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Brians256 · 02-24-2006, 07:07 PM

The fans are all undervolted or sub-normal speed, Ben.

OK, I should go over the fans and how they are powered/controlled.

1) Aircooled Sonata Fans

- PSU fan is normally quiet and slowed down by the builtin PSU circuitry.
- Case back fan is a TriCool fan that came with the Sonata. It is on the "medium" setting and is mostly quiet. It isn't on the low setting because on the low setting, the hard drives get too hot. Are two quiet fans as effective and quieter than one medium fan? Could be tested.
- CPU fan is built into the Zalman "flower" and is PWMed to fairly low speed by the DFI motherboard. I should probably quiet it some more but it isn't a huge noisemaker. I'd hate to replace the mobo just to fight noise made by the northbridge.
- NB fan is PWMed by the mobo but is fighting huge handicaps. It is a small high-RPM fan cooling a heatsink with minimal surface area (it lies RIGHT under the PCIe graphics card and is thus height restricted). To really stop it from annoying me, I would have to put in a custom passive HSF that has pins bent away from the center where the graphics card comes down.
- GPU fan is controlled by a zalman fan controller and isn't quiet enough. I could replace this card with a passively cooled one by Gigabyte or see if there's an aftermarket passive cooler for 6600 style cards. Alternatively, I could use the 6600's builtin fan control to see if that would bring the fan any quieter. Currently, the VF700 fan can't hook into the card's power because it has the wrong power connector. It may draw too many amps for the card's VRM module, too.

This is five fans. No wonder it's loud! I expected the watercooled system to be quieter. It's not.

2) Watercooled Koolance Fans

- fan on the Koolance control circuitry is probably necessary, but it blows air from the hot hard drive onto the circuits. Bad layout by Koolance. It's not that loud.
- PSU fan is fairly quiet. I could mod the PSU, but there really isn't much need.
- Big noisemaker are the 3 Koolance fans at the top. The Koolance circuitry is already slowing these fans down but not enough. I should probably get them all exhausting air and replace them with much quieter fans. Maybe only running one or two of them? They are only 80mm fans, so I probably need two quiet ones.
- Big noisemaker is the lower intake fan. It is moving a lot of air to keep the case temp and the hard drive temp down. I could easily reduce that by using a Nexus 120mm fan, but I don't know if the airflow would be sufficient. TBD. I could also watercool the hard drive, but it needs SOME cooling. 65C temps are NOT acceptable.

A good contributor to the Koolance case's noise, though, is that whiney D4. Man is that annoying! Slowing the D4 down wouldn't help though; that would just change the pitch. It's already sitting on foam, so I'm thinking the only answer is to change the pump. Eheim 1250 or buy a DDC, I guess.

02-24-2006, 07:07 PM	#3
Brians256 Pro/Staff Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Klamath Falls, OR Posts: 1,439	Re: Htpc The fans are all undervolted or sub-normal speed, Ben. OK, I should go over the fans and how they are powered/controlled. 1) Aircooled Sonata Fans - PSU fan is normally quiet and slowed down by the builtin PSU circuitry. - Case back fan is a TriCool fan that came with the Sonata. It is on the "medium" setting and is mostly quiet. It isn't on the low setting because on the low setting, the hard drives get too hot. Are two quiet fans as effective and quieter than one medium fan? Could be tested. - CPU fan is built into the Zalman "flower" and is PWMed to fairly low speed by the DFI motherboard. I should probably quiet it some more but it isn't a huge noisemaker. I'd hate to replace the mobo just to fight noise made by the northbridge. - NB fan is PWMed by the mobo but is fighting huge handicaps. It is a small high-RPM fan cooling a heatsink with minimal surface area (it lies RIGHT under the PCIe graphics card and is thus height restricted). To really stop it from annoying me, I would have to put in a custom passive HSF that has pins bent away from the center where the graphics card comes down. - GPU fan is controlled by a zalman fan controller and isn't quiet enough. I could replace this card with a passively cooled one by Gigabyte or see if there's an aftermarket passive cooler for 6600 style cards. Alternatively, I could use the 6600's builtin fan control to see if that would bring the fan any quieter. Currently, the VF700 fan can't hook into the card's power because it has the wrong power connector. It may draw too many amps for the card's VRM module, too. This is five fans. No wonder it's loud! I expected the watercooled system to be quieter. It's not. 2) Watercooled Koolance Fans - fan on the Koolance control circuitry is probably necessary, but it blows air from the hot hard drive onto the circuits. Bad layout by Koolance. It's not that loud. - PSU fan is fairly quiet. I could mod the PSU, but there really isn't much need. - Big noisemaker are the 3 Koolance fans at the top. The Koolance circuitry is already slowing these fans down but not enough. I should probably get them all exhausting air and replace them with much quieter fans. Maybe only running one or two of them? They are only 80mm fans, so I probably need two quiet ones. - Big noisemaker is the lower intake fan. It is moving a lot of air to keep the case temp and the hard drive temp down. I could easily reduce that by using a Nexus 120mm fan, but I don't know if the airflow would be sufficient. TBD. I could also watercool the hard drive, but it needs SOME cooling. 65C temps are NOT acceptable. A good contributor to the Koolance case's noise, though, is that whiney D4. Man is that annoying! Slowing the D4 down wouldn't help though; that would just change the pitch. It's already sitting on foam, so I'm thinking the only answer is to change the pump. Eheim 1250 or buy a DDC, I guess.