Thoughts please and comment on Papst fans
 

Having digested (most) of the mine of information on this forum, I have gone for Cathar's performance/noise compromise.:

BIP2 (ie WAFO ;) )
2 Eheim 1048s in series (first one with Innovatek small res)
Maze 4 GPU
Swiftech 6000
Mix of 3/8 and 1/2 ID tubing (due to 6000)

This is all shoehorned into a PC60 case! BIP2 is at the top of the case with a 1" thick shroud box with 2 x Past 4312 NGL (32 mm thick, 55 cfm) pulling. Exhaust via 2 x 80 mm Panaflo H1A @ 8 volts at bottom front of case, 1 x YS tech 80 mm low noise at back of case, and PSU exhaust. Exit water temp of rad (inline thermal diode- actually fairly accurate when tested with boiling water and ice) is (RT of 20 deg C) 21-22 deg C with an FX 55 at 2.8 GHz at idle, 23 deg C full load. CPU temperature is anybodys guess, due to the combination of the AMD 64 temperature (is this true?) and MSI Neo2 Platinum (this one is certainly true) reporting bugs (will probably replace this board with the DFI NF4- when it ever comes out ;) )
So this seems quite good
Only problem is the Papst fans- is it just me, or do they make a rather intrusive bearing noise? I have a Panaflo L1A kicking around- was thinking of getting another, replacing the Papsts, and running the Panflos at 8 volts. Thing is the exhaust side of one of the fans will be only 1" from the top of a DVD drive- problem with turbulence?
Thanks :)
Geoff

Given the BIP II with 1" shroud box, why not simply block off the area for one fan and use a single 120x38mm fan to pull? Contra-wise, that shroud is simply adding plenum as the BI rads are already shrouded. I've tried extra plenum on BIPs (Is not IIs) and have seen a slight improvement when adding it on the push side, but no improvement when used on the pull side - so you could likely ditch the add'l shroud and get a little extra space, which might reduce exhaust turbulence.
If you are looking to reduce noise, you don't really need 38mm thick axial fans to pull through a BIP. I've had best luck with Nexos 120x25mm fans. I've recently found look-alikes (from the same fan manufacturer) at isellsurplus .
A second 120mm Panaflo 'L' might quiet things as well - although the Panaflos (the ebm/papsts too, come to think of it) do not like being speed controlled with PWM. Are you getting a "ticking" noise? Try speed controlling with simple resistance.

Bob
I ordered some of those fans too, let us know what you think of them

Thanks for that Bob :) The Papsts make more of a slight irritating whine even at 12 volts. I'm using a Nexus fan controller which controls the Panaflo L1A nicely without ticking. Tempted to get another L1A, although I've heard good things about the Nexus fans too. I'm in the UK so not economic to buy the generic ones you mentioned, but thanks anyway :)

Not to steal Bob's thunder, but 6 Yate Loons arrived from isellsurplus on Friday. I find them pretty good, but they don't live up to the Nexus' hype. OTOH, they're <40% of the price.

They are excellent fans for low airflow use. At 12V, noise is very reasonable (though still too loud for us silent types) with more than enough airflow for any reasonable PC heatload. They start at ~5V and undervolt well: one sample runs at only 2.75V!

The bad news for me is a small amount of motor ticking - audible to about 1m with the fan at 5V in free air. In addition, 2 fans have a little mechanical noise. I doubt either would be noticeable in normal usage, though all other reports I've seen indicate no motor or bearing noise from YL 120s.

I'll keep playing with them this week. Probably lube some bearings and possibly swap one for the Evercool in my WC rig.

bleh, 'nother silver bullet slipping away
I suspect for the hard core the individual fan differences would preclude a recommendation
- which implies that the mfgrs QC will be most significant re product acceptance, again to the hard core

The base Nexus fans are sold under a variety of manufacturer labels. They are incredibly quiet (as 12cm fans go) with next to no audible motor/bearing noise. They can be picked up for around $6-8US each retail, unless you buy them from Nexus, in which case they sell for around $25US each.

It is the bearing noise that annoys the silence focused crowd the most, and here even the Papst's don't really deliver, even the 4412FGL's.

Noise-per-airflow the 12cm Nexus-lookalike fans are arguably THE quietest fan on the market, but manufacturing quality is definitely sub-par in comparison to the Papst/Panaflo's.

There still exists no true "silver bullet" fan as Bill puts it. Rather the really quiet fans that are about tends to be more as a result of co-incidence rather than intent, and most fan manufacturers claiming an intent to provide a "silent" fan, actually provide nothing of the sort other than claims.

Your point about QC is well made Bill. My supplier of Panaflos had this to say:

"Papst have changed:
o 1984 - highest-temp, smoothest, quietest, £18 for 80mm "Direct"
---- German bearing, German oil, German assembly, Japanese QC
o 2001 - highest-temp, rustly, , ticky, lots of vibration, £14 for 80mm
---- German bearing, Hungarian oil, Hungarian assembly, German QC
o 2004 - highest-temp, gritty, harmonics, lots of vibration £12 for 80mm
---- Hungarian bearing, German oil, Hungarian assembly, Hungarian QC

Papst still have a niche, ie, if you fry them with *air-temp* of 85oC.
o That higher temp rating means the bearing cases are a lot harder
o Which makes them now noisy out of the box & soon after

Papst ticking reported by some is often to undervoltage running:
o Tier-1 fans have microprocessors to soft-edge motor-coil switching
o EBM-Papst have 9-15V operation
o NMB commonly 6-13.8V operation, Panaflo commonly 7-13.8V operation
o So what works on NMB/Panaflo will be far too low for a Papst"

OK so they may be slightly biased, but the facts are probably accurate. Think I'll buy another Panaflo L1A and run the pair of them at 8 volts. Should be enough for the BIP2

surge, the Panaflo's will also make quite an annoying bearing noise if you're really silence focused.

If you're willing to take a punt, I'll try to source some of the 12cm Tricod (Nexus-alike) fans here and send them over and let you try them out. At 10-11v they'd push as much air as the Panaflo L1A's at 8v, and do it without anywhere near as much noise. I'd only ask for the cost of the two fans + postage, which would be around £11 all up.

That is so kind of you to offer Cathar :) Actually I have just ordered an L1A, otherwise I would take up your offer right now. Can I see how I get on with the 2 L1As (I already had one)- if I'm still not happy I'll try out the Tricods.
By the way, I just did a flow test with the Eheims. With only one on I get around 3 L/min in that system. With both on a shade over 5 L/min- I figure I believe you predicted in another thread :)

I haven't coughed up for the genuine Nexus fans yet, but SPCR consensus is that the extra $10/fan goes into QC. Every user report I've seen claims no variation in samples. Makes sense if Nexus rejects many of the fans YL sends them. In addition, the Nexus runs slower than the regular YL slow: specced at 1000rpm vs. 1300.

Is the Nexus unit the silver bullet? Looks like it addresses the weaknesses of the standard YL, and the price implies silver content.

a thought
where are the Nexus rejects going ?
the 'other' labels ?
kinda doubt it though, the different speed makes it a different motor

The Nexus are £14 a pop in the UK!

Anyone have Globe fans? what do you think of them, if so?

Anyone know of a quiet 150x172mm fan? I'm running a comair rotron model at the moment and it has a lot of bearing "rumble", something a bit quieter would be nice.
On the other hand, it's a huge beast of a fan and blows a gale (235cfm@54dBA flat out), which is nice. Really good pressure handling compared to the 12cm and below crowd.

I love my papst 120mm FGL's at 12v. I don't need anything less especially because I am stratically placing them within the guts of my system as opposed to attached to a side.

two words guys.. sanyo denki... kinda noisy at 12volts, but at 7volts they are very quiet (not sure how quiet you guys are looking for) and have literaly no bearing/motor noise.. these are the only fans that I have come across that dont have the horrible motor/bearing noise..

ive seen people complain about denki fan noise - clicking etc at low voltage

To me 'quiet' is 'i cannot hear it unless i listen for it specifically' - I have a reason for this, though* - others will (probably) want 'strain to hear it even when listening for it in a silent room'

*The one and only saving grace of tinnitus; complete silence is NOT desired - i dont want it too quiet, else it gets annoying, (have a fishtank in my room for specific reason - whitenoise to dull squeal frequency)

I've tinnitus also, but would rather hear the white noise in my head than the fans in a computer

My Tinnitus was caused by an ear infection + loud noises - that lovely noise that you get after going to a movie/concert thats too loud, and your ears squeal is what i hear instead of silence, so a 'woosh' is preferable to a squeal to me :)

Each to their own of course - have seen 3 threads on OCF about the denki's 'clicking' when undervolted; perhaps they're not all equal Max.

mine by gunfire at close range
for the skill to shoot I paid with my ears
just plain stupid, even in the '60s

working through DrCR's fan compilation now, informative

I've used Globe 120mm fans rebranded by Enermax. I was pretty impressed with them because they PWM very nicely without any of the buzzing or motor noise that you sometimes get from PWMing fans. The 80mm and 120s both did a good job for that. I wouldn't consider them to be appropriate for the silent PC crowd at 12V though

Yep, people use them for their PWM ability more than anything over at SPCR, from what i can gather; looks like it could be a good fan for use with speedfan... might check the power draw

edit - 2.14 watts; yeah, i think mobo headers can handle these!

I think it was more because until not too long ago, everything was up in the air as to "which fan is the best" (the Nexus plays nicely with PWM as well). There were a couple of known good choices, the Globe S1202512L-3M being one of them, but for a long while silent gurus just had to agree to disagree on which fan was the de-facto quiet standard. I got in a lot of discussions (and probably spent way too much time on the topic) and after finding out a good bit and tapping a lot of info from the real “heros”, the quiet, nay, silent seekers who actually just bought a bunch of potentially good fans and tested them and then looked for even quieter, the SPCR comparison thread was started that is now a sticky thread there, which BillA just mentioned a few posts up. After a lot more input and critique from fellow silent gurus as well as the silent "gods" like MikeC the admin, who have the equipment to turn this from subjective review to actual, scientific data, you can put a lot of faith in the accuracy of the assembled information. To be honest, all I did was compile the info in an attempt to help newguys avoid having to go though all the uncompiled info I had too.

So as far a where the Globe stands or Globe relations like the AcoustiFan and Enermax? Is the Nexus really the quietest of quiets? Just where does the Panaflo L1A stand in the eyes of silent enthusiasts? What about AC fans? Yate Loon?

Well, rather than repost it all here, here’s the link to "the thread."

The Top SPCR Quiet 120mm Axial Fans Compared + 120mmAC Fans
Particular thanks to ferdb, teeday, and pdf27

On the side, you know it's kind of funny how different things are nowadays. I remember the looks I've gotten, even recently, for be a silent seeker with regards to PCs. A friend of mine still brags how is former PCs could be heard from the other end of the dorm (He’s a little weird lol). IMHO An overclocked machine that sounds like a vacuum cleaner is no big deal. Now have an 800+MHz OCed AMD machine and you can't hardly tell when the computer is on, now that's a big deal! :dome: :D

DrCR

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Etacovda: I only get any ticking sound when the fans are starting up.. after they start up they are fine. I can turn them as low as they will go wihtout stopping and i dont have problems.

I will ask some other ppl what their experience is with them as well to see if anyone over at XS has had problems with them. so far none of the ppl that i've had get them have had problems. Everyone always comes back to thank me for telling them to get those fans.