Quiet 120mm fans?

[COLLINS311]

Hello,

I currently have a 2 x 120mm radiator and 1x120mm rad externally mounted on my TT Armor. What I've come to realize is that those 3 fans are pretty loud, I don't have anything to measure db, but I can hear these things from the other side of my house...about 25-30ft. It honestly isn't tha annoying, but I enjoy the tweaking aspect of building a PC plus it kind of defeated the purpose of have a LCS(which works great by the way). So I have begun my process of trying to find the most quiet fans available. I was hoping that people here might provide some feedback or personal experience. Right now I'm looking at the Silenx brand, based on some reviews and research, but I'd also like to hear from the people from this forum, which i've found to be an extremely valubale source of information when initially building my PC.

Thank you

 

[jedolley]

I have not used the SilenX fans myself, but from what I have read their claims of low noise and high CFM are BS. I personally like the Scythe S-Flex fans because they come in three different speeds and all of them are pretty quiet. A good site to go to for silent computing advice would be SPCR.

 

[COLLINS311]

Thanks! Thats a good site, that I hadn' seen before. I'll definitely continue to look into this

 

[SuperFly03]

Where did you hear that about the SilenX fans?

 

[sirrobin4ever]

Noctua fans are supposed to be incredibly silent. I've never actually had one, but thats what I hear. Rather expensive, but silent. They claim 8db on this fan.

There is another similar one that has more CFM's, but it is slightly louder.

 

[jedolley]

A couple of forums that I read:

OCForums

Xtremesystems

SPCR

Again, I have not used them personally, but their dba and cfm did seem a bit questionable. I did a little looking and the general consensus is that the company is fibbing on their stats.

 

[jay2tall]

TWO WORDS: FAN CONTROLLER

Silent fans are usually queit because they run at low RPM's. I haev 2 CoolerMaster quiet fans that are pretty quiet but dont move enough air, i swapped them out for high flowing Roswill fans. If you think about it what is most of the noise comming from? the FAST moving air. do you ever really hear the actually fan running? NO it's the air that is being blown over things and making a winded sound. Answer to your problem.. get a fan controller. I have a Zalman one that fits in a 5.25" bay and has blue leds and all that crap but ANYone will work just fine. WHen I'm idle or just browsing the net i turn it all down. WHen I'm gaming I have most of them either Maxed or the really high CFM fans half way. You can then turn them down when you want. My issue was its in my bedroom and i like to sleep not hear a 747 taking off 24/7.

Just an idea. My experience is there are NO quiet fans. Granted some are low quallity and buzz and vibrate and stuff. But a decent fan is going to get its nouise from the amount of air it moves. Also it depends on your placement in teh case. I opt for fewer high speed fans than tons of low speed fans.

 

[COLLINS311]

First everyone thanks for directing me towards other places of information.

As for a fan controller, I don't know if that will solve my problem since I don't have an empty drive bays. I also have alot of internal fans in my system 10 total. 2 x intake, 2 x exhaust, 1 x HDD, 3 x RAM, 1XMCP, and 1XPSU. When I don't run the external fans my system is extremely quiet. I guess my main question was looking for fans I can put on my external rads that would be quiet.

I guess from your post, and from doing more research that the quieter I get means the less air I can push over the radiators. Which when I begin overclocking heavily, might be a problem for me. So maybe I'm stuck with a loud machine at least if I want better performance.

I don't want to loose any of my interlan fans, are there fan controls that are external?

 

[jedolley]

I agree and disagree with Jay2Tall's post. Fan controllers do help in giving you more control over your fans, but there are "quiet" fans and the good ones still move a decent amount of air and provide adequate cooling.

 

[jay2tall]

I agree and disagree with Jay2Tall's post. Fan controllers do help in giving you more control over your fans, but there are "quiet" fans and the good ones still move a decent amount of air and provide adequate cooling.

Ok I admit there are bad fans out there that arent quiet. But you will never get a silent fan because moving air makes noise. I have the roswill fans and all you really hear is the air moving. I've had noisy fans before.

 

[utaka95]

Scythe s-flex 800 rpm model is as close to silent as anything I've ever heard, and it still moves a decent amount of air - so I disagree with the air rushing noise theory - my hard drive is louder than that fan.

 

[stefx]

Noctua fans are supposed to be incredibly silent. I've never actually had one, but thats what I hear. Rather expensive, but silent. They claim 8db on this fan.

There is another similar one that has more CFM's, but it is slightly louder.

Before you go ahead with the Noctua fans, I suggest you read this thread