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I've got question! (Air Cooling)

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knoober

Member
Joined
Mar 18, 2015
Hi, I am working on maximizing my air cooling potential and I have a few questions that I hope you guys might be able to help with.

The very most important thing that I want to know is if higher price = higher quality? From the reading I have done I am not too sure. My fans run at maximum RPM values all the time (Im working on toning them down, but I dont want my temps to rise.... which is why I am looking at other fans) and are loud as hell! So will even the best fan at high RPM still be loud/ e.g. Am I stuck with the tornado noise no matter how much I spend? (I am also aware that a larger fan will be quieter, but that is really only an option for 1 of the 3)

My next question has to do with speed management and exactly how it works and what some of the terms mean, but I will wait to ask that and see what you guys have to say first :)

edit: cant edit the title? or am I missing it? Guess Ill live with that type, vertainly wont be the first
 
Case fans. Gosh you think you mentioned everything, and then go and skip the most important part! But definitely case fans :)
 
Do you know the model numbers of the fans you have?

There are DEFINITELY good fans that are very quiet, I like Noctua best for this personally.
That said, they aren't cheap.
 
Nice Asus thread. Definitely worth a read through.

My case fans are just something I scavenged from some old pcs before they hit the recycle bin. I don't doubt that I could find something good quieter, but how much quieter is the real question. What I mean is, with my fans running @ 3000rpm, they're loud, but wouldn't a high quality fan be just as loud at that speed? Quietness has a sweetspot I think right? So even if I got a top of the line noctua and ran it @ 3000rpm then I'd still hear a jet engine.... Or maybe not? I hope that makes sense the way I said it.

Next question is how to turn my fan down (still not sure if I'll run cool enough I'd I do) because the bios features don't seem to be changing the running speed. Is there a "For Dummies" on fan settings? Speedfan doesn't change their speeds at all, so I think I have to get it sorted in the bios. Thanks.
 
To some degree RPM and dBa are correlated, but good fans can still be quieter than cheap fans.
Put up some model numbers if/when you can, then we can compare directly for airflow/pressure/dBa.

Turning down the fans depends if you have a 3-pin or 4-pin fan. Which are yours?
 
Holy crap that solves the mystery of why there are 3 pin and 4 pin fans! Like I said I scavenged mine from an old pc ( should have said oem as well) so they're 3 pin.

I'll take a little time an post back with a couple more specifics. I didn't realize there was so much to know about case fans. I thought I was ahead of the game just knowing they were called "case fans" :)

Also I did fill in my rig somewhat in the profile section, but should I just go ahead and stick it right in my sig do ya think?
 
You can vary them via voltage on certain motherboard headers or with a fan controller.

Definitely stick it in your sig, that's where we'll see it most :)
 
Okay , a few changes in configuration later, Im back! Here's what Ive done:

1) Put my build details in my sig. I think I remembered everything.

2) Finished a case mod I started a little while ago. I put a case fan on the ceiling of my case and had to make the hole myself. Previously I had simply drilled a hole for the fan screws and then made an array of holes with the drill for air to pass through. Ugly was the word, so today I took a tinsnips after the case and made a proper fan opening as well as attached a grill to the outside of the case. It almost looks like it belongs :)

Here's a link to my case specs : http://www.sentey.com/en/cs1-1398pro

as I said above I have modded the case a bit to add a fan to the ceiling. In addition to this I have added a fan to the rear of the case. Both of these fans (as stated previously) were salvaged from oem PC's and sport the easy to remember model number AUB0912VH. They both will spin up to 3000 RPM ( I havent done enough research to know if this is average or not, but its a hell of a lot more than any other fan Ive got) and are loud as hell! Id like something a little quieter, but not if I have to give up any of the cooling power these guys are bringing to my case. There is also a "nozzle" above the cpu fan and an 80mm side fan. I am unsure if the "nozzle" is a useful feature or not , so any opinions on such things would be appreciated.

I am also considering adding a fan to the front of the case under the hard drive cage to push air in the front because I am unsure if enough cool air is being drawn in by the negative pressure from the AUB0912Vh's on the rear and ceiling. My question in this case would be what size would I want this fan to be? I don't think I would want to put a full 80mm fan there, but that would be the biggest I would consider for that area because of the location of the fan headers and the inconvenience of running extensions (that would have to order and don't want to)

SO that's my story folks. Looking for a good air cooling set up , and even though I thought noise wouldnt be an issue, it has become that way.... so quiet fans are the goal. And my budget is.... can I build it myself and save a few bucks? :) But its my understanding that many here may feel that way, so lets just say that topshelf items will have to be goldplated and do housework to be considered!
 
A new case would go a LONG way toward a quieter system, FYI.
It would let you use 120mm or 140mm fans, which are vastly quieter than 80mm/92mm fans.

Any chance you'd look into that option?
You wouldn't need to go with top-end stuff to get a quieter system than you have now. At all.
 
A new case would go a LONG way toward a quieter system, FYI.
It would let you use 120mm or 140mm fans, which are vastly quieter than 80mm/92mm fans.

Any chance you'd look into that option?
You wouldn't need to go with top-end stuff to get a quieter system than you have now. At all.

I will probably doing another build sometime for another mobo/cpu/ram combo I have sitting around, so I would welcome any pointers you have in choosing the case.... that being said, I chose this case because of its dimensions. It has an odd placement and cannot exceed a certain length or it sticks out too far into the room :) So rather than send you on a goosechase for a particular dimension of case , Ill just ask if the lack of space for 120mm fans is the only improvement we were going to look at ? Or are there other places where this case falls short? This is my first serious build, and I really have little clue about what makes a good/bad case.

However I will take your advice to heart, and ultimately my wallet and dimension requirements will be my guide :)

Also I am not allergic to reading if you can think of any relevant literature to suggest. I am allergic to searching though, because of my page load times on a slow connection.
 
Well, a new case would get you quite a few things.
- Better build quality (sturdier, looks better)
- Quieter/larger fans (which will also move more air)
- Better cable management (which leads to better temps and air flow)
- USB 3.0 front ports (for future builds)
- Bottom mounted PSU (better cable routing options)
- More fan slots (most good cases can hold 6 either 120mm or 140mm fans these days)
- Possibly taller heatsink compatibility
- Possibly longer GPU compatibility
 
I wouldnt mind a bottom mounted PSU because of exactly what you said, cable management. One question comes to mind with a bottommount though. Isnt the rising heat what Im fighting against? And isnt the PSU one of the big heaters inside the case?

I saw a pci card that was exclusively a set of dual fans. Is there anything good or bad to say about such things? I personally am kind of smitten with it seeing as my gpu has a passive cooler. I havent been able to figure a way to fix a fan to it yet, but I will I think. I also worry that too many fans will strain my PSU. The problem is I didnt plan my build the way I should have. I just picked up a part here and there because I needed a replacement , and now the best config can put together is ....frankensteiny. Every time I think about upgrading one piece, it just makes more and more sense to rebuild the whole thing! Which is why im trying to just limit myself to a set of nice/reasonable case fans :) as well as getting the optimal performance from what Ive got.

I worked pretty hard on cable management though. I brought the mobo power cord around the back of the case in between the sidewalls. All the extraneous cables from the PSU are curled around each other and zip tied in the top corner by the DVD bays. The big problem is that I couldnt part with my bigger capacity hdd's and they are IDE. Big ribbon cable from top to bottom. But still , the case is almost clean enough for a clear sidewall.....well maybe not that nice looking. Ive got one front 3.0 port, but no headers on the mobo, I do have a 19pin adapter on it though, so it atleast functions @ 2.0 speeds.

I ve dont a little reading about fan speed management and am still hopelessly lost though. I think maybe that might do quite a bit of good for me as well. The fans I have are 4 pin and all the headers on my board are 3 pin. It is my understanding that in a 3pin fan the mobo will regulate the voltage along the hot wire to control the speed , but that a 4 pin uses the extra wire to perform that function differently. I also read that setting your 4pin fan to DC in the bios will enable the "hot wire voltage regulation" of a 3 pin? I dont seem to be able to get anything but full speed out of these puppies though. Any ideas?
 
Bottom mount PSU's typically use a vent in the bottom of the case to intake air and expel it out the back, so they have their own air flow :)
Conversely, you can use it as an exhaust from your case, if you wish. I would keep it pulling air in from outside though.

You won't need those slot fans when you have proper airflow in a good case.
The fans you have now pull enough power for 2 good 120mm fans.

Yes, for a 4-pin fan you're much better off controlling it with a 4-pin header.
This is because it's using PWM to control instead of voltage.
Yes, you can still vary the speed with voltage. Not familiar with your board to guide you to that though.
As I mentioned earlier, a fan controller would vary speed, but you're going to be better off with a case and decent fans.
 
Well Ive got the mobo guide so Ill figure it out. I was just trying to pick the brains of better informed. Ill consider better on my next build. Thanks for the help :)
 
Get a case that has High Air Flow (HAF) :) CoolerMaster has some good HAF cases, there are other manufacturers as well.
On fans, anything smaller than 120mm will make a lot of noise, try and get a case that can use 230mm fans, these will also let you remove the large fan and put 2 or more 120mm fans in place.
Here is 2 pics of 1 of my PC's:
DSCN0336a.JPG
DSCN0258.JPG
Case: HAF 932 CoolerMaster
 
I just wanted to say those pics are real beauties, and thats a hell of a fan!

Ive looked around at a few different fans and am still dubious as to a good choice. Im gonna stand on my assertion that I save a better case for a different build (because as much as I want to, I already strained my wallet on this one. I would have been completely undoable if I hadnt bought it piecemeal) But I keep running into words like CFM and dba. I can understand what the words mean insofar as the english language definition, but have a hard time translating this to performance. For instance, a fan that has a 25dba rating: means that at max RPM it should output 25 decibels of sounds? Or does that mean it adds 25 decibels to what is already there. I used a cheap sound meter from the playstore on my smartphone (I know it cant be very reliable, but I would hope it is good enough for this purpose) and the results are as follows : Quietest room in the house is around 40 decibels (keep in mind that these microphones are calibrated for a human voice and to be spoken into, so I assume this figure to be a little high. It does offer realtime tracking, like when I snap a finger it responds immediately and proportional to the rest of the nioses in the room) and this rating is said to be "a soft rainfall" . Now when I remove all other noise from the room except the pc and set the device right next to it, I get 50 decibels before the fans kick in at startup, and 65-70 when theyre going full speed. A 15-20 decibel difference with the fans going full speed. Any clue how I should interpret these results? As I said before, is the dba rating the amount of sound they make, or the overall noise a fan adds to the coomplete sound profile?

Just so I can be sure I have this as plain jane simple as it can be for my own knowledge: Larger fans = quieter, and run at lower RPM. However they DO achieve the same CFM , which ultimately means they are doing the same amount of cooling in my case for less power and noise? Or are there other factors to pay attention to as well? I just dont want to pick (what I think of as) a good value only to find that the pertinent metric was something other than max RPM or CFM :)
 
What kind of temps do you get now under normal usage? Good, acceptable, or poor?
 
What kind of temps do you get now under normal usage? Good, acceptable, or poor?

Thats a bit of a long story, but the short answer is acceptable.

I started with this cpu on a different board, added a vrm heatsink and then I had troubles with my OS after that, so i switched to my current board. The current board ran the OS (Win7 btw) just fine except the cpu was burning up even at bone stock speeds with all fans @ 100%. When I opened up the case to check that everything was seated correctly, the OS went screwey again. By screwey I mean that inside of 2 boots on a fresh install I would need to run the startup repair even though I hadnt changed any settings in the OS itself. I think Ive got this one figured out. I zero'd all the drives and it seems to be fine again....for now. Further stability testing is in the works. Along the way I solved the high temp issue by undervolting it. My stock temps are now optimal at idle, but I consider them to be high under load. My x4 810 is running @ 61C stock speeds under load. Ive read that 55C is the hard limit, but then again Ive also read that anything under 71C is just fine. I intend to stay as close to 55C as I can be, and Im going to try not to sweat if it jumps a few degrees above.

Im not really looking to break any records, just to make the best use of what I have and maybe learn something along the way :)
 
You're not going to get it any quieter without sacrificing airflow, which will hurt temps even more.
 
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