IS this a good quiet cooling fan? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106086 On NewEgg it is listed as having 16 dBA (hard to believe)?

IS this a good quiet cooling fan? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106086 On NewEgg it is listed as having 16 dBA (hard to believe)?

120mm is quiet, 92mm is noisier, So It depends on what You want to do with a heatsink, Me I bought a Xigmatek HDT-S1283(Or a Kingwin 12025 Or an OCZ version that has a 120mm fan), It's not a bad heatsink and It comes with a 120mm fan instead of a 92mm, For a 92mm would have to spin slower to equal the quietness of a 120mm fan and that would mean Your cpu would be hotter, But It's Your choice. I've just given My opinion to You.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

In general I haven't found ThermalTake products to be particularly quiet.

The Arctic cooling range are usually good pricewise and quietness wise, but no so flash in the cooling category (although usually better than stock, so you do get cooler and quieter).

Most of the 120mm towers do well, and if not quiet to begin with, a fan swap with noctua/nexus/scythe or similar will quiet it down and still give great performance. These coolers will get you much cooler and much quieter.

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Crunching SETI@Home as a member of the Whirlpool BOINC Teams

IS this a good quiet cooling fan? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106086 On NewEgg it is listed as having 16 dBA (hard to believe)?

I've never been disappointed by following the recomendations from SPCR when looking for "quiet".

F.

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Yeah I have to say I'm not a huge Thermaltake "fan." I do have a power supply of theirs that I have no complaint with but the first model of heatsink I tried was horribly loud and the second one's fan seized up much quicker than others I have used. I am currently very impressed with my Zalman CNPS9700 (runs 20C cooler than AMD's stock heatsink) although I will admit that it was no simple task to install. They do have a slightly smaller version (9500) as well as other designs that may be more suited for your setup.

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A member of The Knights Who Say NI!
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IS this a good quiet cooling fan? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106086 On NewEgg it is listed as having 16 dBA (hard to believe)?

120mm is quiet, 92mm is noisier, So It depends on what You want to do with a heatsink, Me I bought a Xigmatek HDT-S1283(Or a Kingwin 12025 Or an OCZ version that has a 120mm fan), It's not a bad heatsink and It comes with a 120mm fan instead of a 92mm, For a 92mm would have to spin slower to equal the quietness of a 120mm fan and that would mean Your cpu would be hotter, But It's Your choice. I've just given My opinion to You.

The OCZ heatsink/fan I tried to mention is the OCZ Vendetta 2, Which so far is not for sale any where yet, Although from the reviews It's the best heatsink out there for the money and It's very quiet as are the other two Heatpipe Direct Touch heatsinks and the other two HDT heatsinks(Xigmatek & Kingwin) are very inexpensive for the excellent cooling they give and are a true bargain. I've had zalman of course and their nice looking, but results are important here, not looks as who's going to look at them once their installed in the case? Not Me that's for sure. I'd only inspect them for any dust buildup which is a problem with any heatsink.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

if i had the option of 90/92mm versus 120mm fan/heatsink,
i'd go 120mm everytime.
1. more cooling capacity
2. as a rule the fans are quieter

the only drawback to a 120mm fan/heatsink is the size.
you might want to measure the "entrails" of your system
and compare it to the dimensions of the heatsinks you are interested in.

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You also might need to ensure sufficient air is moving through the case.
If not, you are just circulating warm air that gets warmer and warmer and you will see very little difference.

And on that note are most cases badly designed, I have Antec sonata with one 120 in and 120 + psu 120 out. And sons have, older, ThermalTake with 4 * 80mm in and 3 * 80mm + psu 120mm out.

End result on all three cases air + dust is sucked in on all holes and gaps available.
If cases tried to push more air in than they suck out the the air would be blown out of holes and gaps.

You also might need to ensure sufficient air is moving through the case.
If not, you are just circulating warm air that gets warmer and warmer and you will see very little difference.

And on that note are most cases badly designed, I have Antec sonata with one 120 in and 120 + psu 120 out. And sons have, older, ThermalTake with 4 * 80mm in and 3 * 80mm + psu 120mm out.

End result on all three cases air + dust is sucked in on all holes and gaps available.
If cases tried to push more air in than they suck out the the air would be blown out of holes and gaps.

So I guess getting a case with a front 120 fan is a good idea then?

I say you can't have too many 120mm fans. All the new hardware I'm building has them. They are just so much quieter while still moving enough air to keep things cool. I just got a new Lian Li case for my fileserver that has two 120 fans in the front and one in the back. The front ones have air filters on them so hopefully there is a little bit of positive air pressure in the case to keep the dust out.

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A member of The Knights Who Say NI!
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I say you can't have too many 120mm fans. All the new hardware I'm building has them. They are just so much quieter while still moving enough air to keep things cool. I just got a new Lian Li case for my fileserver that has two 120 fans in the front and one in the back. The front ones have air filters on them so hopefully there is a little bit of positive air pressure in the case to keep the dust out.

The resistance to air flow of the clean filters on my rig raises the core temps on my quaddie by 5C. So, I have taken them off and clean it out a little more often.

Just my 2c.

F.

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Filtering is another problem that says case design needs to be improved. If Fred's observation is seen on all cases then to keep out the fluff and dust we could probably do with a ratio of three filtered fans blowing in to every unfiltered fan blowing air out.

Edit] which leads me to another thought. If we had enough filtered fans blowing air in, do we actually need a fan blowing air out, would a designed opening be enough?
[/edit

Filtering is another problem that says case design needs to be improved. If Fred's observation is seen on all cases then to keep out the fluff and dust we could probably do with a ratio of three filtered fans blowing in to every unfiltered fan blowing air out.

Edit] which leads me to another thought. If we had enough filtered fans blowing air in, do we actually need a fan blowing air out, would a designed opening be enough?
[/edit

My removal of the filters is an alternative to having a front fan - it's a quieter solution. With an Asus P5B in an Antec P180B case the 120mm fan on my Ultra 120 Extreme CPU cooler pulls air across the memory, pushes it across the CPU and is in-line with the rear case fan. Removing the blanking plate from the lowest 5.25 bay gives a resistance-free air path so provides maximum cooling. But removing the filters (lower down the case) did have more effect than fitting a front fan (which I tried).

Thinking about your [Edit], surely it is 6 and half a dozen. The air that is blown out has to get in somewhere. So whether it is forced out by fans and enters (through filters if desired) through a passive hole, or vice versa will be irrelevant. It is the same volume of air and will carry the same tonnage of dust.

F.

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Edit] which leads me to another thought. If we had enough filtered fans blowing air in, do we actually need a fan blowing air out, would a designed opening be enough?[/edit

Most cases are poorly designed when it comes to airflow.
Fans exchausting the air are generally the best option, as they will draw cooler air over the componets that are between them & the air intakes.
Blowing air into the case tends to result in less airflow over thsse components (eg video card, memory modules).

A well designed positive pressure case is the ideal (fans blowing in, filters in front of those fans) for keeping the system clean & dust free, but it's cooling is only effective when the ambient temperatures are low (ie 25°c or less).

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Grant
Darwin NT

I deliberately said designed opening, If cases and motherboards were designed correctly air could be made to flow across hot components because that is the direction to the exhaust. And the flow would be augmented by those components that normally have hs/fans fitted.

Also getting the psu out of the main box might help. This would also help the psu, often the weakest link, as it could then get cold (ambient) air at its intake rather than pre-warmed air from the computer components. I see Coolmaster, and maybe others have started on this approach.

And yes I know some computers are in hot places and the ambient is not very cool, but having ambient + 30F from computer components at your input cannot be very good for an 80% efficient 800W psu. It means that little box has a 200W heater inside it.

Filtering is another problem that says case design needs to be improved. If Fred's observation is seen on all cases then to keep out the fluff and dust we could probably do with a ratio of three filtered fans blowing in to every unfiltered fan blowing air out.

Edit] which leads me to another thought. If we had enough filtered fans blowing air in, do we actually need a fan blowing air out, would a designed opening be enough?
[/edit

(snip)
Thinking about your [Edit], surely it is 6 and half a dozen. The air that is blown out has to get in somewhere. So whether it is forced out by fans and enters (through filters if desired) through a passive hole, or vice versa will be irrelevant. It is the same volume of air and will carry the same tonnage of dust.

F.

my 2 cents: unless you go to the effort of sealing your removable media drives (which can make high speed DVDR and/or CDR drives overheat), if you have fans drawing air out, they then draw air in all openings such as (particularly) the CD/DVD burners and screwing them up by getting dust in the optic assemblies. where the volume of dust ends up certainly seems to have a big effect on reliability (don't want it plugging the cpu heatsink!) works well for me to have several fans running at reduced speed blowing air in, and not directly at the cpu (then it tends to settle closer to where it's directed). I'm also not overclocking at extreme settings either. I would like to use air filtering but for this to work for me the filters have to be bigger than the computer, or have to clean them out very regularly. Scott R

From the case makers I've seen cases without filters and ones with laughably thin filters You can see through that claim to be filters, If You can see through a so-called air filter, Then what good are they? You wouldn't put such a filter on Your cars intake as It wouldn't work or be smog legal either. Currently I use cases without filters, I've found cases get more dust near floor level than If their elevated at least 23" off the floor.

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The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

On some computers I have used the filter material that is used in vacuum cleaners. The repair man near me gets it in 1m sq sheets, that seems to work quite well, if the air flow restriction is not too much.
I agree with Joker about keeping computers off the floor.

From the case makers I've seen cases without filters and ones with laughably thin filters You can see through that claim to be filters, If You can see through a so-called air filter, Then what good are they? You wouldn't put such a filter on Your cars intake as It wouldn't work or be smog legal either. Currently I use cases without filters, I've found cases get more dust near floor level than If their elevated at least 23" off the floor.

My older Lian Li case has an extremely porous filter with very little resistance to air flow. i didn't think it would do much but every time I check it I see that it has caught a fair amount of dust and needs to be cleaned. I figure the more dust goes down the sink drain, the less ends up in my CPU fan. The newer case has denser filters but I haven't had it long enough to judge its effectiveness.

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