Noisy Zalman ZM-OP1

They make noise, too.

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jooppy
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2004 9:53 am

Noisy Zalman ZM-OP1

Post by jooppy » Fri Oct 29, 2004 11:43 am

Hi

I keep hearing a "chattering" noise from my PC, so I decided to investigate.

At first, I thouht it would be my hard drive, but putting my ear close to it proved that it was not the hard drive.

One at a time, I stopped each internal fan briefly to find out which one was causing the noise, and it turns out to be my Zalman ZM-OP1 fan on my ZM80C-HP VGA heatsink.

I have made an mp3 using my cheap PC microphone. I placed the microphone about 5cm from the centre of the fan.

You can download and listen to the mp3 from here:

http://www.jooppy.co.uk/silentpcstuff/z ... ga_fan.mp3

If you listen to the mp3, its easy to hear the chattering. I sit about 1m from my case, and can clearly hear this chattering (which occurs frequently but randomly).

Is this normal with these fans, or all fans, or is this one defective? Has anybody else got this problem with their fans, and if so, is there any way to fix this?

This fan is only about 3 months old, and is running at the slower setting (using the provided splitter cable)....

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Jooppy

Noizz
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Sep 23, 2004 8:14 pm

Post by Noizz » Fri Oct 29, 2004 4:08 pm

yup i had the same chattering one. worked fine when i bought it but a few weeks later the chattering start happening just like the CNS7000.

perhaps buy a arctic silencer, some of them aren't that quiet though.....

jooppy
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2004 9:53 am

Post by jooppy » Sat Oct 30, 2004 2:02 am

I could probably get away with not running the fan altogether, since I only have a Geforce4 Ti4200, but I dont have any means of monitoring the temps on the graphics card, so I would rather play it safe and leave the fan there.

Another option would be to get a quiet 80mm case fan and find a way to mount it on the card instead, or possibly somewhere else in my case so that it provides direct airflow over the graphics card.

Has anybody done this instead of using the Zalman ZM-OP1 ???

Thanks
Jooppy

Pjotor
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Location: Uppsala, Sweden

Post by Pjotor » Sat Oct 30, 2004 7:09 am

jooppy wrote:Another option would be to get a quiet 80mm case fan and find a way to mount it on the card instead, or possibly somewhere else in my case so that it provides direct airflow over the graphics card.

Has anybody done this instead of using the Zalman ZM-OP1 ???
I mounted a Panaflo L1A on it.

I put the corners of the fan between the supports holding the top and bottom heatsink like below. The fan is "twisted" by 45 degrees:

Code: Select all

---------- Heatsink
  |      |    <- supports
---------- Heatsink

Fan goes in like this, so the two corners on the sides go behind the supports:

   /\
   \/

It works like a charm -- the fan is secure, and the heatsink are in the direct airflow path. The fan is hooked up to a fan controller, so I can crank it up while gaming.

BTW the card is a 5900XT.

jooppy
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2004 9:53 am

Post by jooppy » Sat Oct 30, 2004 9:59 am

Thanks for the info, that sounds like a good idea.

I might start looking into investing some money in a fan controller too, since I want a bit more control over all the fans in my system. I dont want anything fancy that lights up like a christmas tree either, I believe computers should not be seen or heard :lol:

Jooppy

Noizz
Posts: 68
Joined: Thu Sep 23, 2004 8:14 pm

Post by Noizz » Sun Oct 31, 2004 1:25 pm

i wouldn't worry bout the temps of the video card. nvidia gpus can run up pretty high, my 6800 gt slowdown temp is 120 C :shock:

Interitus
Posts: 374
Joined: Tue Mar 02, 2004 4:58 am
Location: Near St. Louis, Missouri

Post by Interitus » Mon Nov 01, 2004 12:42 am

I was kind of wondering about the 80mm L1A on the Zalman too. I don't want to use the OP-1 fan as my 7000 AlCu fan did the same thing mentioned here. I had to replace it a few weeks after I purchased it.

Is there any way of mounting an L1A using the OP-1 mounts? It looked to me in the pictures that it uses the "slide a nut in the groove" method like the Zalman NB cooler retension arms.

mrk22
Posts: 58
Joined: Fri Sep 19, 2003 7:31 pm

Post by mrk22 » Thu Nov 11, 2004 11:34 pm

jooppy wrote:I could probably get away with not running the fan altogether, since I only have a Geforce4 Ti4200, but I dont have any means of monitoring the temps on the graphics card, so I would rather play it safe and leave the fan there.
I have a ZM80C-HP with the ZM-OP1 on a Ti4400. Once a stray connector got into the fan and stopped it. I had some problems with Painkiller freezing up for 20 seconds in random spots, but my card lived to see another day.

taviso
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Joined: Thu Oct 28, 2004 10:55 am
Location: Wales, UK

Post by taviso » Fri Nov 12, 2004 5:03 am

The same thing happened to me yesterday evening, I opened the case and sure enough it was the OP1. I'm pretty dissapointed with Zalman for this, although I know their reputation with fans isn't great, I didnt expect it to start failing so quickly (approx 3 months).

I think I'll just live without a fan on it, I'm not a gamer so I don't stress the card that much :)

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