Sythe Slipstream Fans : Are they good as intakes?

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oscar3d
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Sythe Slipstream Fans : Are they good as intakes?

Post by oscar3d » Sun May 25, 2008 1:15 pm

Hi:

I have a P182 rig,which has 2 Scythe Slipstream 1200RPM, one as an exhaust and the other one for the CPU.

Until today,I used to have another Slipstream 800RM version as an intake fan. And now it has been replaced by a Scythe S-Flex 21D 800RPM.

The reason...

Last nigh I've noticed a persistent whining noise, not loud at all, but perceptible 1m away from the system.I thought it was the video card at the beginning.

I started Everest to to measure fan speeds.

Interestingly, the intake Slipstreamer 800RPM was having a speed of 969RPM.

I checked the fan, while it was running.

(The black doors are modded to have better airflow, and the grill on that intake placement was cut as well. I've been keeping the dust filters as well).

Image

Image



So wel, opened the intake black doors and then took the dust filter out. Then the most revealing thing happened:

Seconds after I took the dust filter, the speed of the fan went back to 811RPM, and the strange noise was gone.

For some reason, the presence of a door and a dust filter, and thus a limited airflow path, makes these type of fans increase speeds past limits.

I've tried this three times to make sure my eyes and ears were not joking.

Yes. As an intake fan, and I think speciphically for the P182-P180 these are not good.

Then I made the big mistake:

Stoped the fan with my finger,and let it rotate afterwards. Nothing happened at the beginning, but 30 minutes later, I notice the fan started clicking, and no way to fix it. I've learned the lesson:

Never,ever try stopping bear sleeving fans with your finger...

So there you have it...

Overall Slipstreams are AWESOME fan as exhaust, CPU and open air configurations.But definetely not the choice for intake fans.... at least for a P182 intake config.

I would like to know why.... I'm feeling kind of ignorant... is it because of the blades?

Now the old S-FLEX 800RPM is back as an intake and working like a charm
Last edited by oscar3d on Mon May 26, 2008 3:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by NeilBlanchard » Sun May 25, 2008 6:57 pm

Hello,

The restriction of the intake and it's filter is enough to lower the pressure -- and the fan then spins faster, because there is less air for it to move. Some folks have found that the filters cause things to be too noisy, and removing them is an easy way to quiet things down; no matter what fan is used.

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Post by JVM » Sun May 25, 2008 7:42 pm

I use a Nexus 92mm fan for intake on my Antec Solo, and also on Antec P150, with Zalman FanMate taking it down to about 7V. I could go lower with Fanmate, but Since I don't hear it at about 7V I leave it alone. As I monitor all my fans RPM speeds, never have I seen the Nexus go above the normal RPM speeds with any significance, and I do have a filter in front of the Nexus.

Sendorm
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Post by Sendorm » Sun May 25, 2008 9:00 pm

I am not exactly sure about the "Never,ever try stopping bear sleeving fans with your finger."
Your experience can just be a random case and do not represent the general condition.
Can anybody confirm this?

oscar3d
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Post by oscar3d » Mon May 26, 2008 1:18 am

Yes I would like a confirmation on this also.

So it is the pressure then, it seems that fans with thicker and flatter fins are the solution then right?

Ash
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Post by Ash » Mon May 26, 2008 2:16 am

what about if you mount the slipstream on the end of the HDD cage rather than have it right at the front of the case, would that make a difference as the fan does not have dust filters or grill directly in front of it?

i dont have a p182, but i am about to get one, and also put 800 slipstreams in it, so this is quite interesting for me to know, as i have been concerned about the airflow in the case, well the intake of air.

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Post by seemingly.random » Mon May 26, 2008 2:21 am

I've been disappointed with the old sflex 800rpm. It spins about 860 (four samples) as an exhaust and ticks. I've had better luck with undervolting the sflex 1600. And, of course, the nexus' and yate loons are smooth even at 12v (if not a little noisy).

I've stopped more fans with my fingers, pencils, etc. than I can remember and have never noticed a difference after (other than maybe some blood).

I'm going to test the new slipstream 1200. At 5v these look perfect according to the spcr test. It would be interesting to see the results of one 5v'd replacing the 800 that popped up to 969 described above. The 1200 must have a unique motor as they don't fit the pattern of the other slipstreams.

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Post by seemingly.random » Mon May 26, 2008 2:27 am

JVM wrote:I use a Nexus 92mm fan for intake on my Antec Solo, and also on Antec P150, with Zalman FanMate taking it down to about 7V. I could go lower with Fanmate, but Since I don't hear it at about 7V I leave it alone. As I monitor all my fans RPM speeds, never have I seen the Nexus go above the normal RPM speeds with any significance, and I do have a filter in front of the Nexus.
How is this determined exactly?

Is it 820-870 as reported in the spcr fan roundup #3?

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Post by Bluefront » Mon May 26, 2008 2:44 am

Sorry....I don't buy any of the conclusions of this thread. When I tested ten fans against an intake resistance (filter materials), the Slip Stream and the S-Flex performed equally well. I suspect the particular example had a problem, or the testing setup was faulty.

The RPM change when the filter was removed is the give-away. If you block all the intake to a fan, the rpm will usually rise. You can test this by laying a fan on a flat surface like a table, with the intake downward. The fan speed will almost always be higher than if the fan was in free air. Laying on a table the fan is just running, without any intake or exhaust restriction. Sort of like running the fan motor without the blades. The rpm will be higher.....

My conclusion....the filter material used in the test was way too restrictive, maybe clogged completely, causing the rpm difference. Normally when you put a filter over a fan intake, the fan rpm will drop somewhat......not go up. My testing on the Slip Stream indicated as such.

Stopping a fan when it's running is not the best thing to do.....but usually doesn't hurt the thing, or cause clicking. Here I would suspect a damaged/faulty fan.

The Slip Stream has proven to be a very good fan....maybe the best....to many people on SPCR and other places. I find the conclusions of the OP to be suspect at best.

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Post by oscar3d » Mon May 26, 2008 2:57 am

Hi, I'm not saying the Slipstreams are bad, nor getting into conclusions here.

By the contrary, I love Slipstreams, they are by far the best fans I've ever tried. My only concern was about using them as an intake and specially on P182 cases.

The dust filter is exactly the same as any other P182, and I do clean my filters once every month. As you can see in the picture I've made all the pssible modifications to make the intake have more airflow, EXCEPT the filters, which I kept in there (I prefer to avoid dust inside my case as much as possible).

To the person talking about the S-FLEX 1600, this fan was part of my rig about a month ago as an exhaust fan. Very good fan indeed but it has a big problem, when undervolted, it howls quite notceably. Same thing happened with the S-FLEX 1200 which used on that configuration to cool my TRUE on the CPU, it also howls.

I've replace them for Noctua fans, and then finally went with Slipstreams. They are hands down the best, cheap, the absolutely best CFM, and the silencer's favorites. My concern were only about using them as an intake.

Probably I had a bad sample, but I want to add that this sample worked flawlessly for about 2 weeks, until I noriced this issue and then it's death by clicking. It is now in the trash... but I do have another Slipstream 800 to test just in case. I swapped it for a S-Flex 21D just for now...

From all the purchases I've made and my experience reading SPCR, I ended up having a collection of about 25 different fans with different RPMS to choose from. Noctua, Scythe, Nexus, Delta, Panaflo, SilentX, etc. you name it....

With all due respect, I really don't want to jump into conclusions...
I'm just sharing infor, since Slipstream fans were very recently reviewed by SPCR. I've changed the title of the thread.... I'm respecting ythe majority's judgement... :-)

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Post by JVM » Mon May 26, 2008 5:40 am

seemingly.random wrote:
JVM wrote:I use a Nexus 92mm fan for intake on my Antec Solo, and also on Antec P150, with Zalman FanMate taking it down to about 7V. I could go lower with Fanmate, but Since I don't hear it at about 7V I leave it alone. As I monitor all my fans RPM speeds, never have I seen the Nexus go above the normal RPM speeds with any significance, and I do have a filter in front of the Nexus.
How is this determined exactly?

Is it 820-870 as reported in the spcr fan roundup #3?
I have it around 790, which is why I said about 7 volts, don't know if 790 is 7V or less. 8)

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Post by JVM » Mon May 26, 2008 5:51 am

oscar3d wrote:Hi, I'm not saying the Slipstreams are bad, nor getting into conclusions here.

By the contrary, I love Slipstreams, they are by far the best fans I've ever tried. My only concern was about using them as an intake and specially on P182 cases.

The dust filter is exactly the same as any other P182, and I do clean my filters once every month. As you can see in the picture I've made all the pssible modifications to make the intake have more airflow, EXCEPT the filters, which I kept in there (I prefer to avoid dust inside my case as much as possible).

To the person talking about the S-FLEX 1600, this fan was part of my rig about a month ago as an exhaust fan. Very good fan indeed but it has a big problem, when undervolted, it howls quite notceably. Same thing happened with the S-FLEX 1200 which used on that configuration to cool my TRUE on the CPU, it also howls.

I've replace them for Noctua fans, and then finally went with Slipstreams. They are hands down the best, cheap, the absolutely best CFM, and the silencer's favorites. My concern were only about using them as an intake.

Probably I had a bad sample, but I want to add that this sample worked flawlessly for about 2 weeks, until I noriced this issue and then it's death by clicking. It is now in the trash... but I do have another Slipstream 800 to test just in case. I swapped it for a S-Flex 21D just for now...

From all the purchases I've made and my experience reading SPCR, I ended up having a collection of about 25 different fans with different RPMS to choose from. Noctua, Scythe, Nexus, Delta, Panaflo, SilentX, etc. you name it....

With all due respect, I really don't want to jump into conclusions...
I'm just sharing infor, since Slipstream fans were very recently reviewed by SPCR. I've changed the title of the thread.... I'm respecting ythe majority's judgement... :-)
If you are using the review as your basis for CFM, there is an update with regard to CFM:

Editor's Note — May 10, 2008

Since the posting of this article, it has come to our attention that there is the possibility of data corruption having tainted the CFM measurements. We apologize for the possible errors, but note that the noise level and quality information — the real keys to selecting and using fans in a quiet PC — are not affected. We will update you on this matter as soon as possible.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article832-page1.html

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Post by seemingly.random » Mon May 26, 2008 7:18 am

JVM wrote:
seemingly.random wrote:
JVM wrote:I use a Nexus 92mm fan for intake on my Antec Solo, and also on Antec P150, with Zalman FanMate taking it down to about 7V. I could go lower with Fanmate, but Since I don't hear it at about 7V I leave it alone. As I monitor all my fans RPM speeds, never have I seen the Nexus go above the normal RPM speeds with any significance, and I do have a filter in front of the Nexus.
How is this determined exactly?

Is it 820-870 as reported in the spcr fan roundup #3?
I have it around 790, which is why I said about 7 volts, don't know if 790 is 7V or less. 8)
Ok. So it's plugged into a mb header and you're reading the rpm from the mb. I was hoping you'd come up with a way to read the voltage the fanmate is letting through. I've been trying to come up with an inexpensive way to do this.

bgavin
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Post by bgavin » Mon May 26, 2008 7:42 am

Do it the way every other tech does it when no leads are exposed: prick the wiring with a fine pin, meter the pins.

oscar3d
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Post by oscar3d » Tue May 27, 2008 3:50 pm

I need to add. The most unexpected thing happened yesterday. This could be answered by the Patrons or the real experts here.

I was reading a webpage, and suddenly the computer shut down, period, no warning, no blue-screen, no nothing. I had to unplug the power cord from the PSU, in order to be able to start it, and it came back. I was listening to the music. I though it was a black out or something, but while this happened the music was still going on. No lights were turned on in the room, it was at 4:00PM afternoon...

And so far I haven't had any more shut downs like this. So I've been wondering how did this happen:

- I'm right now running my QX9650 undervolted at 1.15V @ 3.00Ghz, and it's been running with no problems so far, but in very very few occassions I have had the message "Overclocking Failed on the Mobo"

a) Does a bad overclocking/underclocking shuts down the machine or it freezes it?

- As I've said warlier, I've put a Scythe Slipstream 1200 as a CPU fan

B) Is it possible that the computer shut's down automatically if the CPU fan stops, or it stops after the CPU hits a certain degree of heat?

- As stated previously I touched an intake fan, to test the noise/quietness without it running. I've certainly ruined the fan, which was not quieter anymore after doing this. But could it be possible that in doing so, I did damage the circuitry of the motherboard?

C) Is it possible that even if everything else in the house was running, the PSU decided that there was a power loss, and decided to shut down the system from protection?

Again, I'm doing some reaserch, on what could be the casue, and this event has not happened again since. I did a viruscan just in case... nothing wrong...This is quite strange, and I'm trying to find out what could have caused this....

I tend to worry when things like this happen unexpectedly...

My temps are perfect on the CPU, GPU and Mobo, no overheating problems at all.

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Post by Nick Geraedts » Tue May 27, 2008 4:03 pm

oscar3d wrote:- I'm right now running my QX9650 undervolted at 1.15V @ 3.00Ghz, and it's been running with no problems so far, but in very very few occassions I have had the message "Overclocking Failed on the Mobo"
Ah... the classic error message from ASUS meaning "VDroop has just kicked your ass" (no offense). VDroop is commonly known as the difference between the VCore setting and the actual VCore while the system is under load. This can vary quite a bit depending on your motherboard, and in some cases can be "fixed" by a reversible mod that requires nothing more than a graphite pencil.
oscar3d wrote:a) Does a bad overclocking/underclocking shuts down the machine or it freezes it?
Yes, it is possible. Too low of a voltage for a clock speed can cause the system to behave erratically. If I remember correctly, all ASUS boards now require a complete shutdown (i.e. power supply off) in the event of an overclocking failure. I know that I've run into a similar snag when trying to overclock my system. Everytime I went too far, I would have to kill the power to the computer before it would startup again.
oscar3d wrote:B) Is it possible that the computer shut's down automatically if the CPU fan stops, or it stops after the CPU hits a certain degree of heat?
You can make SpeedFan run the "shutdown" command if the Core temperatures reach a certain value (or the CPU fan reaches zero). Look under the "Events" tab in the options.
oscar3d wrote:C) Is it possible that even if everything else in the house was running, the PSU decided that there was a power loss, and decided to shut down the system from protection?
If you end up getting a voltage drop in the power grid of your house, your PSU might stop working. SPCR has done low voltage testing on PSUs for a while now, but there are few that can safely handle operation below 100V.
oscar3d wrote:Again, I'm doing some reaserch, on what could be the casue, and this event has not happened again since. I did a viruscan just in case... nothing wrong...This is quite strange, and I'm trying to find out what could have caused this....

I tend to worry when things like this happen unexpectedly...
Run Prime95 v25.6 for at least 8 hours. I'm willing to bet that one of the compute cores will throw an error. In any case, you're running too low of a VCore - bump it up a notch or two. This error has nothing to do with malware, but is simply a problem of incorrect hardware settings.

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Post by oscar3d » Tue May 27, 2008 4:21 pm

Nick what can I say, you are fantastic, thanks for your wise reply!

I'll do what you're suggestings once I get back home.

Cheers!

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Post by Fallsroad » Tue May 27, 2008 9:39 pm

oscar3d wrote:Nick what can I say, you are fantastic, thanks for your wise reply!

I'll do what you're suggestings once I get back home.

Cheers!
When undervolting a CPU (I presume you did so to reduce heat, so you could run fewer fans or slower fans) it is good practice to run Prime95 (multiple core version) for 8 hours or longer to ascertain your CPU is stable at the lower voltage. Not only can you get annoying error messages and sudden shutdowns or reboots, you can also wind up corrupting data.

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Post by seemingly.random » Tue May 27, 2008 10:45 pm

run orthos. It can test ram and cpu stability.

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Re: Sythe Slipstream Fans : Are they good as intakes?

Post by seemingly.random » Tue May 27, 2008 11:04 pm

oscar3d wrote:Hi:

I have a P182 rig,which has 2 Scythe Slipstream 1200RPM, one as an exhaust and the other one for the CPU.

Until today,I used to have another Slipstream 800RM version as an intake fan. And now it has been replaced by a Scythe S-Flex 21D 800RPM.

The reason...

Last nigh I've noticed a persistent whining noise, not loud at all, but perceptible 1m away from the system.I thought it was the video card at the beginning.

I started Everest to to measure fan speeds.

Interestingly, the intake Slipstreamer 800RPM was having a speed of 969RPM.
-snip-
I tested several fans for the speed increase caused by a restriction as noted above. I didn't test in my p182se but removed the front filters (glad I did, they needed cleaning) and held the filter in front of each fan running at 12v. Granted this was not air-tight.

-120mm-
Yate Loon d12-sl and d12-sm
Nexus d12sl
Adda ad1212lb-a73gl
SFlex 21d and 21f

-92mm-
scythe sy1025sl12l (1000rpm)
Nexus df1209sl-3 (1500rpm)

None increased in speed. The 120mm fans all dropped 20-40rpm. Next I laid each fan down on the desk blowing up. This caused 100-200 drop.

The 92mm fans decreased a little more - but not much.

I'll try this again when I get some slipstreams.

oscar3d
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Post by oscar3d » Wed May 28, 2008 9:08 am

This is awesome research, thanks for doing this.... :-)

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Post by Das_Saunamies » Sun Jun 01, 2008 6:34 am

Thanks for reporting this oscar3d.

My Slipstream 800 behaved in the exact same way as an intake in my new P182. Abit's µGuru reported 900 RPM from the fan and the easy fix was lowering voltage to 8.0V for idle and 8.5V for load. Now works like a charm, hovering between 700 and 800 RPM. The fan itself is essentially silent at 800 RPM, and I had hoped to get away with no control whatsoever. Live and learn. :D

Speaking of learning, I'd already forgotten a lesson I had learned with Noctuas - a restricted intake does funny things to fans, and caused my old Noctua 1200 exhaust to howl in my old Sonata II.

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Post by Ash » Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:31 am

@oscar3d

did you notice if cutting away the grill made any difference to the temperatures in your case?

i only ask as i am considering getting this case, but i am just wandering if it is even going to be an improvement from my existing case and temps.

also, i asked this before but no one responded to it. would it make a difference if you were to place the intake fan on the HDD cage rather than right at the front by the filter and door?

i have some 800 slipstreams waiting to be used in a new case, but i do think the front of the p182 doesnt make them as effective. are the little vents seriously good enough to let air in.

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Post by Plekto » Mon Jun 02, 2008 12:56 pm

My box(Antec as well, different model) had the same intake design.

- Dremel to remove the grille.
- Remove filter.(huge difference)
- Remove front door entirely.

Very quiet as there's no back pressure or restriction.

Ash
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Post by Ash » Mon Jun 02, 2008 1:16 pm

i guess removing the door made a huge difference but then your probably better off buying another case without a door or with less restrictive intakes.

the problem for me is i need the filter my home is a new build and there loads of dust around, clean the place and you can see dust start settling again by the end of the day.

are there less restrictive filters i can get hold of?

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Post by Plekto » Mon Jun 02, 2008 1:35 pm

I run the fan on my central heating/AC system all the time and use the best 3M ultra-allergen filters. (1250 rating, iirc).

This keeps dust down to almost nothing. but they do run about $15 each...

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