Hi, I recently bought this case, and I need to buy 2 120mm fans to install the case, I was wondering which one I should go for? I want a fan that is quiet yet that is powerful on air flowing. I know there is no such thing of quiet and powerful, but please give me some suggestions, thanks

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDe ... 053&depa=1

this is the case I got

thanks

The quietest 120mm dc fan is the Nexus. Even at a full 12V though it doesn't move a lot of air, but if it moves enough air for your needs it can't be beat for quietness by any other 12V dc fan. The other option is the Globe 1202512L. It isn't as quiet as the Nexus but it's miles ahead of the rest of the 12V fans. It has the benefit though that it moves a lot more air than the Nexus at 12V, albeit with considerably more noise. To achieve reasonable quietness out of it get a Fanmate speed controller and you can slow it down till it's pretty quiet. The Globe fan + speed controller is probably the most flexible option, you can dial it up to give you the airflow/quietness tradeoff you want. They are also cheaper than Nexus.

Right on ferdb. princejoe, the Nexus is your best best with the Globe from www.mnpctech.com a close second. You can pick up the Nexus brand at http://www.endpcnoise.com. You would have to use the Globe with a fan controler of some type, the Nexus might be OK for you at 12v.

Hope this helps.

DrCR

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The 120mm Thread

Yeah, have not tried Globe yet (hopefully sometime in the future) but the nexus at 12V is quiet, maybe even silent if you have other noiser components in your system. If you dont have too many drives and stuff, Nexus would be a good choice =)

thanks for the feedbacks, guys. So the globe fan pushes more air than the nexus, right? I will be installing two 160GB hard drives, a Ti4200 video card, sound blaster live 5.1 sound card, NF7-S motherboard with XP2500 Barton CPU, a thermaltake 420w p/s. I might overclock the XP2500 Barton CPU. Nexus could be a good choice as it's quiet, but like u guys, it doesn't push a lots of air, so I am not sure it will be a good choice.. Is the globe fan loud when it operates at full speed? I was wondering how is the quality of it as it's price is so cheap(only $8) compared to Nexus, vantec and Panaflo?

I saw this panaflo fan at this site, what do u guys think?

http://www.directron.com/120l1a.html

thanks

which fan controller do u guys recommend? Thanks

i have a 120mm nexus myself... and its the best 120mm fan i have come across yet, its so smooth the only thing i can hear is the whoooshing sound from air being pushed. Although it doesn't move alot of air, i think its fine, running SS ST 400, 120 nexus case fan, NV5 cooler, my temps are great.
xp-90 with nexus 92, 2.4 OC 3.0 = 26 C idle
mobo idle and load at 27

I swear by a cheap linear regulated fan controller. But I may be in a minority here.

I like software control in stead of a hardware controller.
Speedfan

Speedfan (pwm) plays fine w/ Globe 120mm fans. I use (2) Papst 4412FGL's in my Sonata. To my ears the Papst 4412s are marginally smoother and quieter than the Globes, but pricey. Others report clicking when pwm is used with the 4412. Mine are @5v fixed from the PSU; I haven't tried pwm w/ the 4412's so I can't say. I also like speedfan, but beware that few motherboards seem to offer pwm contol of all fans, my Asus P4P800 dlx allows control of only the CPU fan. BTW, I'd be very surprised if dual Nexus 120s @12v wouldn't move plenty of air to cool the hottest setup.

Hello:

If you undervolt the Enermax, then it's adjuster can be used to finetune the speed/noise ratio over about a 25% range. This fan at ~4.5volts is very quiet and it moves more air than the Nexus at 12volts. (BMSOTPE)

I am deciding between between panaflo and globe right now, since u guys mentioned that both of them move lots of air. If I get a controller to turn it down, maybe it won't be as loud. Is enermax a good fan? I saw this enermax fan which comes with a speed control? what do u guys think? or should I just pick panflo or globe? I know nexus is very quiet, but it doesn't move much air.

this is the link to the enermax fan

http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozencpu/fan-33.html


someone mentioned that a software control is better than harware controller, is that true?

thanks

Don't get hung up on "lots of air". What you need is NOT "lots of air" but just "enough air". For me Nexus moves enough. Your case is one of the best in terms of airflow so yes Nexus might be for you. It more or less depends on what brand of harddisk you'll be installing.

Globes are also nice (I swear by Globes if Nexus isn't available - in any fan size). With MikeC's Panaflo in my hand, I can see why people rave about the Panaflo but frankly my own purchases turned out to be noisy/clicky. And this is with 80mm fans - 120mm Panaflo fans are of a different technology and are reportedly noisier. If you're not going to get Nexus, then I'd suggest to play it safe and go with Globe.

Thanks for the reply, burcakb.

The two drives I will be using are western digital and seagate. Each of them 160 GBs. Sorry, I am not that familiar with case fan. Therefore I don't know who makes the better fans. So globe is better than panaflo? My case hasn't arrive yet, u think it's one of the best when it comes to air flowing?

Well, I can't say that. I've seen several globe and globe-manufactured fans and they are all very very consistent in their noise signiture. Not necessarily as quiet as the nexus but good fans all around.

I got 4 Panaflos (Japanese actually). 2x 80L1A, 1x 80M1A, 1x92L1A. Every single one clicks - at 12V or 5V, it doesn't matter. I've usually chosen to go with an equivalent Globe instead of Panaflo - except in PSU fan swaps as the Panaflo fluid bearing supposedly has longer longevity. However, I recently got a Seasonic PSU from MikeC which he modded personally with a Panaflo M1B, hardwired for 5V. It's the quietest fan I now own. Please note that it's an M - medium flow Panaflo - and it's quieter than the L1A (low flow) Japanaflos I have!!!. So for Panaflo, I'd say YMMV.

Panaflo 120mm fans as 38mm deep instead of 25 and have different drive bearings - not the famous fluid drive. As I don't own one, I can't comment on the noise. I do have two Nexus 120mm fans and an Acoustifan (basically a rebranded Globe). At around the same rpms, they have nearly the same noise and the same air throughput (Mike might give a better measurement with his anemometer - my "fan on cheek" isn't the most scientific way) BUT the Nexus has no bearing noise whereas the Globe has a faint click to it.

I run two Nexus in a push-pull config in my 3700AMB and have enough airflow (with the grills cut of course). I suspect that if I wasn't using an intake filter and had cooler drives than my Seagates, I suppose I could even do with one. But the Seagate drives run very hot and definitely need a fan near them, whatever your case flow. That's why I asked your hdds.

I run my Nexus 120mm fans @ 700 rpm (it is rated ~1000 @ 12V, don't know my voltage) and this gives me more than enough airflow. You would have to have a very exotic setup or restricted air path to need more airflow than these fans can supply IMHO. And they beat all other fans when it comes to noise, single-handed (or should that be "single-bladed"? nah...)

The Enermax is the same as the Globe, or very similar. And if the software controller worked as it is supposed to, then it may have an advantage, but often the simpler -- and therefore better solution is to undervolt with the hardware.

I didn't say it was always better. I said I liked it better, but YMMV.

Some pro's are:

• It is "free". I donated some money to Alfredo for his effort in creating Speedfan, but you are not obligated to do that. I can use it with all seven motherboards I own, for no additional cost. For some mobos the manufacturers supply a similar utility. e.g. Asus' Q-fan and AOpen's SilentTek. Those are "free" too.
• It has a lot of easily configurable options that I have never seen in a hardware controller. (e.g. temp logging)
• It doesn't add any extra cables into my case.
• It is usable with headless PCs which are located elsewhere.
• It has no fancy LEDs, displays, etc.

Some con's are:

• Not all motherboards are supported.
• It uses PWM and not all fans like that. (But Nexus fans do, so....)
• Your motherboard might not have enough fan headers for all your fans.
• It has no fancy LEDs, displays, etc.

Thanks for the feedbacks.

I wonder how the fan controllers lower the fan speed? Is it by lowering the volts running to the fan by making it spinning slower? If that is the case, would it damage the power supply and rest of the components or maybe shortening the life of the components?

Hardware fan controllers come in several types.

1. Some are variable resistors. Then the fan gets a lower constant voltage.
2. Some use PWM. Then the fan gets intermitantly 12V and zero volt.
3. The Zalman fanmate uses some circuit I don't understand, because I know zilch about electrical engineering.
4. ..... (the methods I forgot)

None of these methods will damage your PSU.

Edit: changed from unordered list to ordered list.

Thanks for the feedbacks.

I wonder how the fan controllers lower the fan speed? Is it by lowering the volts running to the fan by making it spinning slower? If that is the case, would it damage the power supply and rest of the components or maybe shortening the life of the components?

thanks for reply. How much watts usually does the fan controller utilize? I wonder if using fan controllers to lower the speed of fan would increase the power the P/S needs to give out to the system?

Both method 1 and method 2 use less power for the fan plus controller than running the fan alone at full speed.

Negative. A controller using a resistor is simply converting the unwanted energy to heat. Energy consumption is the same. So if you have a resistor based setup, the slower you set your fans, the hotter the resistor will become (this is why higher resistivity resistors have higher surfaces areas. Resistors with the same resistivity could be made that are far physically smaller, but they would introduce a serious fire risk).

Have a light in your house that has a dimmer switch? Turn the light on and leave it at full brightness. The area around the switch should be about the same temp as before. Now leave the light on at minimum brightness. If it is resistor-based, the switch will feel warm, sometimes rather hot.

Trying to recall some of what I sort of learned in General Physics. lol

DrCR

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Two laws for DC current calculations:
1: V=I*R
2: Energy=V*I

The V delivered by the PSU is constant (12V).
Adding a resistor increases R, so according to the first law I decreases.
The second law then says the dissipated energy decreases.

That lower total amount of energy is partly dissipated by the fan and partly by the resistor. So the amount of energy availlable for the fan is even lower (and the resistor gets hot).

princejoe only wanted to know about the total energy consumption, so I left the detailed explanation out. I should have known better.

Now, if the fancontroller has fancy LEDs an/or an LCD screen things get to complex for me to calculate.

If you want a front mounted fan controller, you can't go wrong with the Sunbeam Rheobus. Even the esteemed Bill over at mnpctech swears by it.

Analogue fan control from nearly 12V right down to 0V and very bright LEDs.

Zalman fanmates are good too if you want something mounted inside your case, but they only go down to a minimum of 5V, which is not low enough for some people (but it is for most!)

thanks for the feedbacks. I just ordered two 120mm globe fans and I will give speedfan a try. Hopefully it will work out well. Does NF7-S support speedfan? Thanks

This page lists everything Speedfan supports. The Abit NF7-S is on that list.

Many of the motherboards listed as supported on the speedfan site do not have full support. I can't say for sure wrt the NF7-S, but I seem to recollect an old post that indicates that the CPU fan and chipset fans are speedfan/pwm controllable on the NF7-S, but the case fan headers are not. If this is the case, I'd suggest replacing the chipset hsf with a passive heatsink (which you should do regardless!), connecting the front 120mm fan to the chipset fan header and 5-volting the rear Globe. Control the CPU fan and front intake fans with speedfan. Optionally, you can use speedfan to stop the front fan at temperatures less than a specific, configurable SMART HDD temperature like 40C and have it run at miniimal speed when temps exceed 40C. In this case, the fan will likely only run during periods of heavy HDD activity. The rear Globe fan will be very quiet at 5V and should still provide plenty of airflow for your setup.

thanks for the feedbacks, tibors and bomba. Bomba, are u trying to tell me that the speedfan won't be able to control all the case fans and CPU fan? Thanks