Faint ticking from D12SL-12's and D14SL-12's. IS this normal

Control: management of fans, temp/rpm monitoring via soft/hardware

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
WARDOZER9
Posts: 121
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2010 7:41 am
Location: Rockford, IL ( USA )

Faint ticking from D12SL-12's and D14SL-12's. IS this normal

Post by WARDOZER9 » Wed Dec 21, 2011 2:07 pm

I got all of my Yate-Loon D12SL-12's and D14SL-12's installed into my PC and I first noticed it when I was testing all of the fans prior to install but there is a faint ticking coming from all of the fans, the 120mm D12SL's and the 140mm D14SL's. Is this the norm for the sleeve bearing fans from yate-loon? I can't really hear it from 9' away when on my bed but if I get within 3' I can just barely hear it.

Is this something that can be remedied or is it something I have to live with using the Yate-Loon sleeve bearing fans?

cmthomson
Posts: 1266
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2005 8:35 am
Location: Pleasanton, CA

Re: Faint ticking from D12SL-12's and D14SL-12's. IS this no

Post by cmthomson » Wed Dec 21, 2011 2:46 pm

You didn't say so, but I'll assume you're running these fans at less than full speed.

On all but a few very high-end motherboards, 3-pin fan speed control is done with PWM (pulse-width modulation, aka duty cycle) control, where the fan voltage is switched between 12V and 0V in a square wave. In general, this messes up the speed sense circuit inside the fan, so to compensate, the controller chips used on almost all motherboards sends a long 12V pulse a few times per second so that the sense circuit can run at full voltage for more than half a rotation, which allows it to accurately report the fan's RPM.

The click is caused by the sudden increase in torque in the fan motor when the duty cycle is increased from (say) 50% to 100%.

Some fans make louder clicks than others. For instance, Nexus orange fans (which are based on the Yate Loon), are often silent, but many of them also click.

WARDOZER9
Posts: 121
Joined: Thu Jan 28, 2010 7:41 am
Location: Rockford, IL ( USA )

Re: Faint ticking from D12SL-12's and D14SL-12's. IS this no

Post by WARDOZER9 » Wed Dec 21, 2011 4:51 pm

I am actually running the fans at full speed for now for the extra cooling of my OC's till I finish a few games on my winter to do list. They will all get undervolted and my machine set back to stock in a couple months but for now the fans are at 100%.

Also, when I test fans I use a 12v Molex power brick. It has a molex plug with 12v ( also has a 5v rail too ) DC @ 2a which allow me to test all of my fans without having a PC on so I can have complete silence to pinpoint any issues with a fan. I can also tes fans with the adapter on 7v and 5v to make sure they are going to work before I install them, for $15 it's a handy piece of hardware to have around.

Klusu
Posts: 196
Joined: Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:57 am
Location: Riga

Re: Faint ticking from D12SL-12's and D14SL-12's. IS this no

Post by Klusu » Wed Dec 21, 2011 10:15 pm

The tick may go away if you put a resistor in the 12V wire. Some 24Ω.

Post Reply