. So a fan controller isn't a magic bullet that somehow improves you cfm to dBA ratio. All it does is give you the ability to tweak the exact rpm and cfm that you want. It won't save you on noise unless you settle for a lesser cfm. It does let you take a system that maybe only needs 140 cfm, but has fans producing 180 cfm, to dial those back, reduce noise and get the lower cfm that is needed. But right now my cfm is inadequate, so adding more fans, and then a fan controller is sort of an oxymoron. I would be adding more airflow, and then a device that lets me dial it back to what I have already (maybe save 1-2 dBA in the process, if that). There was a website that did a study of about 20 different 12cm fans. They plotted their test results as dBA vs rpm vs cfm, etc. They tested in a case, on a heatsink, etc. The end result was that the curves for almost every fan on the market was nearly identical. Only one or two fans were really different. And 15 blade vs 9 blade fans usually had a higher cfm at a given rpm (or dBA). The difference were that one brand of 9 blade fan might be set at 1300 rpm, with more cfm and more noise, where another brand might be 1100 rpm, or 800 rpm, etc. So you bought the brand to get to the point on the curve that you wanted to operate. But if you bought a fan above that point, and a fan controller to scale it back to a lower point, that fan would behave identically to the fan made to operate at that point without a controller. No magic bullet. A fan controller would let you buy the high speed Scythe Slipstreams at 100+ cfm per fan and around 30-35 dBA per fan, then dial them down to whatever you needed. This would take the guess work out of what speed you need. You would get the same airflow and noise from that setup as if you had bought fixed speed fans at that speed. Actually, if you build alot of PC's, you could buy one fan controller and set of the highest cfm fans. Put it in the case and dial in the cooling/sound you want. Measure your fan speed with a tach (or use a controller with built-in tach) and then buy fixed speed fans. Then you just need one controller and one set of high speed fans.
May 27, 201115 yr That thread is making me think a 120mm fan wall and 3 yate loons are the best bang for the buck for my norco. I put my stock mid fans back in for now and i'm not seeing a huge differance from the craptastic ones i had put in. Try the Nexus line you wont be disappointed. I just looked at the Nexus 120 Fan and it seems like it wouldn't do the job. I would think I need a fan with at least 47 CFM to equal the air flow of the ones I'll be replacing. I found the specs of the stock fans from here. Mid Fan: Model (Part #): AFB0812H Model (Function): -R00 / -F00 Size: 80 x 80 x 25.4 mm Rated Voltage (VDC): 12 Operating Voltage Range (VDC): 7.0 to 13.8 Input Current (Amp): 0.16 Input Power (Watt): 1.92 Speed (RPM): 3000 Maximum Air Flow (M3/min): 1.000 Maximum Air Flow (CFM): 35.31 Maximum Air Pressure (mmH2O): 4.04 Maximum Air Pressure (IN H2O): 0.159 Noise (dB-A): 31.0 PWM: No Rear Fan: Model (Part #): FFB0812EHE Model (Function): -R00 / -F00 Size: 80 x 80 x 25.4 mm Rated Voltage (VDC): 12 Operating Voltage Range (VDC): 7.0 to 13.8 Input Current (Amp): 0.90 Input Power (Watt): 10.80 Speed (RPM): 5700 Maximum Air Flow (M3/min): 2.270 Maximum Air Flow (CFM): 80.16 Maximum Air Pressure (mmH2O): 20.63 Maximum Air Pressure (IN H2O): 0.812 Noise (dB-A): 52.5 PWM: No Sorry I missed your reply, I was refereing to the Nexus PWM Series D12SL-12PWM 120mm Case Fan, not the Basic line you had in your link. Glad you found the post with the spec's useful. Do the math on the fan I stated and you will understand. By all means purchase what works for you, I just suggested I do agree I would not buy the Basic line you linked.
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