Bill said:
Paul, You've provided me with a lot of useful information. Thank you!
You understand my issue better than I do! %-)
You wrote: If Corsair rates the fans for 800-2700 RPM, then with
the PWM set to 0%, the fan should spin at 800. -- If that happened, I
don't
think I would have any problem at all. Corsair would probably blame the
motherboard maker (Gigabyte)! : )
Thank you too for mentioning other details about "hot swapping" fans.
I would not have have been so "prudent".
The "reviewer" who went through 3 units, ended up with a pair of these
(Noctua NF-F12-PWM):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...5608026&cm_re=notua_nf-_-35-608-026-_-Product
He said his system ran a few degrees cooler with them. But I have to
take one review with a grain of salt. Do you have an opinion whether
that is a reasonable substitute? I notice it's rpm range only goes up to
1500 RPM, but I suppose the m^3/h might be a better basis for
comparison--I just "guessed" what m3/h means! Learning in progress here!
I note that's it's not cheap (about $60). I know Corsair has other fans
people "upgrade" to as well (usually for quietness, I thought). I
haven't done my homework on this. I'm still "configuring software" on
two computers, this one and the one that is moving on to a new owner.
For the first time, I'm trying this time to make proper use of admin and
user accounts, something I've neglected doing in the past. I don't
quite have all of the subtleties down yet! : )
Cheers,
Bill
That's a pretty fancy fan, as computer cans go.
It makes a lot of claims about design, but it's coming
from a computer fan maker.
The airflow flat out is 93.4 m³/h.
So that's hours, so I divide by 60 to get minutes. 1.56
Next, I need to convert cubic meters to cubic feet (for CFM).
(39.37/12) ^ 3 = 35.3 cubic feet/cubic meter
1.56*35.3 = 55CFM
Which seems a little high for a fan of that size,
depth, and rotational speed. I would have guessed
35CFM. And the noise rating is also suspiciously
low for a fan like that. 55CFM should be over 30dBa.
One reviewer on the Newegg page, seems to think
they don't have the rated static pressure. So they're
not "vacuum cleaner fans". Again, the 22dBa rating
suggests "wimps". If the current setup really needs
all the fans can give, these won't be as good
from a performance perspective. But they will be
quiet (if the specs can be believed).
The claim is, it has a 300RPM minimum speed (which I
assume is at 0% PWM). So it follows the Intel recommended
design. But, Noctua doesn't provide a simple fan speed
curve to reinforce my observation.
Considering the price of the original cooler, that's
a relatively expensive upgrade. I suppose you could view it
as giving you some fans for a future project, if the
cooler (pump) ever wears out or leaks.
*******
Purely as a joke, if you want a fan, *this* is a fan. What
gives it the edge, is it is 37.5mm deep instead of 25mm.
So it's thicker than your average fan. That's what helps
the static pressure as well. They even make fans at 15mm
thick, but those would have practically no pressure at all.
http://www.circuittest.com/cfa1212038mb-12vdc-ball-bearing-120mm-fan.html
I have one of those. It was an impulse purchase at my local
electronics store. I bought it, because at the time it
was made of metal. So less smelly plastic to deal with.
But boy, is it loud! And it has a static pressure rating
of 5.6 mm H2O. So it's in the vacuum cleaner class. If you
had two of those, you'd have to leave the room
I run that fan off 7V, to make it liveable. And at 1 amp
current draw, you'd need a pretty nice rheobus to control
it. I wouldn't run that off a motherboard header. In my
case, it's powered off a Molex, and I've got a little
circuit to give 7V. Since it's not PWM, I don't have to
worry quite as much about running it at a lower voltage.
I don't think those Noctua fans would be a bad purchase,
but they may not give quite the same level of performance
as the originals. To me, the specs don't add up, and
common sense tells you they have to be less performing
than the originals.
As far as I know, there is only one fan design, that made
an attempt at a departure from standard design. And that
seems to have disappeared from the market. Its claim to fame,
was controlling turbulence near the fan blade, by the
smooth uniform air acceleration. The blade had a bit of a
"cone" theme to it, as the design of the blade
was defined by how it was to accelerate the air.
Those fans were expensive too, but partially because
they were made in Germany. I haven't seen any knockoffs
or attempts to copy them.
Paul
