Panaflo 80 "M" -- nice alternative!!

Post by **MikeC** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 3:36 pm

Having had a chance to listen and play with 4 samples of the Panaflo FBA08A12M 80mm medium speed fan, I have to say this is a very useful fan. Compare specs:

FBA08A12M - 0.17A - 2450 RPM - 28 dBA - 32 CFM
FBA08A12L - 0.10A - 1900 RPM - 21 dBA - 24 CFM

7 dBA seems like a big difference, but none of us will ever run it at 12V. What is interesting is that at 5V (~900rpm), it is slightly louder & speedier than the L at 7V. The overall sound quality is pretty much the same; there is a bit more woo-woosh hummy sound than with the L at 7V, but otherwise, a totally recognizable family audio signature. All this from less than a foot away, of course. Further back, it is pretty much inaudible, much like the L at 7V. It blows a bit more air than the L at 5V but perhaps about the same as at 7V.

Why is this fan so useful? In case you couldn't figure it out, I highlighted the reason: the capacity to pump 32 CFM (in free air) at 12V!

One of the most common uses of the Panaflo L is to swap out fans from already quiet PSUs ro make them even quieter, to make them like the Nexus3000. But then we worry about the low airflow, about overheating. This fan is about as quiet as any at 5V BUT can deliver 80% of the rated airflow of the stock PSU fans -- which are typically 35-38 CFM. It is a perfect fit for the Seasonic PSUs, which have a low default voltage of under 4.5V. This fan will start and be as quiet as the L in a Seasonic, yet has 25% more airflow at full tilt. It would also work well in the Sonata TP380's single fan PSU.

Where can you get these from?

Someone in these forums mentioned a California online shop called www.so-trickcomputers.com, and the owner was kind enough to ship over some samples when I requested. The ones I received have the added bonus of a 3-wire/connector (yes, RPM sensing! -- not that you need it for PSUs...) On the so-trickcomputers.com fan page, only untailed Panaflo 80M fans are shown for $5.50 each + 3-pin/wire tails for $1.75 each, Looks like they are all RPM sensing?

Worth a try for those uncomfortable with the airflow provided by Panaflo L in low fan voltage PSUs.

Riffer · Post by **Riffer** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 3:49 pm

None of the "L"'s should be RPM sensing.

The "M" will be RPM sensing if you can find the "1BX" suffix on the fan.

I just got a "M" "1BX" myself, and hope to test it this weekend. I am hoping that it is useable on my CPU heatsink.

I also picked up an FBA "L" for my PSU, and hopefully it will eliminate some turbulence noise problems I have been having in my PSU.

GamingGod · Post by **GamingGod** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 5:59 pm

im sure someone has answered this before but ill ask again anyways. would it work better if you cut a hole on the front of the power supply were the vents usually are and took off the fan on the back, that way the air is blowing onto the heatsinks and then is forced out the back. hince the fan is further in the case and i would think it would cool better?

Post by **MikeC** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 6:10 pm

I can't see that it would make that much difference, but I guess you could try it. I mean there's no flow loss IN the fan iself -- what goes in one side has to come out the other...

One thing that would probably do, however, is decrease the turbulence noise, because an impedance close to the exhaust side of the fan always makes less noise than on the intake side. So if you could keep the area between the top 5.25" bay and the repositioned PSU fan clear for say at least 1", then you might see hear a noise reduction -- if the fan was spinning fast enough for turbulence noise to be an issue.

With a low voltage Panaflo, it is not an issue at all.

crisspy · Post by **crisspy** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 11:37 pm

Interesting point about the M series Mike. Thanks for doing such -as usual- excellent footwork. Another good tip from SPCR for the toolbox.

I tried hooking up one of my L's (on CPU) with a 3 pin tail, but it won't read the RPM. Couldn't help for wishing, since there is a pin that says 'S' on it. Makes me wonder how they could bother leaving it off. They must have saved at least 5¢ each, I bet. Sure it offsets the lost sales in the hobby market that this excellent fan often doesn't reach, because it doesn't sense RPM.

GamingGod wrote:would it work better if you cut a hole on the front of the power supply were the vents usually are and took off the fan on the back...

Been there, done that, just as Mike described. [url=http:members.shaw.ca/crisspy/fuzzbox.htm]FuzzBox (homepage)[/url] or The Fuzz Box - First steps to quieting my junky box. has good clear pictures and description. It did help a bit.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 5:19 am

I've been using an 7-volted M1A on my SLK-800 just for that reason. It puts out almost as much air as a 12V L1A but is noticeably quieter. I like these so much I bought four more just to keep around for applications like this.

I have a box with about 50+ fans (mostly Panaflos) that I'm always digging into to experiment with something. Once you start playing around with 5V, 7V and 12V on different fans all the combinations and permutations of noise vs. airflow become mind-boggling. What's worse is that it's mostly subjective until you actually hook up the fan in your box and see what happens to the noise and temps.

powergyoza · Post by **powergyoza** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 8:28 am

Thanks for doing the experiment Mike. You've had more success with you M1A's than I've had with my H1A's. Like you said, the noise from the electronics is probably too loud to make it useful for us silentpcer's

JarsOfFart · Post by **JarsOfFart** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 6:28 pm

Is there anywhere to get these for around 2.50 like the L1A's? I searched Froogle.com and they were all around 10 bucks or more.

powergyoza · Post by **powergyoza** » Thu Jan 30, 2003 7:52 pm

arstechnica had a thread about this. Here the link to the AT thread: http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopi ... 9120950635

They mentioned $5.50 M1A's at So-Trick computers: http://www.so-trickcomputers.com/Mercha ... ry_Code=FF

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 6:44 am

So-Tricks's where I got my M1As from. He's a good guy to deal with.

TomG · Post by **TomG** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 10:20 am

Very useful info for me right now.

Silent Tek has limited usefullness without speed sensing fans. These might be the ticket.

Also, as I posted on another thread, XP seens to have a start up problem when a non speed sensing fan is used for the CPU. I don't know if this is WIndows or the Aopen Bios or what, but the problem disapeared when I took off the Panaflo L and put on a speed sensing fan.

TomG · Post by **TomG** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 10:53 am

I called the vendor Mike linked above and confirmed that the fans do have the 'X' designation.

Want to know what all those Panaflo numberes and letters signify? Go here:

http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/app ... common.pdf

JarsOfFart · Post by **JarsOfFart** » Fri Jan 31, 2003 4:13 pm

http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/c ... type=store

Panaflo® DC Brushless Model FBA08A24M for $3.00. It needs 24 volts I think looking at the "24" in the model number, not the standard 12, but it seems to just have the standard 3 pin motherboard connector. Can I still use this one?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 6:25 am

JarsOfFart wrote:http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/c ... type=store

Panaflo® DC Brushless Model FBA08A24M for $3.00. It needs 24 volts I think looking at the "24" in the model number, not the standard 12, but it seems to just have the standard 3 pin motherboard connector. Can I still use this one?

Won't it run at half speed (if it runs at all) at 12V? Hmm...I wonder how quiet it would be at 12V?

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Sat Feb 01, 2003 6:33 am

TomG wrote:
Also, as I posted on another thread, XP seens to have a start up problem when a non speed sensing fan is used for the CPU. I don't know if this is WIndows or the Aopen Bios or what, but the problem disapeared when I took off the Panaflo L and put on a speed sensing fan.

WindowsXP (or any other Windows back to 3.1 that I know of) has no problem with non-speed sensing fans on the CPU unless you have some sort of third-party software that is set to shutdown your box if the CPU fan isn't running.

Much more likely is that your BIOS is set to halt on "No CPU Fan Detected". Most BIOSes do this. Just go into your BIOS and look around till you fined that setting and set it to "ignore" or whatever.

Bat · Post by **Bat** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 3:53 pm

Is it worth adding the FBA08A12M to the recommended fans page on the main site, then?

Riffer · Post by **Riffer** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 4:34 am

Bat wrote:Is it worth adding the FBA08A12M to the recommended fans page on the main site, then?

Not unless you under volt it. My Nexus blew before I had a chance to determine optimal voltage, but there is no way at 12V.

At 12V the fan is quite loud, but as with other Panaflo's, doesn't have any annoying extraneous sounds.

seishino · Post by **seishino** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 8:10 am

GamingGod wrote:im sure someone has answered this before but ill ask again anyways. would it work better if you cut a hole on the front of the power supply were the vents usually are and took off the fan on the back, that way the air is blowing onto the heatsinks and then is forced out the back. hince the fan is further in the case and i would think it would cool better?

I've been thinking the same thing. I would expect that to dissapate the sound quite a bit over the heatsink / impediments before exiting out the back. Plus we could put those nifty finger-guards back on

. I'm in the middle of a case transition, but I'll try it out with an older PSU and report back (in about a month).

piglet · Post by **piglet** » Thu Feb 06, 2003 6:19 am

TomG wrote:

Silent Tek has limited usefullness without speed sensing fans.

Could he or someone else elaborate?[/quote]

TomG · Post by **TomG** » Thu Feb 06, 2003 5:13 pm

Piglet,

I didn't do a lot of experimentation with a non speed sensing fan. I found that without the third wire and no RPM's, ST reads it as fan off.

Silent Tek seems to need to know the RPM reading to do what it does.

I have a couple of the 1M panaflows with RPM sensing, but they don't seem to want to start up at lowerer RPMs.

I've got an evercool I bought at compusa that doesn't have this problem. It's not as quiet, but it does start at the low voltages.

Obviously, I don't have the whole thing tweeked out yet, but SilenTek has such a large range of otions I feel confident I can optimize the fan business. Since the HD is my big noise source at the moment, I need to shut that up before I really go back after the CPU fan. It's off most of the time anyway. The only other fan I have in the case is a panaflow 1L @5V. (let me know if you need to know how to do this.)

If you are going to build a system using the aopen MB, my advice (having done it) is to quiet the PSU and the HD first and then work on silent tek. You can use the stock HS/fan that comes with the intel processor just to get a feel for it. The only problem is you may have to pull the MB if you want to switch HS. (e.g., using the alpha).

It's not really a problem, it's just some additional work. But for a noble cause!

Hope this helps.

piglet · Post by **piglet** » Fri Feb 07, 2003 3:08 am

TomG,

thanks for letting me know your experience. Mike did point out in his silentek article about the need for rpm, but perhaps not clearly enough. That silentek does not work with the usual panaflo seems to me like a BIG issue.

Have you considered using a papst Papst 8412N/2GL? I know that you can't assume that they'll start under 7 volts, and that bad ones click loudly, but if the usual panaflo is ruled out, is there a better alternative? I think it's the one I will try if I build a system.

The cfm of the papst is given as 19.4 cfm, and the apha is meant to cool at 0.31 C/W at 20cfm, so it should be adequate.

piglet.

Post by **MikeC** » Fri Feb 07, 2003 7:56 am

The "usual" Panaflo you refer to the dirt cheap 2-wire non-rpm version we've seen for the past year, but I have seen the RPM sensing version around, albeit at a higher price. Also, this "M" version ontained from so-trick computers is rpm-sense equipped and gets as quiet as the L when the voltage is reduced enough.

One last point: while some functions didn't work when a 2-wire fan was used, but generally, speed control worked fine. SilentTek is a complex program with many options; its requirement for rpm sensing fans for 100% functionality is not a good reason to stay away from it. Besides, even with 3-wire fans, when the voltage is set low enough, the rpm sensing stops working on most mobos anyway, so this really is not a big deal.

I don't have the board running right now to check exactly which functions are effected, but I do recall using the 2-wire Panaflo successfully with it. The main reason 3-wire fans were used in the review was to get screen shots showing full functionality with the speed sensing.

TomG · Post by **TomG** » Fri Feb 07, 2003 8:48 am

I did a couple of simple tests this morning comparing the Panaflo 1M fan and the Evercool.

If you go over to Mikes article on the Aopen board and look at page 3 you will see a picture labled fixed fan control. Using this dialogue box the fan speed can be controled with the slider bar. Speed control is represented as a percentage of max speed (100%).

Using fixed fan and a 1M I observed that start up was sporatic or not at all under around 50%.

The evercool started promptly and smoothly throughout the range, from 5% all the way to 100%.

Just to verify that my observation was reproducable, I used a different 1M and repeated the test. This second one DID start up at the lower voltages.

So It looks like I need to retract my earlier statement regarding the usefulness of the 1M fan. The problem appears to be the particular M1 I was using. I wish I had a couple more 1M's and evercools so I could make a more definitve statement, but that's all the info I can get.

But even if the 1M didn't work well, I'd still have to disagree with with your statement that it is a big issue. I've bent fooling around with fan control speed and monitoring for years (first as an overclocker and then a silencer) , and Softek is by far the most comprehensive and versitile software I've seen for this purpose. As Mike points out, it's not perfect; Aopen has some work to do and some bugs to fix, but it has all the stuff I always wished the other programs had, and then some.

I do want to try that Papst fan. Do you have a good source?

Riffer · Post by **Riffer** » Fri Feb 07, 2003 4:43 pm

My Abit BD-7 is slowly self-destructing, so I ordered an Aopen AX4GE-N.

I had the guy make sure they had the revision with SilentTek, so I could do some experimentation.

I just wish they made L1X's. That would solve the problem of having a silent three-pin fan, other than the Papsts.

piglet · Post by **piglet** » Sat Feb 08, 2003 3:09 am

TomG,

I live in the uk, so I'm not familiar with all the sources of papst fans. However, silicon acoustics do sell that particular model.

Piglet.

Phoner · Post by **Phoner** » Sun Feb 09, 2003 9:39 am

MikeC,

Where exactly have you seen the RPM sensing version of the "usual" Panaflo? Any idea where I could buy them? I'd love to get my hands on a few of those.

Great site by the way!

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 5:31 am

Phoner wrote:MikeC,

Where exactly have you seen the RPM sensing version of the "usual" Panaflo? Any idea where I could buy them? I'd love to get my hands on a few of those.

Great site by the way!

From here. 80mm M1A only. $5.50 each.

Post by **MikeC** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 9:36 am

Ralf, I think you got the wrong url -- this seems to be it http://www.so-trickcomputers.com/Mercha ... ry_Code=FF

Phoner · Post by **Phoner** » Mon Feb 10, 2003 11:17 am

So no L1A's with RPM sensor then? Anywhere? Oh well.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Tue Feb 11, 2003 8:16 am

MikeC wrote:Ralf, I think you got the wrong url -- this seems to be it http://www.so-trickcomputers.com/Mercha ... ry_Code=FF

I don't think so. My URL links the RPM sensing version of the M1A, yours links the regular (non-rpm sensing) version of the L1A. I was replying to Phoner who was asking about rpm sensing Panaflos.

Panaflo 80 "M" -- nice alternative!!

Panaflo 80 "M" -- nice alternative!!

Low-noise Panaflo with RPM sensor??

Re: Low-noise Panaflo with RPM sensor??