is it possible to use a 60mm chassi fan and get a quiet htpc

[Darkpoem]

I am putting together a htpc and I was going to buy a chassi that is small but the chassi only supports a 60mm fan. Is it possible to get to htpc quiet if I use such a fan, I found something called Fractal Design 60mm Silent Fläkt
It has a db of 19 but will I be disturbed by this fan? The motherboard I am going to buy has passive cooling for processor and graphic card so the only thing the will be loud is the chassi fan.
Do I have to buy a chassi that is larger so that I can use a 80mm fan? for example an: Fractal Design 80mm Silent Fläkt
This is specified to be 11 db...

What is your experience?

[mkk]

For a typical 60mm fan to be relatively quiet it can only be allowed to rotate at around 1500rpm or less. The Fractal Design does 3000rpm at 12V and will be unbearably loud at full speed. A 60mm fan at low speed won't push much air but it can be enough if you are building with low power components like an ITX Atom board with integrated graphics or similar. Forget about "normal" pc parts.

List some of the cases that you're looking at and I'm sure people will be happy to chime in with comments and ideas.

[Darkpoem]

ok, I am putting together a htpc and I thought about using the following chassi:
Linkworld 820-01B (Svart) (can't add links yet)

with the motherboard: Moderkort: Asus AT3IonT-I Deluxe


The motherboard has passive cooling for both the integrated cpu and the integrated graphiccard with an extern netgear.

I also intend to put in an slim blueray player and a 5400RPM harddrive.

Since the chassi only supports a 60mm fan and you suggest that I only should run the fan with 1500RPM will this be enough to cool the motheboard and the components?

[mkk]

Wow that's a small case. I see the motherboard has a pretty decent heatsink on it and I've used Ion based systems with less airflow, and plastic chassis to boot. So this should work fine. If you could cram some variable fan resistor in there or if the motherboard works with software like Speedfan you could dial in the accoustic sweetspot.

[Matthew]

One other thing to consider is that in a case that small there isn't any easy way to suspend or enclose the hard disk, to make it quieter. They just give you one place to bolt it in, and there isn't much room to play around with. Maybe you could use some rubber grommets, I don't know.

A tiny case with a lot of vents might seem perfect for a small passive motherboard, but they tend to have small fans, as you've noticed, and they don't do much to muffle the other components like a full size case can.

I built a machine with that motherboard, in a slightly larger case, the Morex 6610. This let me put a 120 mm fan above the board, use a full size (cheaper) optical drive, and build a little cage for the HDDs out of wood and foam. It's all still pretty small though.

But back to your question about cooling, I've never used a 60mm fan, so I can't tell you about that, but I do know that that board has an option in the bios called "q-fan", which lets you run a fan at about 60% of full speed. It brings the 120mm fan, which normally runs at 880 rpm down to about 530 rpm. Maybe that would help you.

[BillyBuerger]

It sounds doable to me. A small fan can be just as quiet if not quieter than a large fan. They just don't move much air. But your system probably won't need much. I see the fractal fan you mention comes with the rubber isolators. I think with those and the Q-fan on the motherboard, it should be able to run the fan slow enough to be very quiet.

[Darkpoem]

thx everyone, since there are more options in a larger chassi I will probbaly look for another one, and if I do so I will maybe buy another motherbaord also, with a better cpu. thx again!