120mm front fan for antec sonata

sheltem · Post by **sheltem** » Mon Aug 18, 2003 10:11 pm

Several questions
1) What will the 120mm front fan in the sonata do? Will it improve my airflow or perhaps cool down my hd?
2) If so, then which quiet fan do you recommend? So far all i've seen is the Vantec Stealth fan which is 120x25. I know everyone recommends the panoflo, but I only see the 120x38.

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Mon Aug 18, 2003 10:15 pm

sheltem wrote:Several questions
1) What will the 120mm front fan in the sonata do? Will it improve my airflow or perhaps cool down my hd?
2) If so, then which quiet fan do you recommend? So far all i've seen is the Vantec Stealth fan which is 120x25. I know everyone recommends the panoflo, but I only see the 120x38.

1) Yes and yes. It improves intake somewhat.

2) Some people have good luck with the Enermax. The NMB B10s and Papsts are the ultimate 120x25 quiet fans, but I've never seen them cheap, or in the base of the NMB, at all. If you find a retailer let me know! Alternatively, move the rear fan (not that quiet) to the front, and use a 38mm for exhaust. Do not get the Stealth.

BTW there are no 120x25 Panaflos.

Edit: Found Papst here.

sheltem · Post by **sheltem** » Tue Aug 19, 2003 6:58 am

Alternatively, move the rear fan (not that quiet) to the front, and use a 38mm for exhaust.

Hmm are you sure the 38mm will fit in the rear? It might seem obvious, but I just want to make sure since the offical specs say that both rear and front fans are 120x35mm.

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Tue Aug 19, 2003 10:11 am

sheltem wrote:
Alternatively, move the rear fan (not that quiet) to the front, and use a 38mm for exhaust.
Hmm are you sure the 38mm will fit in the rear? It might seem obvious, but I just want to make sure since the offical specs say that both rear and front fans are 120x35mm.

Do you mean 25mm? I didn't check the specs. But where the fan is, the only thing it might block is an extremely tall CPU HSF. The only thing that may not work is the silicone (?) fan isolators. They don't look very sturdy to me. Might need to use the EAR isolators instead.

A 120mm Panaflo weighs a bit over 8 oz.

mfeingol · Post by **mfeingol** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 12:22 pm

I got a Papst 4412FGL from Directron yesterday, and installed it as exhaust in my Coolcases D8000 as a replacement to a malfunctioning 120mm L1A. (It was making soft but noticeable helicopter noises... Go figure.)

Anyway, the comparison is just how the specs would indicate. The Papst is a bit quieter than the L1A, but it moves less air. I modded the 4-pin molex connector to provide 5V to the Papst, while I had the Panaflo on a fanmate set to the lowest setting.

I haven't noticed the Papst clicking yet, so I'm optimistic. When Jim @ Coolcases sends me a replacement L1A, I'll probably move the Papst to intake duties instead of the current JMC and leave the higher-airflow L1A as exhaust. Apparently there's a worldwide shortage of 120mm L1As (!), and the next batch will be available in September.

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 1:13 pm

mfeingol wrote:Apparently there's a worldwide shortage of 120mm L1As (!), and the next batch will be available in September.

Quick, grab the boxes of 40 fans from eBay for $70 shipped!

They're the older ball bearing models, but Ralf Hutter claimed that they sound quieter than the fluid bearing models. I only have a fluid bearing M1BX to compare with, so it's pointless comparing the two for me.

If the Papst move less air but is quieter, shouldn't you use it for exhaust and the Panaflo for intake, since you already have another exhaust (your PSU fan)? And having the noisier fan inside will help muffle it a bit too.

mfeingol · Post by **mfeingol** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 3:49 pm

lenny wrote: If the Papst move less air but is quieter, shouldn't you use it for exhaust and the Panaflo for intake, since you already have another exhaust (your PSU fan)? And having the noisier fan inside will help muffle it a bit too.

A good call. Here are my reasons:

The D8000 intake only fits a 120x25 fan comfortably, without removing the drive cage. The L1A is 120x38.
The PSU is a Seasonic SS-400FS modded with an 80mm L1A, so it doesn't have stellar airflow on its own.
I have a Zalman CPNS-7000AlCu and a ZM80A-HP in the vicinity of the exhaust fan, so there's hot air right there that needs to be expelled.

sheltem · Post by **sheltem** » Wed Aug 20, 2003 10:05 pm

Thanks for the help Lenny, I just ordered the enermax fan from newegg.

wumpus · Post by **wumpus** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 10:27 pm

Urgh, I didn't realize that 120mm fans were so hard to get.. quiet. I know I'm in trouble when frozencpu.com lists the 120mm Vantec Stealth as the QUIETEST 120mm FAN THEY CARRY. frozencpu has a fairly wide range of 120mm fans including panaflo:

http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozen ... earch.html

I have the 120mm vantec stealth, it's OK, but it's not that quiet. I am using the zalman inline 3-pin 56ohm resistor on it, which makes it fairly quiet (reduces fan speed by a factor of 0.57). Kinda scary, though, because this fan is only 1,500 rpm which means now it's running at ~855rpm (!) It does start 100% reliably on powerup/powerdown however.

I also have a sunon 120mm x 38mm fan which draws a ton of power and is incredibly noisy. It won't even start with the zalman resistor (using 3-pin motherboard header).

Another thing that makes the 120mm fan selection process more complex is that I prefer to use the motherboard 3-pin headers (CASE and PS respectively) for the two 120mm fans. It's a lot easier to wire than dangling a bunch of generic molexes from my PS. Plus I like to monitor RPMs, etc.

So maybe the Enermax 120mm is the way to go??

wumpus · Post by **wumpus** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 10:46 pm

OK, this "which 120mm fan moves the most air with the least noise" problem is freakin' insoluble.

Check out the dozen threads we've already had on this.

If ever there was a topic that needed an article here on SPCR, this is it.. someone has got to buy all the "quiet" 120mm fans-- I think 6 would cover 98% of the commonly obtainable ones-- and do this scientifically with flow and noise meters.. MikeC we need your expertise, homey!

120mm front fan for antec sonata

120mm front fan for antec sonata

Re: 120mm front fan for antec sonata