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FEATURED FANS 101: Going Scientific.
- Thread starter bluezero5
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2011
- Location
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
Any info on panaflo 120x38 fans regarding bearings and motor drive?
I hear there are two revisions, but I'm guessing the good ones that had medium to high speeds and hydro wave bearings might serve xsuperbgx well...
One more thing, be careful if you order fans online (specially from ebay or somewhere out of the country). Ball bearing fans can get a damaged bearing easily it seems if they beat them up during traffic.
I have two Nidec 5300rpm fans and one of them is much louder then the other one. After that incident I decided to stick to hydro wave/fdb fans.
I hear there are two revisions, but I'm guessing the good ones that had medium to high speeds and hydro wave bearings might serve xsuperbgx well...
One more thing, be careful if you order fans online (specially from ebay or somewhere out of the country). Ball bearing fans can get a damaged bearing easily it seems if they beat them up during traffic.
I have two Nidec 5300rpm fans and one of them is much louder then the other one. After that incident I decided to stick to hydro wave/fdb fans.
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- Mar 1, 2013
The ones I took out of a really old HP workstation were pretty plain square wave drive fans with what appears to be a FDB. I'm not sure about the newer ones, but sine wave drive has pretty much became standard on any good quality fan.
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2011
- Location
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
I wanna buy one at least but shipping forces me to buy more
I'll make a review soon I think. They can't be too terrible. 120x25 fans kinda bore me.
I'll make a review soon I think. They can't be too terrible. 120x25 fans kinda bore me.
- Thread Starter
- #105
actually, from my experience..
yes ball bearing have a general longer life.. and sleeves are generally quieter (but need to relub more often), but it really depends more on the brand then the bearing... really.
Yates.. is a VERY low budget fan, I don't recommend it beyond very causal use. For the record, of the 5-6 Yate Fans I tested, they were all consistently among the first the fail... so.. You do get what you pay for. (but they are really cheap though!!!)
Scythe fans are in general ... decent in lifetime.
Enermax is really depend on use, I have 1 out of 3 then stopped working quickly, but the rest are still in good condition.
San Ace are decent too.
bearing wise, in general, ball > sleeves
but I will say I value brand quality over bearing type more myself.
hope that helps!!!
yes ball bearing have a general longer life.. and sleeves are generally quieter (but need to relub more often), but it really depends more on the brand then the bearing... really.
Yates.. is a VERY low budget fan, I don't recommend it beyond very causal use. For the record, of the 5-6 Yate Fans I tested, they were all consistently among the first the fail... so.. You do get what you pay for. (but they are really cheap though!!!)
Scythe fans are in general ... decent in lifetime.
Enermax is really depend on use, I have 1 out of 3 then stopped working quickly, but the rest are still in good condition.
San Ace are decent too.
bearing wise, in general, ball > sleeves
but I will say I value brand quality over bearing type more myself.
hope that helps!!!
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- Joined
- Mar 1, 2013
Based on the fans I took out of discarded rack servers, I would have to say that Adda is pretty poor as far as long term reliability goes, with over half of them having noisy bearings after several years of 24/7 use. YS Tech did pretty well, with only a few exhibiting any signs of problems. NMB and Delta did the best, with none in my collection exhibiting any bearing noise.
What remains to be seen are long term reliability of variable speed fans. The inverter is going to be very reliable, but variable speed FDB fans have to be carefully designed for good reliability. If they let the speed go too low, the bearings won't last very long. Ball bearings should last longer at lower speeds, but lets hope they don't cheap out expecting the fans to rarely see full speed! That's the advantage of using a server grade fan, since they're unlikely to cheap out on anything and you won't need to run full speed very often. Of course, you do pay a price premium for that, but for a high end machine, just remember that a single digital Delta can replace about 3 or 4 "cheap" fans and cost about the same...
What remains to be seen are long term reliability of variable speed fans. The inverter is going to be very reliable, but variable speed FDB fans have to be carefully designed for good reliability. If they let the speed go too low, the bearings won't last very long. Ball bearings should last longer at lower speeds, but lets hope they don't cheap out expecting the fans to rarely see full speed! That's the advantage of using a server grade fan, since they're unlikely to cheap out on anything and you won't need to run full speed very often. Of course, you do pay a price premium for that, but for a high end machine, just remember that a single digital Delta can replace about 3 or 4 "cheap" fans and cost about the same...
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- Jul 29, 2011
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- Buenos Aires, Argentina
I agree that the extra width and reliability might be an attractive plus for enthusiasts but some people are picky with both noise and looks.
Personally I prefer the look of a pressure optimized delta over a led fan ;p
Personally I prefer the look of a pressure optimized delta over a led fan ;p
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2013
Variable speed can throttle way down, to the extent that a high end Delta becomes basically inaudible. An exception would be the old Nidecs with the 5 step drive, which buzz pretty bad at low speed. (The newer ones are sensorless FOC just like the Deltas and perform about the same.)
As for performance at low speed, theoretically a resolver based drive would do better, but in practice, the sensorless drives do as well or better. Computing power has become so cheap that they could just throw in 40MHz or so of DSP in there to do some sophisticated signal processing.
As for performance at low speed, theoretically a resolver based drive would do better, but in practice, the sensorless drives do as well or better. Computing power has become so cheap that they could just throw in 40MHz or so of DSP in there to do some sophisticated signal processing.
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- Oct 30, 2009
Mind-boggling that you are talking about compute power in a fan.
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- Mar 1, 2013
Modern motor drives have become very sophisticated.
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- Winterpeg
This was very informative thank you. I just built a system and put a Corsair h105 Cooler on the top inside of the case and put to Cougar Vortex 120mm fans blowing down on it they seem to be doing fine. I also put 2 Spectre 140mm fans on the side one blowing in one blowing. Plus my case is Cooler Master and it came with 3 fans 1 120 blowing out at back and 2 140mm on blowing in on front and there was one on the top but removed it and put it on bottom of case blowing in.
Now my question is I have one more spot on the bottom of case for 120mm and was wondering if I should put it blowing in or blowing out. I had one of the fans that came from cooler in that spot but the dB(A) was sitting a 37 and was drivimg me crazy for noise.
Now my question is I have one more spot on the bottom of case for 120mm and was wondering if I should put it blowing in or blowing out. I had one of the fans that came from cooler in that spot but the dB(A) was sitting a 37 and was drivimg me crazy for noise.
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It won't help much, a bottom fan that is...I'd stick to a front to back airflow pattern. Maybe a side exhaust or intake depending on the type of cpu cooler. (I have the same case)
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- Winterpeg
Whats a good price to pay for fans the 2 cougar fans I bought seem to be pretty quite and have good air flow for under $20.00.
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- Winterpeg
I see newegg has them on for $13.99 for the 120mm and I paid 17.99 a piece for mine. Oh well
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- Clearwater FL
Yeah know, with some shim stock and creative shim punch work and screws you could get nine of these and make a silly $300+ 120 fan replacement.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608033
No one in their right mind would ever do it, but would be funny to see much air it would move and how the noise compared, I'd imagine a bit once they were multiplied.
Sorry just being odd atm.
Could probably put about 75 or so of em in just a 1200, would sound like a mad beehive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608033
No one in their right mind would ever do it, but would be funny to see much air it would move and how the noise compared, I'd imagine a bit once they were multiplied.
Sorry just being odd atm.
Could probably put about 75 or so of em in just a 1200, would sound like a mad beehive.
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It would probably be worse than a decent 120mm fan airflow wise, as you're bound to lose some blade area due to having 9 motors and 9 shrouds vs. 1 motor and 1 shroud. But if you're willing to send me $300+ I'll gladly test it out for you
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- Feb 15, 2014
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- Winterpeg
Anyone know how I can control 2 cougar vortex pwm fans. They are whining right now I have tried turbo and standard do I need to go to silent or should I get a fan controller. My system spec are down below in signature. If you need to see what motherboard I have. I got rid of aisuite because it was giving me false readings. Is there a way in bios to do it. They are on top of computer exhausting hot air from my cooler.
If I don't figure this out soon I'm going to go nuts from the whine.
By the way I'm thinking of OC'ing soon
I was just thinking I forgot a couple washers when screwing in my fans to the cooler the other day would that do it. I took fans off to turn them around from blowing in to case to exhausting. Maybe unbalanced
If I don't figure this out soon I'm going to go nuts from the whine.
By the way I'm thinking of OC'ing soon
I was just thinking I forgot a couple washers when screwing in my fans to the cooler the other day would that do it. I took fans off to turn them around from blowing in to case to exhausting. Maybe unbalanced
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