Fanswap in Arctic Freezer 13

[kielbasa]

hi,

Have a question to You guys, overclocking maniacs

I own Arctic Freezer 13 on my phenom, but under stress its fan is getting a bit noisy. So I opened up the case, and I saw, that the fan is installed in a bit different way than other fans on market and now I'm not sure to buy for example this 'Enermax T.B. Silence UCTB9 92mm' and to be able to swap them easily.. Any suggestions here?

Has any of You ever tried this? Or maybe it's not worth doing cause noise is not going to be significantly lower, and I demand too much?

thanks

 

[Bobnova]

Zip ties work really nicely for installing fans.
As you've noted the stock fan mounting setup doesn't allow you to mount other fans.

The first thing I would do is remove the stock fan and clean the dust off. Clean the heatsink out while you're at it.
Then find yourself some machine oil (sewing machine oil is great, automatic transmission fluid works too, though it smells worse), and peel the label off the rear of the fan.
In the middle you'll find a little shaft and bearing, put a drop of oil on that shaft/bearing and spin the fan a bit.
Plop the label back on and reinstall the fan, odds are it'll be quieter now.

If that doesn't quiet the fan down, you can look around for a decently quiet 92mm fan and ziptie it in place, or alternatively grab a larger heatsink with a quieter fan.

 

[kielbasa]

Thanks Bobnova, but the fan is actually quite new. I got is as a present so oiling it now rather doesn't have a greater sense.
But if You say that zipties are good , I'll try that.

What about noise? Is it worth swapping in Your opinion?

 

[Bobnova]

Well, I haven't heard yours, so it's hard to say.

The Freezer 13 Limited Edition I reviewed had a fairly quiet fan.

If your temps are good you could turn on the PWM speed control in bios and run the fan speed lower.

 

[kielbasa]

I can't do it.. In my bios all the fan options are 'grey' and there's no access (gigabyte 770-ud3). Even if I change 'auto smart fan', or whatever it's called, to 'Disabled'.
I tried in Easy Tuner, but this program is weird and doesn't work how it should.

In my case,under idle, the cooler fan is more noisy than fan from my Highlander 550w.. (I tried to stop it with my finger for a while, and then the silence comes ). I'm not saying it's loud, but still I thought it would be better.

 

[Bobnova]

The Auto Smart Fan should have a Manual Smart Fan option that will let you turn the speed down.
Try pushing CTRL+F1 while in bios, that may or may not unlock some features.

 

[kielbasa]

I hit ctr+f1 and some options are unlocked indeed but in fan section there's enabled/disabled/PWM choice but I cannot see any fan adjustment.

 

[kielbasa]

hi again,

I manage to turn down the fan speed with 'SpeedFan' program and it seems, that when I set 60% of my fan speed, temperatures in stress on the cores are not more than 53`C after 10minutes. I think it's quite all right. (by the way, do You know if I should have this program started so that it is responsible for those speeds, or I set it once, close, and speeds stay as set? )

 

[Bobnova]

Auto fan set to PWM should give you some more detailed options. If not, speedfan is the way to go.

I don't know if it leaves teh settings in place when you close it, it shouldn't be hard to test though.

You could also look into building yourself a PWM fan controller, it's not especially difficult and will run the fan at whatever % you want it at via turning a knob.
The main thread is here: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=641111&page=28
It's a fairly long thing, but contains a tremendous amount of data.
There's also this article: http://www.overclockers.com/pwm-fan-controller

Lastly, I sell pushbutton controllers in the classifieds for pretty cheap. Classified access requires 100 posts, and that you have an ISP email address attached to your account. Alternatively a .mil address works fine too.