Very disappointed in 120mm Papst 4412FGL.. so noisy!

SuitCase874 · Post by **SuitCase874** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 4:57 am

Hi,

My PSU with a generic "quiet" 120mm fan (Maxpower 400W if anyone's interested) was the noisest part of my PC by far, so I was looking forward to replacing it with something very quiet. It emitted a sort of dull low-frequency whoosh sound that wasn't irritating but could be better. So I researched 120mm fans and found that most people here consider the Papst 4412FGL to be one of the best, if not the best fans available. I recently got this fan and proceeded to accidentally blow up my Maxpower PSU yesterday when trying to install it.. I have learnt from my mistakes now

Insulating wires is a good thing to do with live heatsinks around. Anyhow, I bought a new "Superquiet" brand generic PSU with a 120mm fan (a Ruilian Science one, almost identical to the Maxpower fan in terms of noise, not too bad but a low whoosh..) which I just spent the last few hours opening up and toying with, and finally I have the Papst fan in there along with a Zalman fan mate, also added vibration pads to the corners of the fan so the vibrations are dissipated. Running at what I estimate to be 8-10v, the fan is almost exactly the same in terms of nosie to the other fans.. a low whoosh sound that is clearly heard above, say, my Arctic Cooling VGA silencer (which I consider almost completely silent) as well as my terribly loud stock Intel P4 heatsink. But when turning off all these other moving components, it is obvious that the Papst fan is generating a lot of noise.. and for such a supposedly "silent" and good-quality fan running in a heavily padded case (GMC Trinity X-21), I am very disappointed in what was an expensive and very time-intensive purchase to make.

What am I doing wrong? Should I learn to live with the sound as all 120mm fans make a distinctive "whoosh", or can I do something about this?

Any help would be appreciated.

hightower · Post by **hightower** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 5:46 am

Hi there, just a quick comment, I wasn't too impressed with the papst either, so I bought Noiseblocker blacksilence pro 120mm, and I think it's better. I don't know if you can get those since im from europe where they are widely available. Otherwise there's the new transparant Acoustifans, I haven't tried those....

SuitCase874 · Post by **SuitCase874** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 5:50 am

Is it significantly better, though? It'd have to be way better for me to consider doing again.. this really does sound just the same as the crappy generic fans I had before.

hightower · Post by **hightower** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 6:07 am

It's somewhat better. I run both on 7 volts, but the noiseblocker pro is more quiet.. i'm using one in my nexus PSU

HammerSandwich · Post by **HammerSandwich** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 6:27 am

Suitcase, it sounds (heh!) like you're hearing just air noise. Is the Papst moving about the same amount of air as the others were? Can you reduce the fan's voltage?

jimveta · Post by **jimveta** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 6:47 am

i don't think they're *that* quiet either, but they're one of the quieter ones.. a little overated in terms of noise, but a bit better than vantec stealth and some others for the same amount airflow.. anyways imho, you may be out of luck with regards to your psu because most of the noise may be coming from turbulence. if so, only way would be to lower the rpms.

i've personaly found turbulence from immediate obstructions to airflow (more on the exhaust side of a fan) to make a HUGE difference.. recently i've just tin snipped away some restictive 80mm fan grills on one of my cases and OMG, i couldn't believe the difference it made for a moderate airflow fan (meaning not slow speed) at least. if those 120mm psu's were configured somehow to pull air out rather than solely pushing it out past all the internal components, i bet it would be much quieter.

sorenbro · Post by **sorenbro** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 10:14 am

The Papst 120mm fan is rated at 1400rpm at 12V, and that is quiet high for a 120mm fan.

I have one myself, and at high voltages it is no where near quiet, but the good thing about this fan is that undervolting it doesn't create the annoying clicking sound (at least not a significant amount og it) that alot of fans do.

Ofcourse your fan is loud at 10V, but try and set it to 5V, and it is very quiet, running at 600rpm. I'm not sure how much heat your PSU generates or if you are running with a case fan also, but I think the PSU should be able to cope with the fan running at 5V.

sorenbro · Post by **sorenbro** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 10:15 am

The reason the Noiseblocker may seem quieter at the same voltage could be because the Noiseblocker is simply running with fewer rpm, and therefore pushing less air. So the only fair thing would be comparing the two fans at the same rpm.

SuitCase874 · Post by **SuitCase874** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 1:16 pm

I'll try running it at 5V next. I didn't have it at the lowest speed because I was scared I'd make my PSU overheat but it seems stable enough at the current speed. However:

Would reversing the fan perhaps help, or is it that a bad idea? Currently it's pushing air out the back, but if it was pulling air inwards..

I'll also try removing the fan grill and clearing it up inside. Thanks for the ideas.

idealcrash · Post by **idealcrash** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 3:17 pm

You should really cut the fan grill on your PSU. I have a papst 4412F/2GL running @ 800rpm on a Tornado 400W. Fan is mounted with EAR fan isolators and PSU grill is cut off. It is, for all purposes, silent.

SuitCase874 · Post by **SuitCase874** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 4:25 pm

You mean the grill at the back of the PSU, or the grill inside the computer itself?

Does this create any issues of dust clogging up the computer, by the way? I don't mind my other components, but I've become rather paranoid about PSUs and how fragile they are.

hightower · Post by **hightower** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 4:50 pm

The Papst 120mm fan is rated at 1400rpm at 12V, and that is quiet high for a 120mm fan.

Wrong. the papst is rated at 1600rpm at 12v. It is not that quiet running on 12v or even 7v. It is very quiet on 5v though.

The reason the Noiseblocker may seem quieter at the same voltage could be because the Noiseblocker is simply running with fewer rpm

The noiseblocker is rated at 1550rpm at 12v. that's 50rpm slower.. heh.

I have both fans here so I know what I can recommend and what not. the noiseblocker blacksilence pro is just better.

SuitCase874 · Post by **SuitCase874** » Fri Apr 16, 2004 11:44 pm

I just did some more tweaking. Removed the grille on the internal side (the back of this particular PSU is very open anyway so I won't worry about that) and due to issues I had with the internal 12V connector for a fan (it didn't seem to start my fan) and the issues of the Zalman fan controller blocking airflow in the PSU, I am now running the fan's wires through the corner of the fan opening and into the motherboard's rear fan socket. This gives the added advantage of allowing me to change the speed of the PSU fan quite easily.

Will the Papst fan running at such a low voltage be sufficient to cool my PSU? How can I tell when the PSU is getting close to overheated? And is there an issue running the PSU fan through the mobo's rear fan plug?

idealcrash · Post by **idealcrash** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 12:08 am

Yes, I was talking about removing the inside fan grill.

Will the Papst fan running at such a low voltage be sufficient to cool my PSU? How can I tell when the PSU is getting close to overheated?

It's hard to tell if a 120mm PSU is running too hot or not. You could get a temperature probe, but I don't think that would tell you much. Cooling is all wrong in 120mm PSU's, alot of air gets trapped inside the PSU, only a small percentage of air actually escapes through the back honey comb grill. And if you haven't blocked the back vents then hot air gets dumped back into the case just making things worse. Next PSU I get will be an 80mm ducted to get only fresh air from the outside.

And is there an issue running the PSU fan through the mobo's rear fan plug?

The only 'issue' is that you'll be able to get RPM reading from the fan but that's a good thing. I run the wires from the papst out of the PSU along with all the other wires at the back. Fan is plugged into a FanMate wich is then plugged into the mobo. I had to remove the 3 pin connector from the papst so that the wires could fit through the existing cable ties that hold the PSU wires together, it gave a more 'professional' look to the mod.

SuitCase874 · Post by **SuitCase874** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 2:28 am

<b> And if you haven't blocked the back vents then hot air gets dumped back into the case just making things worse.</b>
Forgive me for sounding stupid, but.. back vents? Do you mean the honeycomb ventilation on the "rear" of the PSU (by that I mean the side kept at the back of the case that the power plugs into?) My PSU only has openings there and internally facing downwards, where the fan goes. If I could improve cooling performance of the PSU so easily, I'd love to try. (Now that I think about it.. do you mean case fan vents?)

<b>The only 'issue' is that you'll be able to get RPM reading from the fan but that's a good thing.</b>
My fan has no third wire

I can only guess the RPM.

I'm kinda happy with my Papst at a low voltage now, it is indeed very quiet, especially after removing that grille. However I am scared that the PSU will overheat. Does anyone know how I can tell when this is about to happen, or is it totally up to luck? And what would happen if the PSU overheated? Are they smart enough to turn themselves off?

The box for my PSU says it has "4 levels protection (Over voltage, over current, over loading and output short circuit)".. is that sufficient?

Any more help would be totally great.

idealcrash · Post by **idealcrash** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 3:07 am

Forgive me for sounding stupid, but.. back vents? Do you mean the honeycomb ventilation on the "rear" of the PSU

I thought your PSU had some vents on the opposite side of the honey comb(the side that faces inside of the case) but it doesn't, so you're ok.

My fan has no third wire I can only guess the RPM.

Strange, I thought all 4412F/2GL's had RPM sensing and 4412FGL's didn't.

Can't really help you on how to tell when a PSU is about to die, never had that happen to me, or at least never waited for it to happen.

Maybe coil whine, buzzing, sudden drop in line voltages are some of the signs to watch for.

SuitCase874 · Post by **SuitCase874** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 3:45 am

I have a 4412FGL, hence no RPM sensing

And thanks for the tips. I'll keep my eyes out for the smoke.

CeeJay · Post by **CeeJay** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 4:16 am

I have two such fans running at about 5v (fanmates lowest setting) in my system and I can't hear them at all.

Ofcourse to get this low noiselevel i had to cut away the fangrills as they were making a lot of tubulence noise .. with something obstructing the air they were not very silent at all.

When I turn up the fanspeed all I hear is more airnoise .. and only that.
I can't hear any vibrationnoise and I've just mounted them with a kind of soft tape thats adhesive on noth sides (i dont know what the english word for it is).
They are easy and cheap to mount that way and the tape absorbs the vibrations.

idealcrash · Post by **idealcrash** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 5:37 am

SuitCase874 wrote:I have a 4412FGL, hence no RPM sensing

My bad, thought I had seen 'F2GL' on your first post.

dasman · Post by **dasman** » Sat Apr 17, 2004 12:28 pm

I agree, it sounds like you're hearing air turbulence (120mm moves alot more air, hence more noise). The beauty of the 120 is that you can run it slow (5v) and get the same air movement as an 80mm at a higher speed.

If you can run your papst at 5v quietly (no mechanical noise), then you have a good fan -- many other brands click or having bearing noise that becomes audible at lower speeds.

Dave