Silent heatsink and fan

[cryogen97]

I'm on a quest to regain my nice quiet room. Right now I'm running a swifty MCX370C. It has a pretty loud fan on it and it's slowly driving me nuts. I don't think my PSU is helping, but I know how to fix that easily. Anyways, I'm looking hard at the SLK-800 and the papst 8412N/2GML (80mm, 26.5 CFM @ 19 dBA). Would this keep up with a slightly OC XP 1900+? I'm thinking of 1.8Ghz at most.

Searching through all the old slk-800 post, didn't really seem to answer my question. 'Tolerable noise level' was the key phrase in most responses.

I'm open to suggestions, but I'm really after something that you have to strain to hear without going to the expense of water cooling.

[I.M.O.G.]

i have a 120 millimeter fan mounted onto the side of my case placed directly over and blowing onto the factory heatsink and fan that came with my 1800+. not attractive but functional... it seems pretty quiet to me, but its a relative matter. i dont have any decibel readings to give you. a lot of people use larger fans and feed them less power to make them quieter, so thats somehting to think about. what im really thinking though is this: you are talking about 200 mhz overclock and silent operation and low cost, that might be asking too much. it never hurts to ask though. good luck. :)

[larva]

The biggest noise factor is the selection of the fan, not the design of the heatsink (although it does influence the noise level to a small degree). Why not just fit a quieter fan to your Swiftech? Or 7V it or run a rheostat. It will still cool well and gain the silience you seek.

Going down to the 27cfm level on 80mm fans really makes temps climb. A 37-40cfm fan will produce vastly better temperatures and is still very quiet. Pabst, Panaflow, or Sunon 37-40cfm fans would be my choice. The SLK-800 is the best performing sink I have seen. The only reason you have heard noise complaints associated with them is that Thermalright sells them with really noisey fans. Fitted with a reasonable fan you will get great temps and very low noise output.

[Namagomi]

Alpha 8045's work better with lower output fans. My brother's 1600+@1700+ has a ~23cfm Panaflo on it, at it does fine just fine.

[ozerik]

seven volting fans quiets them right down. what you need to do is connect the positive lead to the fan to a +12v rail (yellow wire coming from the PS) and connect the negative lead to the +5v lead (red wire from PS) to get +7V at the fan. be certain not to connect the sensor wire from the fan to the motherboard since i'm pretty sure it would feed +5v pulses to circuits that are not meant to handle that.

[Valk]

my roomates xp 1800 at 1600 mhz is running an sk 6 heat sink with a 60x10 mm aluminum fan. it has a duct using two 80 mm fans mounted rearward feeding it, just like mine. it doesnt go above 55º and is absolutly silent.

[cmcquistion]

I read a review of four big heatsinks, all fitted with the same Panaflo L1A fan (80mm, 24 CFM @ 21dBA). The reviewed were, the AX-7, the SLK-800, the Zalman flower, and the big Swiftech 80mm job. The SLK800 beat all of them and yielded impressive temperatures, even with a Panaflo L1A.

If you want quiet, that's what I'd go with.

[james.miller]

80mm 20dba fan on a volcano 7 heatsink for me. check sig

[illig]

http://i5.nyu.edu/~pjo210/pics/mcxc370.JPG

there you go... swiftech mcxc370 with an Akasa 60->80mm adapter and a YSTech adjustable 80mm fan.. so it's whisper quiet at night and can be turned up when gaming, etc

[cryogen97]

Originally posted by illig
http://i5.nyu.edu/~pjo210/pics/mcxc370.JPG

there you go... swiftech mcxc370 with an Akasa 60->80mm adapter and a YSTech adjustable 80mm fan.. so it's whisper quiet at night and can be turned up when gaming, etc

I think I'm going to try something like that. But with folding as close to 24/7 as I can, I'm always at load so no night operation mode for me.

I saw that review of the big four and the panaflow fan. That's what sparked my interest in the first place. I found another review last night that had the slk-800 with the papst 26.5 cfm fan that outperformed the AX-7 in stock form.

So now I'm kinda debating on getting the thermaltake smart fan, or going the adapter and papst fan and see if it will fly with the swifty I have now.

[speedy4500]

Originally posted by larva
Pabst, Panaflow, or Sunon 37-40cfm fans would be my choice.

Haha...Pabst makes beer, Papst makes fans.

[cryogen97]

Well, I just found the slk-800 for $30 and I saw that zalman makes a fan that pushes out 39cfm at 34db or 28 cfm at 20db for only $5.50. Those zalman fans are gonna be great for the PSU too. Thanks for the suggestions.

[RuKK]

The SLK-800 really needs a high CFM fan on it to be effective. If you want a heatsink that performs well with a lower cfm fan, get the Alpha PAL8045.

[cmcquistion]

The SLK-800 does perform very well with low CFM fans. You can use a Panaflo L1A on it (24CFM@21dBA) and it will work fine. The Panaflo is quieter than that Zalman, I have both. I prefer the Panaflo's. They are very good, quiet fans.