Fans for a BI Extreme III?

Nickd · 01-31-2005, 03:09 PM

I'm about to build a radbox for a BIX3 that I have on order for my first watercooling project. Can anyone give me some suggestions as to what type of fans to use?
With the BIX3 being air restrictive, is there anything I can do to obtain adequate airflow without deafeneng myself? Should I use 6 fans in push-pull configuration? Stacked? What sort too: Papst, Nexus, others?
Any suggestions gratefully recieved....
thanks, Nick
PS I'd like to keep it as quiet as I can (yes I know I'd have been better off getting the Pro3 instead but I got a good deal on the X3 and couldn't find anyone in the UK with BIPro3s with 1/2" barbs).

JamesAvery22 · 01-31-2005, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrCR

Again, agruably the best source for "is this fan quiet, what about this one?...." is Silent PC Review (SPCR), in particular, the Fans and Control subforum there. This sticky thread was created in an attempt to summarize the discussion of this subforum.

The Top SPCR Quiet 120mm Axial Fans Compared + 120mmAC Fans

As a side note, even though I'm the one who started the thread and compiled the information, the real credit goes to the guys trying all these fans out and posting about them. I've got to be careful mentioning names as there are so many who have contributed, many of whom I have forgotten, but ferdb, teejay, pdf27 are some of the many. A big thanks to all who have helped.

DrCR

_________

this ten char

Nickd · 01-31-2005, 04:11 PM

Thanks for the link. Just the sort of info I've been looking for.

I tried a few different forums but didn't find that one. Its probably worth me looking at the 240v AC fans as they are for an external box.
Thanks once again.

JamesAvery22 · 01-31-2005, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nickd

Thanks for the link. Just the sort of info I've been looking for.

I tried a few different forums but didn't find that one. Its probably worth me looking at the 240v AC fans as they are for an external box.
Thanks once again.

np

you darn brits and aussies with your non-115v AC.

From the reading I think the AC fans were a little louder than the DC though. I could be wrong. But buying a cheap AC/DC brick might be something to think about. Think they only listed one AC fan that was acceptable.

edit---

Oh yeah dont thank me thank DrCR

Butcher · 01-31-2005, 07:51 PM

You might want to look into running some heavier fans like 172mm types - they tend to have much better backpressure handling then the smaller fans.

bobkoure · 01-31-2005, 10:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JamesAvery22

you darn brits and aussies with your non-115v AC.

AS I remember the "fan to use" was a 240V AC fan run on 115V AC for a good noise / airflow / pressure trade-off. The Brits and Ozzies (and NZers) don't get to do this because, although the 240V fans are more available, 115VAC is less so.

Nickd - You might also want to take a look at this 115VAC motorized impeller - assuming you have a sealed radbox, you could use this to pressurize the box. Of course then, you'd find yourself thinking why you bothered with a BIX as it would have been as easy to use a heater core, so, never mind, I didn't say anything...

HammerSandwich · 01-31-2005, 11:32 PM

Let's not forget that a large frontal area allows a thicker radiator without impeding airflow any more than a smaller rad. The lower air velocity helps noise too.

The question boils down to how much airflow you genuinely need. For systems which emphasize low noise over low temperature, this is probably a lot less than you expect. How much heat will go into the WC system? What other components (e.g. PSU) will set the noise floor?

My experience says that adding cooling is tremendously easier than reducing noise. I'd suggest starting with 1 Nexus 120 at ~7V. You'll have <20cfm, but the fan should be inaudible except in unusually quiet rooms. Should the cooling prove inadequate, you can always raise the voltage and/or add a second fan.

Nickd · 02-01-2005, 04:12 AM

I know Bob, I bet I'll end up wishing I'd listened to you in the first place and gone with a heater core, it would have been cheaper I'm sure.

I've been somewhat influenced (rightly or wrongly) by some of the arguments I read around this forum about the design differences between 'PC radiators' and heatercores such as the coolant-air temp differential, flow rates etc. Time will tell... Thanks for the pointer about blowers as well. I've seen a few pics scattered around the net with radboxes using these. They look like quite a nice neat solution. I wonder how much noise they produce? Definitely going to go with your sealed radbox solution. Looks simpler than using shrouds.

HS, (name nothing to do with 'Fawlty towers' is it?) my main priority is reducing noise. Specifically that of the HSF and the annoying whine of the little 40mm fans on the NB and GPU. I'm hoping that the NB (875P) and GPU(9600pro) don't add too much heat to the loop, though I've been finding it difficult to find out any heat info at all for these. At the moment, with the irritating whining, its difficult to tell just how loud my hard drives and PSU (enermax EG465EX) are. I know I'd rather have a low pitched humming than a high pitch whining though.

With a sealed radbox, would one or two larger slower spinning fans (as suggested by Butcher), be quieter / more efficient?
If I go with DC fans / blower I can control the speed they run at, so can fine-tune the noise-temp tradeoff. Is this possible at all with AC fans?

Butcher · 02-01-2005, 06:01 AM

Not generally possible to vary AC fan speed as it's based on the frequency of your mains power.
Big fans will push more air for the same noise and do it better against a restriction so in a sealed box system that can be good.
Blowers have great pressure handling compared to axial fans but tend to be lower airflow and quite noisy.

HammerSandwich · 02-01-2005, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nickd

HS, (name nothing to do with 'Fawlty towers' is it?)

Good catch!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nickd

...my main priority is reducing noise. Specifically that of the HSF and the annoying whine of the little 40mm fans on the NB and GPU. I'm hoping that the NB (875P) and GPU(9600pro) don't add too much heat to the loop, though I've been finding it difficult to find out any heat info at all for these.

The 875 will do fine with a passive heatsink, even with a large OC. Don't bother WC it. The 9600Pro doesn't burn a lot of power either, and some versions come from the factory with passive heatsinks. Unfortunately, the details aren't showing up in Xbit's power measurement article, but here's the conclusion:

Quote:

Originally Posted by xbitlabs

I have no comments about the RADEON 9600 XT/Pro: these graphics cards are no threat even to the least powerful PSUs – their power consumption properties shouldn’t bother you at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nickd

With a sealed radbox, would one or two larger slower spinning fans (as suggested by Butcher), be quieter / more efficient?

The bigger fan may move more air for its noise, but that's little consolation when its slowest speed produces 3x the needed airflow.

Anyway, Nick, you need to visit SilentPCReview.

Nickd · 02-01-2005, 05:25 PM

SPCR seems to have loads of good info. Much appreciated, though I think I need a strong coffee (with some scotch or rum in it for good measure) to work through the info as it seems somewhat long winded. It must have taken ages for them to put together that table in the page JamesAvery22 linked to.

Two reasons I was planning to WC the NB as well are:
1: to get rid of that little whiney fan (which tends to stop running of its own accord half the time?!).
2: if the 9600 pro doesn't need too much cooling then I can run a NB block and a GPU block in parallel from the outputs of the WW. If resistances of the blocks work like electricity (as people say) and the resistance of the NB block and the GPU block are equal (D-Tek say their internals are identical) then the additional resistance in the loop will be half that of having just the GPU block on its own in series after the CPU.
Please let me know someone if my logic is flawed

At first glance it looks like I'll be heading in the direction of Papst fans if they are better at generating backpressure. Then again...
Think I could spend just as many days trying to choose fans or blowers as I did when trying to work out which blocks, pumps and rads I wanted, though its nowhere near as interesting.

I'll just have to pick one I like the look of!

Thanks for your help and input.
ps Think I must be showing my age to remember Manuel and his Hammester!

JamesAvery22 · 02-02-2005, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nickd

SPCR seems to have loads of good info...

Their PSU reviews are priceless. Just need to convince them to look at EPS12V PSUs for me

ferdb · 02-02-2005, 07:28 PM

[quote=Butcher]Not generally possible to vary AC fan speed as it's based on the frequency of your mains power.
QUOTE]

This is a common misconception. You can easily vary the speed of almost all AC fans as they are all shaded pole motor designs. Synchronous motors run at the line frequency, Shaded pole motors run at less than the line frequency. They have a certain amount of 'slip'. If you decrease the drive voltage to the fan the amount of slip increases and the RPM of the fan decreases. Details on how it can be done relatively cheaply can be found in this thread.
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=17002

The BI Extreme radiators are not optimal if you have desires to make a quiet system as they are rather restrictive and thus require substantial fan RPM to get good airflow through them. For a quiet machine you need to run your fans slower, which means you need to keep your airflow restriction down to maintain a decent CFM through the radiator. The BI Pro radiators will give you better performance in a quiet system. The advantage of the BI Extreme only comes into play when there is HIGH airflow through the system, and that means only in a noisy system.
It all depends on your personal compromise of performance vs quietness. If Quiet is your dominant concern then get a BI Pro II radiator and put 120mm Nexus fans on it. If you lean more towards performance then I'd suggest using something like the 120x38mm Panaflos, but this is no longer a really quiet solution.
If you are not really sure what you want, I'd get some Globe 1202512L-3M and some Fanmates to speed control them to your desired performance level. If that doesn't give you enough performance go for some 120x38mm Panaflos, but these will take you out of the quiet region. Besides the aiflow noise, all the 120x38mm fans on the market have substantial motor and/or bearing noise. The 120x38mm will however push substantially more air through a radiator when running at full speed than the 120x25 fans.

Unfortunately pretty much all the fans larger than 120mm use Ballbearings and tend to have a lot of bearing noise, and the DC fans have a lot of motor noise. You might find something in an AC fan in the 150-170 range that would work for you though.
Your best bet is probably the 120mm fans suggested above though.

01-31-2005, 03:09 PM	#1
Nickd Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: UK Lancashire Posts: 25	Fans for a BI Extreme III? I'm about to build a radbox for a BIX3 that I have on order for my first watercooling project. Can anyone give me some suggestions as to what type of fans to use? With the BIX3 being air restrictive, is there anything I can do to obtain adequate airflow without deafeneng myself? Should I use 6 fans in push-pull configuration? Stacked? What sort too: Papst, Nexus, others? Any suggestions gratefully recieved.... thanks, Nick PS I'd like to keep it as quiet as I can (yes I know I'd have been better off getting the Pro3 instead but I got a good deal on the X3 and couldn't find anyone in the UK with BIPro3s with 1/2" barbs).

01-31-2005, 07:51 PM	#5
Butcher Thermophile Join Date: May 2001 Location: UK Posts: 1,064	You might want to look into running some heavier fans like 172mm types - they tend to have much better backpressure handling then the smaller fans. __________________ Once upon a time, in a land far far away...

01-31-2005, 11:32 PM	#7
HammerSandwich Cooling Savant Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: 15143 Posts: 358	Let's not forget that a large frontal area allows a thicker radiator without impeding airflow any more than a smaller rad. The lower air velocity helps noise too. The question boils down to how much airflow you genuinely need. For systems which emphasize low noise over low temperature, this is probably a lot less than you expect. How much heat will go into the WC system? What other components (e.g. PSU) will set the noise floor? My experience says that adding cooling is tremendously easier than reducing noise. I'd suggest starting with 1 Nexus 120 at ~7V. You'll have <20cfm, but the fan should be inaudible except in unusually quiet rooms. Should the cooling prove inadequate, you can always raise the voltage and/or add a second fan. __________________ www.procooling.com: It's true we are often a bunch of assholes

02-01-2005, 06:01 AM	#9
Butcher Thermophile Join Date: May 2001 Location: UK Posts: 1,064	Not generally possible to vary AC fan speed as it's based on the frequency of your mains power. Big fans will push more air for the same noise and do it better against a restriction so in a sealed box system that can be good. Blowers have great pressure handling compared to axial fans but tend to be lower airflow and quite noisy. __________________ Once upon a time, in a land far far away...

01-31-2005, 04:11 PM	#3
Nickd Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: UK Lancashire Posts: 25	Thanks for the link. Just the sort of info I've been looking for. I tried a few different forums but didn't find that one. Its probably worth me looking at the 240v AC fans as they are for an external box. Thanks once again.

02-01-2005, 04:12 AM	#8
Nickd Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: UK Lancashire Posts: 25	I know Bob, I bet I'll end up wishing I'd listened to you in the first place and gone with a heater core, it would have been cheaper I'm sure. I've been somewhat influenced (rightly or wrongly) by some of the arguments I read around this forum about the design differences between 'PC radiators' and heatercores such as the coolant-air temp differential, flow rates etc. Time will tell... Thanks for the pointer about blowers as well. I've seen a few pics scattered around the net with radboxes using these. They look like quite a nice neat solution. I wonder how much noise they produce? Definitely going to go with your sealed radbox solution. Looks simpler than using shrouds. HS, (name nothing to do with 'Fawlty towers' is it?) my main priority is reducing noise. Specifically that of the HSF and the annoying whine of the little 40mm fans on the NB and GPU. I'm hoping that the NB (875P) and GPU(9600pro) don't add too much heat to the loop, though I've been finding it difficult to find out any heat info at all for these. At the moment, with the irritating whining, its difficult to tell just how loud my hard drives and PSU (enermax EG465EX) are. I know I'd rather have a low pitched humming than a high pitch whining though. With a sealed radbox, would one or two larger slower spinning fans (as suggested by Butcher), be quieter / more efficient? If I go with DC fans / blower I can control the speed they run at, so can fine-tune the noise-temp tradeoff. Is this possible at all with AC fans?

02-01-2005, 05:25 PM	#11
Nickd Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: UK Lancashire Posts: 25	SPCR seems to have loads of good info. Much appreciated, though I think I need a strong coffee (with some scotch or rum in it for good measure) to work through the info as it seems somewhat long winded. It must have taken ages for them to put together that table in the page JamesAvery22 linked to. Two reasons I was planning to WC the NB as well are: 1: to get rid of that little whiney fan (which tends to stop running of its own accord half the time?!). 2: if the 9600 pro doesn't need too much cooling then I can run a NB block and a GPU block in parallel from the outputs of the WW. If resistances of the blocks work like electricity (as people say) and the resistance of the NB block and the GPU block are equal (D-Tek say their internals are identical) then the additional resistance in the loop will be half that of having just the GPU block on its own in series after the CPU. Please let me know someone if my logic is flawed At first glance it looks like I'll be heading in the direction of Papst fans if they are better at generating backpressure. Then again... Think I could spend just as many days trying to choose fans or blowers as I did when trying to work out which blocks, pumps and rads I wanted, though its nowhere near as interesting. I'll just have to pick one I like the look of! Thanks for your help and input. ps Think I must be showing my age to remember Manuel and his Hammester!

02-02-2005, 07:28 PM	#13
ferdb Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: texas Posts: 68	[quote=Butcher]Not generally possible to vary AC fan speed as it's based on the frequency of your mains power. QUOTE] This is a common misconception. You can easily vary the speed of almost all AC fans as they are all shaded pole motor designs. Synchronous motors run at the line frequency, Shaded pole motors run at less than the line frequency. They have a certain amount of 'slip'. If you decrease the drive voltage to the fan the amount of slip increases and the RPM of the fan decreases. Details on how it can be done relatively cheaply can be found in this thread. http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=17002 The BI Extreme radiators are not optimal if you have desires to make a quiet system as they are rather restrictive and thus require substantial fan RPM to get good airflow through them. For a quiet machine you need to run your fans slower, which means you need to keep your airflow restriction down to maintain a decent CFM through the radiator. The BI Pro radiators will give you better performance in a quiet system. The advantage of the BI Extreme only comes into play when there is HIGH airflow through the system, and that means only in a noisy system. It all depends on your personal compromise of performance vs quietness. If Quiet is your dominant concern then get a BI Pro II radiator and put 120mm Nexus fans on it. If you lean more towards performance then I'd suggest using something like the 120x38mm Panaflos, but this is no longer a really quiet solution. If you are not really sure what you want, I'd get some Globe 1202512L-3M and some Fanmates to speed control them to your desired performance level. If that doesn't give you enough performance go for some 120x38mm Panaflos, but these will take you out of the quiet region. Besides the aiflow noise, all the 120x38mm fans on the market have substantial motor and/or bearing noise. The 120x38mm will however push substantially more air through a radiator when running at full speed than the 120x25 fans. Unfortunately pretty much all the fans larger than 120mm use Ballbearings and tend to have a lot of bearing noise, and the DC fans have a lot of motor noise. You might find something in an AC fan in the 150-170 range that would work for you though. Your best bet is probably the 120mm fans suggested above though.

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