All those rubber fan mounts I've seen, won't fit a 120mm fan with a deep mount hole......plus they cost too much, don't look re-usable, have to be mail-ordered, etc.

Here's my new DIY setup (never saw it used around here). List of Parts:

eight small plastic cable ties.

small length of automotive soft rubber vacuum tubing, sliced thin.

small strips of adheasive foam (to seal around the fan)

The strips of foam fill in the small gap created by the new gap between the fan and the case. Any sort of small rubber hose could be used....as long as it's soft. The cable ties are just snugged up, not pulled too tightly.

Bingo....soft rubber-mounted fan for next to nothing.

pics

My approach has been to use nylon FH machine screws: 8-32 X 1 1/2" with nylon cap nuts. I use a rubber grommet to isolate the fan from the case. Seems to work in conjunction with other mods: HDD decoupling, sound dampening etc. No vibration whatsoever in my aluminum case.

It's easy to do, and relatively inexpensive. Besides, one of these days Home Depot is going to become the source of 'quiet' for North American'
SPRC members/googlers.

Cheers

Is it just me, or are we looking at a Cooler Master rifle-bearing fan?

-Ed

ahrbruz.....I thought about the small nylon bolt/nut thing. The end result would be the same, but. In some tight fan locations the assembly of a nylon noc-nut would be difficult. Besides I had the necessary pieces already in stock. The whole mounting operation took all of 2 minutes.

The people at Home Depot all know me by name. heh.

Here's my approach. Very much like Bluefront's, heh...

Bluefront

Can you give me a shot of what the automotive soft rubber vacuum tubing looks like?

Photo

Couldn't find the exact piece of hose I used.....this piece is larger, actually fuel line. Vacuum line comes in many diameters. It has to be tuff stuff to remain soft in high-heat areas...under the hood. You just need to find a piece at an automotive parts store, with an inner diameter small enough so the head of the cable tie won't slip through. Cheap stuff. Usually comes in long rolls that the store just cuts off to what you want.

You can also use a small flat steel washer, to keep the cable tie end from slipping into the hose. This technique can be used for mounting fan grills, or almost anything. Replaces nuts/bolts/screws etc. in many mounting projects. One of those cable ties is strong enough to support the whole computer. Just make certain only a slice of hose rubber, is the only thing touching the case....inside and out.

Another photo

I just found this thread. I don't get how the cable tie secures the fan to the case. It looks like you use the cable tie head on one end (outside of case) but then the other end appears to just be hanging on the inside of the case. Are you folding back into the fan or something?

If I'm not mistaken (and we know this is impossible right? )...if I'm not mistaken he placed the head of another cable tie on the end of the original. Then he cut the excess/unused line of the 2nd tie close to the head since adding that tie just acts as a way of clenching off the original tie. At least, that is how I did mine and it worked like a charm. Also, cut off the excess of the original tie.

The great thing about this (and hats off to Blue for this one) is that there is no need to drill new holes, regardless the size of the fan and the spacing of the holes. For example, the AMB3700 has the plastic fan mounts that a true silent PCer wouldn't want to use. You can simply remove the plastic mount and use the original holes to mount a 120mm or 92mm fan by using these ties. You cannot do a straight bolt-through (screw, fan isolators, etc) to attach the fan because the holes do not match any particular fan size. But introduce cable ties to the mix and you can adjust as needed. Just space them properly and make them snug. Cheap, quick, and as effective as any solution that I'm aware of.

Wedge's photo shows how versitile this mount system can be. I've never had to mount a fan into holes with so much of an off-set, but the photo shows it is indeed possible. This ability is what makes this method so useful, as opposed to trying to perfectly line up holes for a nut/bolt.

Nylon cable ties come in all sorts of sizes, colors, lengths. There's even a different type that has a flat mount/type end. Used in automotive applications, these things can last for years, even when exposed to extreme heat/cold. Police even use them to replace hand-cuffs.

I get it. Two cable ties per fan hole. Neat. I have tons of them cluttering my toolbox anyway - I will remember this for next project ... right now my retail cpu fan drowns out any noise made by my case fans.

Don't forget the incredibly simple and effective sponge foam grommet trick employed by Leo Quan (powergyoza) in his Quiet Dual MP Workstation article--




See the article link for full details: Quiet Dual MP Workstation article

That's what I'm using with my BQE & Nexus 120mm combo. The Nexus fan has closed holes, so I pulled the foam through the entire hole. I also didn't cut those tiny slits there, as pulling the foam through the holes in the case was quite difficult (small holes = torn foam sticks). I didn't tape the sides of the fan (like powergyoza did), as I managed to get the fan quite close to the case.

I first tucked all four foam sticks to the fan and then used four twisty ties to pull them through the case holes.

Cheers,

Jan

I've been thinking about using those same elastic ropes that you use with HDD suspending to mount fans. A piece of rope, knots in both ends, some rubber or foam between the fan and the case.

Now, someone please tell me what I should've thought about myself but didn't and why I shouldn't try this out.

The 4 knots would probably end up too dense & non-elastic to be very effective.

I have done this with some of my fans using Stretch Magic, and it works very well. I'm sure regular elastic should be fine too...

There could be some foam or rubber there, too, to keep the knots from touching the case or the fan. Or the ropes could be tied to a loop that goes through two mounting holes. Or all 4. As long as the holes aren't too sharp so that they would cut the rope, I think it there should be less vibrations that with zip ties anyway.

Wow Mike that foam idea just ownz! : --)

Has anyone tried non-hardening silicon adhesive? I plan to give it a try in my SLK3700AMB when my Panaflo FBK-12G12LH arrives. I'll probably attach a safety wire to the fan, just in case. Any thoughts or experiences?

try search, i remember one thread on this a few months ago (cutting out grommets/washers from silicone caulking/adhesive type stuff)

I meant actually attaching the fan directly to the case with silicone. It would provide all the benefits of silicone washers and screws. I am trying to avoid drilling my Antec SLK3700AMB because of down time to do it right. I was working very deligently until I found this site.

I ended up using sticky back Velcro for the 120mm intake fan. A little triangle on each corner did the trick. It appears very secure, but I'll let it run a few days before trying the same technique for the exhaust. I'd hate to mow all the capacitors off my motherboard.

I just wanted to thank you guys for posting this thread.

I just used the ziptie method to attach a 120mm fan to my sonata (the original had gone bad) and it's super easy. Bought 2 ft of rubber vacuum hose at Shucks for $2. That's enough to mount 100 fans I think. Grabbed the zip ties and a razor blade to cut the hose. 5 minutes later the fan is installed, quiet and well damped.

I'm also going to use the rubber hose to fix a vibrating exhaust fan in our bathroom. This is great stuff.

Many thanks for this method. What I did was punch out wholes in a piece of silicon, I then took these and pushed the cabe tie straight through as it was sharp enough to pierce them. You could do the same with a specialist vibration absorbant foam but you may need a needle to make a small initial hole and I expect they might be harder to punch holes in.

I bookmarked this thread some time back and am now getting ready to put it to use. WOW! A simple, effective, versitle, and inexpensive mounting method. Thanks bluefront. Now that I have reviewed the post however, I find I don't really understand one aspect I skimmed over the first time.

bluefront said:
small strips of adheasive foam (to seal around the fan)

The strips of foam fill in the small gap created by the new gap between the fan and the case.

What does this accomplish and how signifcant can it be?

It prevents air from leaking in/out of the created gap. Whether this is a good or a bad thing depends on how the fan is mounted and which direction it's blowing in.

Worst case scenario:

The fan is mounted outside the case, sucking air outside to exhaust. In this situation, leaving the gaps is disastrous--the fan wastes a lot of airflow sucking air through the nearby low resistance gaps instead of from the high resistance case interior.

Best case scenario:

The fan is mounted INSIDE the case, sucking air outside to exhaust. In this situation, leaving the gaps is no big deal--the fan's exhaust air is very directional and will essentially ignore the gaps off to the side. In fact, you might get MORE airflow by leaving the gaps in place. It's possible that the suction effect of the fan's exhaust air will overcome the internal case's negative pressure. Thus, the gaps might actually draw more air outside the case along with the fan's own exhaust!

Thanks a bunch IsaacKuo. I'm mounting inside the case, and although this mounting method has much to recommend it, sealing the gap is an added complication I will gladly bypass given your timely explanation.

I was searching for a similar solution when installing a case fan in an Antec 3000 case last summer. Since the case holes lined up with the fan holes, it was not necessary to drill holes, although I was looking for something which could be inserted between the case and the fan to damp vibration.

Looking around the workbench, I found an old bicycle inner tube. I sliced the inner tube into strips and used a paper hole punch to punch holes in the rubber at the locations where the fan screws needed to go through the rubber. The case fan was then assembled as usual with the rubber strips between the case and the fan. This solution has worked well for the past three months and best of all it was free!

Are Bluefronts "pics" and "photo" mentioned early in the posts still available. Have tried over 3 days but keep getting an error message "cannot find the server". I can get "another photo" but not the other two.

Here's another link
to the album these pictures are in.....I think the picture numbers are 1-4.

You know this mod is the simplest I ever came up with, that I ever posted on SPCR. I had used it before on different things, but never a computer fan. And yet this thread still surfaces now and again, and has the most hits of any of my threads.

This is amusing to me, because many of my mods are very unique, some are difficult, some easy...all haved worked well for me. And yet most of them have simply vanished into the SPCR arcives....never to be seen again.

Too bad....

i've still kept my purple fan mounts
but i've put foam in between the fan and mount

btw
i don't think i've seen that case of yours bluefront
i gathered it is the Black knight
what did you use for the sidepanels? it looks like the playmat stuff, but it's black