Cooling advice for Fractal Define XL R2

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

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Alex11223
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Cooling advice for Fractal Define XL R2

Post by Alex11223 » Mon Jun 02, 2014 10:07 am

Looking for cooling recommendations/examples for my XL R2, regarding replacement of the standard fans. I want it to be as quiet as possible.

As I understood the best ones are Noctua NF-A14 FLX and ULN. Should I take FLX or ULN? As I understood ULN should be more quiet, but people usually take FLX for this case.
And how much should I take, where place them, which in and which out? I am really newbie with cooling. :roll:

Intel i7 4770k
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Asus Sabertooth Z87
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Abula
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Re: Cooling advice for Fractal Define XL R2

Post by Abula » Mon Jun 02, 2014 10:46 am

Alex11223 wrote:As I understood the best ones are Noctua NF-A14 FLX and ULN. Should I take FLX or ULN? As I understood ULN should be more quiet, but people usually take FLX for this case.
Tonally there are better options than Noctua, recommended you read both SPCR 140mm roundups.
First 140 mm Fan Roundup: Noctua, Phanteks, Xigmatek
Second 140 mm Fan Roundup: Antec, bequiet!, Corsair, Scythe
Alex11223 wrote:Looking for cooling recommendations/examples for my XL R2, regarding replacement of the standard fans. I want it to be as quiet as possible.
If you really want as quiet as possible, i recommend you go with Antec True Quiet 140, specially since you have an Asus FanXpert2 motherboard, with it, you should be able to take the fans down to 200rpms or ramp them to 800rpms.

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Alex11223 wrote:And how much should I take, where place them, which in and which out?
I would go with 3, 2x in (frontal case) and 1x out (back case fan slot). Since they are cheap fans i would also try 3in and still one out, i would add the extra fan to the bottom of the case, all 3 intakes would be behind filters and creating positive pressure to reduce excess dust buildup.

Alex11223
Posts: 46
Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2013 12:48 pm
Location: Europe

Re: Cooling advice for Fractal Define XL R2

Post by Alex11223 » Thu Jun 05, 2014 9:02 pm

you should be able to take the fans down to 200rpms or ramp them to 800rpms.
Looks like there is no PWM in Asus Sabertooth Z87 CHA_FAN (manual http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERT ... sk_Manual/ page 1-30), so I doubt it will be able to take it down to 200.

Abula
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Re: Cooling advice for Fractal Define XL R2

Post by Abula » Thu Jun 05, 2014 9:23 pm

Alex11223 wrote:
you should be able to take the fans down to 200rpms or ramp them to 800rpms.
Looks like there is no PWM in Asus Sabertooth Z87 CHA_FAN (manual http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERT ... sk_Manual/ page 1-30), so I doubt it will be able to take it down to 200.
I think you are confusing PWM and controlling fans, specially how Asus motherboards work. FanXpert2 can control PWM fans and 3pin fans, you just gotta understand how it works.

CPU_FAN is a true PWM fan header that can control 4pin pwm fans, but it can also control 3pin fan via voltage control if you enter the bios and change the Q-FAn from auto to advanced.

CHA_FAN1, 2, 3 are fake 4pin headers, in other words they are voltage control headers, meaning you can control standard 3pin fans, fanXpert2 just undervolts the fans according to what he tests.

In the case of Antec True Quiet 140, its 3pin fan not PWM, the graph that i placed was a Antec True Quiet 140 ran on a Asus Maximus VI Gene on CHA_FAN2 (renamed as TEST FAN) under FanXpert2, in the table you can see the fan can be dropped close to 200rpms, if you see the little square on the bottom right you will see the TEST FAN is running at 200rpms. You can also check SPCR Second 140 mm Fan Roundup: Antec, bequiet!, Corsair, Scythe, where you can see their table they also are able to idle it that low.

To get them that low you just need to install the Antec True Quiets to CHA_FAN 1,2,3, install AI SUITE III, enter FanXpert2 option (on the top), and in the middle left part you will see the test button, run it and it should test the fans and drop them to 200rpms.

Alex11223
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Re: Cooling advice for Fractal Define XL R2

Post by Alex11223 » Thu Jun 05, 2014 10:10 pm

Ok, thank you for elaborated answer.:)

Btw Sabertooth AI Suite does not have FanXpert2, there is Thermal Radar 2 instead, but looks like it has similar features.
Image

Abula
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Re: Cooling advice for Fractal Define XL R2

Post by Abula » Thu Jun 05, 2014 10:42 pm

Im not familiar with Thermal Radar 2, although seems similar.... from the picture i cant see much, specially seems the buttons are in another language. Googling thermal radar, i found a couple of pics that might be worth checking. I believe the Thermal Tunning is similar to the FanXpert2 tuning, but i cant say for sure.

Image

A video that might be worth looking for, ASUS Z87 Sabertooth and Gryphon Motherboard Thermal Radar 2 Guide

Alex11223
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Re: Cooling advice for Fractal Define XL R2

Post by Alex11223 » Thu Jun 05, 2014 11:14 pm

specially seems the buttons are in another language
Yeah, it determines language using locale (I mean Control panel —> Region —> Administrative —> Language for non-unicode programs) instead of matching OS language or "programs display language" and there is no way to force it to English without setting locale. :twisted:

The chassis fans settings window looks absolutely the same as on your first picture (it also allows to specify weight percentage of temperature sensors), so I hope it allows the same control possibilities for Antec TrueQuiet.:) I gave picture of CPU fan instead of it just because now my standard Fractal fans are connected to their fan controller instead of MB.

Abula
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Re: Cooling advice for Fractal Define XL R2

Post by Abula » Fri Jun 06, 2014 5:39 am

If you can't control the fractal 140 (the fans included with the case) with Thermal radar2 on a cha_fan header! it will be the same with the Antec true quiet 140, so before buying test with those fans, if you can control them or at least drop to 400rpms with the tech radar, before buying new fans.

Alex11223
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Joined: Sat Nov 16, 2013 12:48 pm
Location: Europe

Re: Cooling advice for Fractal Define XL R2

Post by Alex11223 » Mon Jun 30, 2014 11:53 am

Abula wrote:If you can't control the fractal 140 (the fans included with the case) with Thermal radar2 on a cha_fan header! it will be the same with the Antec true quiet 140, so before buying test with those fans, if you can control them or at least drop to 400rpms with the tech radar, before buying new fans.
Yes, I tried, it can drop them to ≈450 rpms. The only non-obvious thing is that first I need to run "Thermal tuning" so it will auto adjust them and after that I can modify it manually, before "Tuning" it was unavailable and they were running at 100%. For me they are almost or completely silent at such speed (not sure if I hear them or GPU/CPU fans).
Image

Also found some strange bug during testing (in FurMark) — it showed that CHA-1 is running at 698-725 RPM although I do not have any fan in this slot. (in idle it shows 0 RPM, as it should)
Other than that it looks like works normally.

By the way in BIOS (Z87 Sabertooth) I can't set CHA fans lower than 60%.

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