I got a pair of Nexus 120mm fans in to try with my 6x6x2 heater core.
I had previously been using a pair of 120mm Panaflo L1As (grey label) at 5V, stacked on the pull side with a 25mm plenum (hollowed out fan body) between.
This previous setup worked about the same (MBM based - diode minus case) as a single L1A at 7V but was quieter.
While I was at all this, I tried various configurations of push/pull, push-stacked, and pull stacked and tended to get best results with pull stacked (typically push/pull offered no benefit over single pull)

So.. I have tried the Nexus fans
- single pull - same temps as 7V L1A / stacked pull L1As at 5V
- stacked pull - 1 or 2 C cooler than 7V L1A / (as above).

Single or stacked, they are quieter than a single L1A at 5V (which was useless with a 2" radiator, BTW).
Stacked, slightly louder than single (no idea if it's actually the theoretical 3dB or not - too quiet for my ears to tell - will try all this again the next time I'm up at 2AM and it's quiet around here...
I may also try speed-controlling the Nexus' down to the same apparent noise level as a single one and see how that compares temp-performance wise.

CAVEAT : I am measuring / comparing sound with my ears all be it late at night when background noise is low - and I am measuring airflow performance by looking at the delta between case temp and diode temp as reported by MBM which isn't any kind of accurate or even linear (although case temps seem to go up and down exactly in lockstep with the temp readings of the wall thermostat.)

bobkoure, What heatercore are you using? Also, you are running your Nexus fans at 12v right? I assuming that is the case with regards to what you said about adding speed-controlling. I am very curious as to your success with <12v Nexuses on a 2" thick heatercore.


Sunon related
With resistors on the Sunon:




Is the Sunon still quieter than the Nexus with the hum? If so, about on what voltage does the Nexus compare?

Thanks!

DrCR

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I'm using the heater core for a mercury montego.

Fans are stacked on the "pull" side - using a Coolingworks shroud. Actual exposed finned area (because of the "step" in the shroud) is 5.5x5.5.
Yes, I'm running at 12V. Next time I'm up late I'll try to find out what my trade-offs are. It's entirely possible that the best cooling/noise trade-off, having less noise than I do now, is to simply remove one of the two fans. The theory (which I'm sure you know but I'll add for other thread-readers) is that axial fans in series produce the same airflow as a single fan, but at increasesd pressure). Assording to this, the only reason a second fan is helping at all is because the additional pressure pulls a bit more air through that 2" heater core.

BTW, I was expecting these fans to come with a single 3-pin header plug and a 4-pin-to-3-pin adapter. They instead have both a 3 pin and a 4 pin pass-through crimped on. I ended up ordering some molex connectors from directron to get rid of the wiring "clutter" associated. My issue isn't so much "look pretty" as "get that da**ed stuff out of my airflow path". What were they thinking?

Yes, it's still quieter than the Nexus. The hum introduced is very slight. If you use the 1K pots for speed control instead of the fan speed controller you get the best results possible with this fan.

Excellent, thanks ferdb.


Oh yeah. I knew I knew you from computer forums but I forgot you were the one I PMed at procooling about the mercury montego a while back. So re-thanks to you again lol. What are the maximum, edge-to-edge height and width dimensions of this 2" depth heatercore? (Not rush, don't whip out a ruler on my account if your too busy at the present). I was already considering using this for inside the case due to mainly to its nice OD bard size, but now I'm thinking I may use it for my rad box too. [/quasi off-topic]

DrCR
_______

How big is your rad box? What surfaces can you mount a heater core in? IMHO there are lots of better choices than this particular heater core if you're not constrained by trying to put it into the lower front of a PC case. For instance, you could put a fedco 2-734 (10.25x7x.98) into the side, top, or bottom of a radbox and use the entire box as a shroud - so just pull air from the box. This also gives you the opportunity to mount the fan(s) so they point away from you - preferably towards a surface you've put sound-absorbtive material on (even a towel hung a bit away from the wall...).
How about if we move this part of the discussion to either the watercooling area here or to procooling?

You guys should try out some Sanyo Denki fans and see how it compares. Alot of people like them over at the overclockers forums. http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=341518
Scroll down a bit, u'll see one.

Good call. Continuation link: <here>
Thanks!

Firstly a brief overview of my system cooling:

- two 120mm fans mounted in the side panel (holes cut of course) using bolt/nuts with a bit of foam inbetween for damping. Both bring air into the case.
- the top one is ducted directly to the CPU heatsink: Thermalright SLK900A which works a lot better than direct mounting, because of the large 'overhang' that 80 and 92mm fans give with this heatsink. Its a Duron1400 modded into an AthlonXP running at 1980mhz 1.55V
- the lower one gets some air over the graphics card to which i've attatched a bigger heatsink. The Ti4600 still gets warm and, non ducted, this fan needs to spin faster to avoid 3d artefacts than the CPU fan. (I should duct it but thats tricky)
- finally an 80mm fan mounted with the same 'foam sandwich' on the outside of the PSU is the only way out for the air..
- The HD is a 160GB 7200RPM Samsung, hanging on some rubber bands from the lowest 3.5'' slot, surrounded by 4.5cm pritex foam. I can't hear it spinning or seeking at all.


I bought 2 Papst 4412FGL fans about 2 years ago when I first entered the Silent The Damn Thing business. Being incredibly picky I didn't like them too much.

In the meantime however I tried a few more fans. The 'Noiseblocker Sx1 120mm' looks great on paper, but along with all other 'super silent' noiseblockers, they emit high frequency 'whining' at certain voltages / RPMs which is quite irritating.

I also tried a Titan 120mm fan (don't know the product number) because it seemed to run so smoothly. It does, but again when slowed down a lot, high frequency annoyance comes into play.

Lastly was a SUNON fan, that was just too high CFM. At 7v it was still about to lift my pc from the ground, and 5v it wouldn't handle. Not really worth mentioning here actually, but a lot of laughs trying it out in anticipation...

The Papst fans are totally free of high frequency sound. Bear in mind that I really use the fans at LOW speed, sub 5V with my fan controller saying 450 for the CPU fan and 540 for the lower. Sub 700RPM the aforementioned fans started to make hideous (sp) high pitched noise. The papsts just 'whirr' slightly, like the idleing diesel engine mentioned earlier. The sond level of this is very low, and the frequency well out of the 'irritating' range. When not whining high, the 80mm PSU noiseblocker fan is pretty good at around 850rpm

The point is that for really slow fans, sub 5 volt, the Papst 4412fgl are the best I heard..

Yesterday I briefly tested the Coolermaster SAF-S12-E1, which is a 'rifle bearing' (god knows what that means, I didn't get shot that's for sure..) 120mm fan running at 720rpm at an alledged 13dba.

I think this is the slowest 120mm out there at 720RPM / 12V. Vibrations are quite noticable which where quite noticable and audible with the fan in free air. I didn't have time to put the fan to the test in my computer but I'm sure the vibrations would end up being unacceptable, compared to the trusty Papsts that is.

There is good news as well however: no sign of high frequency sound, just slight motor noise and 'whirr'. Overall the fan is pretty good if take care mounting it as damped as you can.

I'm really curious how the Noiseblocker SX1 120mm fan compares with the Nexus 120mm. The Noiseblocker is rated 38 CFM @ 17 dBa.

http://www.noiseblocker.de/shop/de_DE/p ... n_SX1.html

how about the quality of that nexus fan?

is it as good as fe a papst (which i only know by hearing good things about it, until reading this thread )

cause it might be more silent, but id like a reliable fan too (and i didnt really hear from Nexus before in my life )

my plan was to put 2 of them on a radiator from 1A-Cooling.de, so i can watercool my cpu (overclocked winchester), gpu (6600gt), and northbridge (nf4)
and that all in my cooler master stacker case with 1 rear 120mm and 2 front 120mm fans (coolermaster PL12S12L 0.6A)
i think ill disable that top 80mm fan or put it on 5v perhaps

is that radiator "restrictive"?
u can find it here:
http://www.1a-cooling.de/shop/index.htm
its the blacklort 240 (cooling kit With Radiator 240) im talkin about

i can let it be delivered with 2x papst 4412 FGL btw, are these the same as those 4412's ur talking about?
what would be the better choise u think? nexus or these papst? (dont even know yet if i can choose to have no fans with that set :/)

Hum, I'm not sure. It might be decent, but that's probably as good as you should expect. Clear plastic sends up big red flags. As for the specs, *never* believe the vendor. If you try them out let us know how they compare with a Japanaflo!



Nexus fans are first rate. However, if you have to order the radiator with fans, the 4412s (yes, the same fan) may be sufficently quiet for you. I checked out that radiator a while back. It looks too thick and therefore restrictive, but I believe I read somewhere here at SPCR that it's not really all that restrictive. Maybe the fins are low density or something. I suggest you start your own thread on the matter, though *do a forum search first* to see if there's already a thread out there. Hope this helps!

DrCR

________

well...

on 2th thought i think of goin for those papst again

my cooler master 120mm fans are also about 1600rpm, like the papst 4412, and the nexus is only 1000rpm

so if i took those nexus fans i would prolly still here the same noise as with the papst, cause of those cooler master fans...

and if those 5 120mm's are too loud i can still try undervolting them a lil (all 5 of them then)

I'm about to switch my dying rear case fan in my Sonata, probably with a Papst 4412, but I cant figure out the following from the intro of this thread:

"The Papst 4412 fans are very nice when undervolted on DC current. They are one of the best quiet 120x25mm fans for restrictive environments. They don't like PWM though"

Does this mean that I won't get good results when using the fan-only option from the PSU, but only when connecting straight to the mobo?

Thanks in advance!
(p.s. I know Nexus probably is the best alternative, but they are really hard to get here in Sweden)

The 4412FGL comes with a 4-pin molex pass thru connector for directly connecting to the PSU or PSU fan-only connector. The 4412 F/2GL comes with a 3-pin motherboard connector and adds RPM monitoring. I suggest buying a 4412FGL and trying it on the PSU fan-only connector. At light loads, the voltage on this connector should be ~6Vdc. IIRC, it is not pwm but uses linear regulation. If the 6v 4412 is not quiet enough, or you end up abandoning the TP380S for a quieter PSU, you'll likely lose the fan-only connector. In that case, just swap the wires in the fan's molex connector and power it from the PSU's 5Vdc output. Check out Mike C's article for more info.
Get 12V, 7V or 5V for your Fans
The Papst 4412 @5v is smooth and very quiet while providing adequate airflow for most systems.

Note that motherboard fan connectors are either fixed 12v or 12v with pwm. With fans powered from the motherboard, you can optionally use the Zalman fanmate with motherboard fan headers to linearally regulate fan voltage to 5v at the lowest setting. The advantage of using pwm is with software such as speedfan or silenttek which provides automatic thermal fan-speed regulation. In my opinion, this type of control is best suited to automatically vary the speed of noisy CPU fans, so that they are quiet unless running processor hungry aps.

My experience with the fan only connectors on the Antec PSUs is that these control fan speed by changing the voltage. So this may work well with the Pabst fan. Give it a try. The other thing I have found is that it will set the voltage so low that some fans will not run. Have not tried this with a lot of fans so I can't say if this happens to 1% or 10% or 20% or ? but it will not start a Panaflow fan that I have.

Thanks for your input. I have a 4-pin molex pass thru laying around because it came with an Enermax 120 fan I got too so I can try the fan only option. I also have a Zalman 12v > 5.5V connector which I can try as well. Gonna report my results later :)

guys I've found this:

Chieftec/Yate Loon
http://www.ikbenstil.nl/index.php?cPath ... 2092777be8

It's in dutch but I'll translate the part under "Specifikaties"
It says (model: D12SM-12):
- "as good as inaudible" at 4.5V
- possible to use with anti-vibration mounts.

if you keep scrolling you'll see that this fan is rated 55CFM @ 28dBa. So I'm very curious how this fan performs. I'm considering getting this fan since I can use my rubber fan mounts without any modifications on the fan.

I might at least be partly responsible for that PWM addition since I posted some findings on the combination of the mCubed T-Balancer fan controller and Papst fans right around the time this thread got started. What I found was that on the T-Bal, the Papst fans suffered quite a bit from resonance effects due to the PWM signal the controller uses. Since motherboards often use PWM for speed regulation too, YMMV when it comes to using Papst fans with PWM. The Nexus fans I comapred them with did not suffer any effects at all.

However, effects of PWM are also dependant on stuff like the actual linesignal curve shape used and the PWM frequency, so the amount of PWM resonance in a fan may even differ from one controller to the next. I have found the Papst to be quite good fans when undervolted on regular DC current as mentioned here before (the 120mms at least, I don't really like their 80mm models any more).

As for sharing experiences, I have recently built a Sonata with 2 Papst 4412F/2GL but decided to run both at 5V. That was a light system (1 hdd, XP2500+) and it did not need any more cooling. I did not measure the fan only connectors for voltage, but they were noisier than the 5V line. The 380 psu is the loudest thing in that machine, easily. I would have used Nexus fans but I had these Papst lying around in that big box of fans every SPCR regular seems to have

Wouldn't suprise me a bit. I pulled a lot of info, mostly PWM related, from that T-Balancer thread.

DrCR

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Is there a us pabst source for the 4412 F/2GL or F/2GLL? These are the 120mm sleeve bearing low rpm models. I know you can get some of the ball bearing models from directron, endpcnoise, etc..

These european sites have an unbelievable selection of pabst, silentmaxx, yate loon, globe, etc..

www.ichbinleise.de
www.pcsilent.com
www.koolnquiet.co.uk

I just can't believe we have to wait for mnpctech to get a new shipment of globes.

Is anyone familiar with the silentmaxx? - FG

http://store.yahoo.com/directron/4412fgl.html
"sintered sleeve bearings technology"

Are you saying Directron's product description is wrong? (I mean that as a question, not exclamation)

DrCR

________

This is an old thread, but I meant to say you can find certain papst models in the us, but I haven't seen any with rpm sensing. A 4412 FGL - no rpm sensing, 4412 F/2GL - rpm sensing. They all have sleeve bearings. So directron's description is correct. - FG

Better late than never.

No problem, and thanks for response.

DrCR

_________

the model no is the same with both the LED and UV versions.

Just check that the package has the silent ear logo and has 1220 rpm printed on it.

The coolermaster model no. has been changed to SUF-S12 in case you're ordering online. - FG

Now listed as Coolermaster SUF-S12 / A12025-12CB-5BN-L1. Thanks for the update! :)

A bit late but answering Digitizers question about the Noiseblocker 120mm:

Very smooth fan, initially seemed pretty impressive. However, just like their 92 and 80mm little brothers, the fan emits fairly high frequency sound that is quite pronounced at certain speeds. I experience this as being unacceptable and our ears are just far more sensitive to higher frequency flute type tones than some low frequency whirring..

I haven't tried the Globe or Glaiciatech (sp) fans, but sofar my ranking is as follows:
1) Nexus or low speed Yate Loon (at same rpm)
2) Papst 4412fgl
3) coolermaster 13dba 720rpm
4) Noiseblocker

All rated at similair rpm, at full speed the Nexus is slower than the Yate Loon so appears to be more silent. The Papst at 1600rpm is loud but undervolts nicely, beating the Coolermaster once the revs drop.

I could live with the top 3 fans as they are either silent or just 'whirr' comfortably like.. err.. a purring (sp??) cat or a WW2 bomber that is 20 miles away. Hard to describe at 23:30

So many fans can emit highish frequency tones: even the 92mm Nexus is capable of it, although luckily this only seems to happen at one exact speed.

Niels

PS: ratings and comments are for the fans sub 700 RPM, I haven't really tested them faster. Even a Nexus at more than 600rpm is 'loud' in my case!

Not sure if this has been answered but checked the Fan Fundamentals and General FAQ and didn't fine my answer.

What are the pros and cons between 120x25mm vs 120x38mm fans (excluding the fan thickness)?

Which of the two are better overall?


I'm going to be using the fans on a Black Ice Pro III radiator btw..