Need fairly quiet 92mm and 80mm fan recommendations

gundam83 · Post by **gundam83** » Tue May 12, 2009 12:45 am

Unlike 120mm fans, there isn't that much information on good 92mm and 80mm fans. I would like some affordable suggestions that provide a good balance of cooling and quiet operation. I will be running an E8400 w/ Scythe Mini Ninja (hopefully passively). The case is a Silverstone LC13-E HTPC case which features two 80mm fans in the back, and a slot for a 92mm fan intake in the front. So I have to find a balance to adequately cool my system, but not have it be too noisy for HTPC operation.

How are the Yate Loons and Scythe fans in these sizes? I'm satisfied with the 120mm variants, but don't know how the others stack up.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Tue May 12, 2009 12:52 am

Hello & welcome to SPCR,

Have you perused the Recommended Fans article? There are other decent fans of course: Enermax Enlobal/Marathon 80mm, GlobalWin NCB 92mm.

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Tue May 12, 2009 12:36 pm

Arctic-Cooling 80mm PWM are decent and work well in your proposed configuration as you can run them off the otherwise unused CPU header. This will give you two benefits: easy speed control through PWM and no hassles with CPU Fan errors (since you will have something plugged into that header). The reason I'd go with A-C for this, other than competing PWM fans from Scythe and Nexus, is that they are specifically made to have multiple fans daisy-chained from the same header.

I recommend trying to go without any intake fan, at first, and seeing how the temperatures are. Often intake is the least impactful fan on cooling; meanwhile, front position is the most impactful on noise. If you do end up needing this fan, it is hard to beat Nexus 92mm with some sort of attenuator to run it at 9V or lower.

gundam83 · Post by **gundam83** » Tue May 12, 2009 1:15 pm

jessekopelman wrote:Arctic-Cooling 80mm PWM are decent and work well in your proposed configuration as you can run them off the otherwise unused CPU header. This will give you two benefits: easy speed control through PWM and no hassles with CPU Fan errors (since you will have something plugged into that header). The reason I'd go with A-C for this, other than competing PWM fans from Scythe and Nexus, is that they are specifically made to have multiple fans daisy-chained from the same header.

I recommend trying to go without any intake fan, at first, and seeing how the temperatures are. Often intake is the least impactful fan on cooling; meanwhile, front position is the most impactful on noise. If you do end up needing this fan, it is hard to beat Nexus 92mm with some sort of attenuator to run it at 9V or lower.

Darn, I wish I had waited before pulling the trigger on a Nexus 92mm, and (2) Enermax Enlobal 80mm fans. That PST feature looks pretty cool. I'm definitely going to run the 92mm fan because it'll be directly cooling 3 HDD's in a cage. I'll see how well this runs, and maybe i'll look into those the arctic's if I need additional cooling (There is an extra 80mm fan location that can be used). I've never thought about the CPU fan header. If I don't have any PWM fans, is there a way to disable the CPU header errors? I'm assuming there is an option in the bios?

jessekopelman · Post by **jessekopelman** » Tue May 12, 2009 1:37 pm

gundam83 wrote: Darn, I wish I had waited before pulling the trigger on a Nexus 92mm, and (2) Enermax Enlobal 80mm fans.

You couldn't wait even 12 hours after posting to see what responses you'd get?

I guess Neil is very convincing!

gundam83 wrote:If I don't have any PWM fans, is there a way to disable the CPU header errors? I'm assuming there is an option in the bios?

Yes, usually. You could also plug one of the case fans into this header, if you don't mind running them at full speed. Even if you didn't want full speed just stick your attenuator between the fan and this header. Generally, 3-pin into 4-pin just results in maximum output. Very rarely it does result in no output, so YMMV, but that is rare.

truckman · Post by **truckman** » Tue May 12, 2009 2:56 pm

I'm using two 80mm non-PWM Arctic-Cooling exhaust fans and a Nexus 92mm fan in one of the drive cages of my Silverstone LC-17. All are undervolted with Fanmates or something similar. I'm satisfied as far as fan noise and cooling are concerned. Noise from the five hard-mounted drives in the box is a bit of an issue, though.

I put this system together before the release of the Mini Ninja, so I ended up using a Zerotherm BTF-90.

I only installed the 92mm Nexus to guarantee some airflow over the multiple drives in the left drive bay, especially because of the cramped space behind that bay. I can't install a fan in the right drive bay because it requires that the drives to be mounted further back in the cage, which would result in clearance issues between the drives and the CPU cooler. Fortunately there seems to be enough air flow on the right side from the rear-pointing CPU fan and the two exhaust fans to keep the two WD GP drives mounted in that bay sufficiently cool.