Hi all,

I am part way through creating a storage pc at home running freenas.

The box will be running 24/7 and sits in a room next to the bed room so it has to be quiet.

The system is a intel p4 2.8 with a gb of ram and 4 x 1tb hard drives at this stage (the drives are a bit noisy but only when in use - not while im sleeping).

I have purchased a second hand zalman cnps 7000 all copper model and im not happy with the fan, noisy at 5v (grinding) and too much air noise at 12v.

Short of buying an 80mm fan and replacing it, is there anyway that someone has mounted a 120mm fan to one of these or can they be run fanless if the rear exhaust fan on the case is close by?

Cheers
Paul

Hi, not sure the Zalman is very effective passive, might be OK if rear case and PSU fans are close by. Will depend on the P4 2.8 too, an older "northwood" (s478 only) is much cooler than the newer "prescott" (s478 or s775) version.
For the Zalman you can try using two fanmates, one plugged in to the other or one fanmate with 5v feed to get lower fan speeds, helps quite a bit while not hurting the cooling much at all.
The std fan is 92mm (well blades are same size as 92mm frame size fan). It's certainly possible to find examples of people who've fan swapped the Zalman 7x00s.
You could just remove the original fan (only couple of screws) and then put a 92mm or 120mm fan on top of the heatsink. Fix it with zip-ties, gaffer tape, string, whatever!
Good luck, Seb

Obviously you couldn't fit a 120mm fan *into* it but you could mount one over the top--or replace the fan with a quiet 80/92mm model. I believe the 7000 or 7700 review on here has information on it. I did it with the 7700 (and 120mm fan).

edit: it's in a room next to the bedroom and it's too loud?

I've swapped two of them. I used 100mm Kaze-Jyu's but they didn't fit. I had to shave 2mm of the tip of each blade (it was exhausting). I have a 1500rpm version and a 1000rpm version. Both work very well, but I wouldn't recommend that method.

You will not be able to use the 7000 passively, and even placing a larger fan on top is going to make it less effective.

You're best bet is to find a quiet 92mm that you can hack up and put inside the Zalman. It's not too hard, really.

I built a system based on an exhaust-ducted Zalman 7000 about 5 years ago. It has been in constant use ever since. The CPU is an undervolted 2.4GHz Northwood. Airflow is provided by a single Nexus 80mm fan running at about 7.5V. The air is pulled from underneath the heatsink through the fins, along the duct and out the rear of the case.

First I made a shroud from bits of scrap metal to seal the gaps. I used a hose clamp to hold it together.




Then I made a coil by wrapping wire around a bottle.




I wrapped the whole thing in duct tape to ensure an airtight seal from the heatsink to the rear case fan. It's actually very robust and will not move or distort even when pushed quite firmly.

^ Doesn't that impair the airflow for the PSU?

Looks like a front-to-back PSU, not a bottom-intake model.