Papst fans - are they not supposed to be quiet?

[Tea]

I jush bought 10 Papst 80cm fans and the one I plugged in is a long way off quiet. Is it a dud? Or is their reputation hohum?

 

[Tea]

Excuse me, I meant to say "is their reputation hokum?"

 

[Groltz]

I can forgive you for that statement, Tea, since you are more affluent on bananas than case fans. Tannin, however, should be well aware that there are at least 9 different Papst 80 X 80 X 25mm 12volt fans to choose from. Some are quiet, some are not. I still think Papst makes the best quality DC axial fans out there.

Which kind did he buy?

 

[time]

Congratulations, Tea! Welcome to the club for owners of useless fan collections. I am the founding member.

Did you buy these from the same outfit you last talked about? If so, I think you have been fleeced big time. As Groltz says, which model is it?

 

[Tea]

Hmmmm .... I see. Nope, Time, I bought these from a firm that the other place put me in contact with. They are a general electrical wholesaler, I gather, and don't know anything at all about computers. I asked for case fans and they said "what's a case fan" so I told them 12V, 80cm, 25mm thick, and they said "ah - that's an 8412N". My fault, I guess. From Steve's post it looks as if I should have asked for 8412NL or NGL or NGML.

Sigh.

Anyone want to buy 10 Papst fans?

 

[LiamC]

8412N's - no

NGML's (preferred) or NGL's, I'll take 3

<yeah, I know, a totally useless post!>

 

[e_dawg]

You can also get quiet fans from Panasonic, specifically their PanaFlo "L1A" series.

FBA08A12L1A 24 CFM 21 dBA
FBA08A12M1A 32 CFM 28 dBA
FBA08A12H1A 40 CFM 32 dBA
FBA08A12U1A 47 CFM 38 dBA

 

[The JoJo]

The 12db and 19db papst fans are very good, and very quiet. Recommended. I've also got a 26db papst on top of my Swiftech.

 

[Groltz]

Hmmmm .... I see. Nope, Time, I bought these from a firm that the other place put me in contact with. They are a general electrical wholesaler, I gather, and don't know anything at all about computers. I asked for case fans and they said "what's a case fan" so I told them 12V, 80cm, 25mm thick, and they said "ah - that's an 8412N". My fault, I guess. From Steve's post it looks as if I should have asked for 8412NL or NGL or NGML.

80 CM ? That would be a pretty stout fan, all right. 31" across. :wink:

 

[Tea]

Oh we don't mess about with cooling here,

 

[Tannin]

Tea tells lies. She really mean to say 80mm, of course.

(I DON'T!)
(Yes you Do.)
(No I DON'T!)
(Do.)
(I DON'T!)
(Do.)
(DON'T!)
(Do.)
(DON'T!)
(Do.)
(DON'T!)
(Do.)
(DON'T!)
(Do.)

 

[time]

You can also get quiet fans from Panasonic, specifically their PanaFlo "L1A" series.

FBA08A12L1A 24 CFM 21 dBA
FBA08A12M1A 32 CFM 28 dBA
FBA08A12H1A 40 CFM 32 dBA
FBA08A12U1A 47 CFM 38 dBA

Beware! The same problem exists with Panaflo as Papst. The 1900rpm 12L is great, but the more powerful 12H is not quiet.

 

[Sol]

You could always try swapping the -12 wire for the +5V on a molex conector.
One would think the fans should be much the same apart from fan speed anyway.

 

[time]

You could always try swapping the -12 wire for the +5V on a molex conector.

Noooooo, that's not how it's done.

Firstly, it's +12V, not -12V (Pity. Might be interesting if you organize it to put 17V across a fan ...).

Secondly, you need to swap the 5V line with the ground line that's next to the 12V line. That supplies +5V and +12V to the fan, resulting in 7V across it.

If you were to swap the 5V and 12V lines directly, that leaves you with only 5V, and that's not enough to guarantee starting most fans once they've had a bit of use. Could be embarrassing.

One would think the fans should be much the same apart from fan speed anyway.

Yep. I haven't been able to spot any difference apart from motor power. IMO, this illustrates how cheesy most of the designs are. What is great at 2000 rpm can really suck at 4000 rpm ( Sorry).

My chief beef is vibration. These fans should be balanced above 3000 rpm (and indeed some Papst fans are).

 

[time]

Whoops, forgot to add that the tidier way to slow down a fan is to use a speed controller such as the one from Zalman. AU$12, Tea. Connects between the fan and the motherboard, simply adjust until your ears are pleased (I personally wouldn't drop much below two thirds of maximum rpm because of the stall problem).

 

[i]

Anyone used fans made by the Elina Fan corp?

I became interested in them after realizing that the external drive enclosures made by Sun used them. I could barely hear them, and they were putting out good airflow.

 

[The JoJo]

Time's right, you want minimum 7V for the fans, just in case.

 

[Sol]

you need to swap the 5V line with the ground line that's next to the 12V line
...
the tidier way to slow down a fan is to use a speed controller

Thats what I meant. There is no -12V line on a molex adapter. And I cirtainly wouldn't want anyone to start hacking up PSUs .

I don't know if I'd trust those little fan controlers too far. Any half powerful fan (My but thats a clumsy phrase) will have a fair chance of reducing it to a smoking knob.
Checking the ratings is a must.
Another similar option is to use some sort of pulse width modulator or other voltage reducing device. More expensive but leaves you with just one knob to twiddle for quite a few fans. Besides the little potentiometer ones aren't that cheep anyhow.

 

[e_dawg]

Yes, 7 Volts is the threshold. Hence, http://www.7volts.com .

 

[time]

Any half powerful fan (My but thats a clumsy phrase) will have a fair chance of reducing it to a smoking knob.

Delta 37cfm 6800rpm fan requires 3.5W.

The Zalman Fan Mate is rated for use with fans up to 6W.

Besides the little potentiometer ones aren't that cheep anyhow.

AU$12 isn't cheap?

You do realize it contains a transistor-based voltage regulator, don't you? It's not a rheostat.

 

[NRG = mc²]

The fanmate can be made for about $1 US - all it takes is a visit to your local electronics shop and 5 components later you're done.

I don't have a fanmate at hand but when I had taken apart mine some time ago it only comprised of about 4 or 5 parts, I thought what a waste of money it was.

Theres a more complicated circuit available here for anyone who'd like to give it a shot:

http://www.bit-tech.net/article/51/

 

[Groltz]

Just use a good rheostat.

My method is to take a newly acquired fan and hook up to a spare 12v rail through a rheostat in a test harness. The rpm sense lead is connected to the unused motherboard chassis fan header. I will connect everything then start increasing resistance on the fan until it gets to the point where I would never want it to go slower than. This point also must be high enough to allow the fan to start spinning from a stop instead of stalling. I then disconnect the leads from the rheostat and measure the resistance through it. From this reading a determination can be made as to what the ideal resistance value for a rheostat might be. For instance, my most recent acquisition was a YS Tech TMD-fan, high-speed. It took 43 ohms of induced resistance to lower the rpm level from 5600rpm to 3000rpm. I used a 50 ohm rheostat to control it. This method can also get you the ideal values for fixed resistors if you don't intend on ever adjusting the fan speed. My case intake and exhaust fans were done in this manner. Since they don't have rpm sense leads I just did them by ear. Once they were at the highest rpm that was still audibly pleasant, I took the resistance reading from the test harness and ordered the appropriate resistors.

The rheostats I use for my cpu fans are made by Ohmite. The models are the RHS series (25 watts). This power value is clearly overkill for PC fans but I prefer to overbuild such things than skimp by on the minimum requirements. There is also a 12 watt RES series available. The 50 ohm part I am currently using is RHS50R.

http://www.ohmite.com/catalog/rheostats_wirewound.html

--Steve

 

[Tea]

A very simple, practical method, Steve. Not sure if I'll ever get keen enough to do that, but thankyou.

 

[ddrueding]

Stupid fans....my story and my question.

Antec ships their 3U rackmount case with YS Tech fans rated @ the following:

     Model    Spec  Operating   mA   W     RPM   CFM   DbA
NYW09225012BS  12v  7v-13.2v   340  4.08   3500  67.3  43.0

Which is pretty darn loud. So loud, in fact, that a client has threatened to return the server unless I quiet it down

So my question is this:

Do you think these fans will be quiet enough when brought to 7v (~22DbA)? If so, what size and rating of resistor would be appropriate (my math skills suck)? No adjustments are necissary, I'd prefer to simply attach a radio shack purchased resistor of sufficent size to the 12v lead.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Jan Kivar]

You'd need about 25 Ohm, 3 Watt resistors. If I did the math right... :-?

Jan

 

[e_dawg]

Can you buy a Zalman Fanmate and try it out? I use 2-3 Fanmates in each desktop to adjust each case/CPU fan individually to my liking.

 

[blakerwry]

return the server unless you quiet it down???

hmm... Did you tell him that the fans were a protection on his investment and that they were there to protect the innards from overheating?


I guess you said it was 3U... which should be able to operate quietly depending on the components used... it's not like a 1U where you're forced to use a crappy midget CPU cooler that runs at 5000rpm+

But that is another thing to check, Some CPU coolers spin at 4000rpm+ and pushing that air across a heatsink generates even more noise. My best guess is that the HSF is producing a more annoying sort of noise than any of the case fans.

...but I could be wrong.

 

[ddrueding]

You'd need about 25 Ohm, 3 Watt resistors. If I did the math right... :-?

Jan

Thanks, I'll give that a shot

 

[ddrueding]

Yes, I made sure beforehand that it would be mounted in their server room (full of 50+ servers) and they insist that mine stands out as the loudest. I think they're just trying to get back at me for barging in (they have an IS department, and outsourced this project to me anyway).

The (single) CPU cooler is a SLK-900U with one of the aforementioned fans attached. There are 5 of these fans total in the chassis. We'll see what we can do.

 

[NRG = mc²]

Do you think these fans will be quiet enough when brought to 7v (~22DbA)? If so, what size and rating of resistor would be appropriate (my math skills suck)? No adjustments are necissary, I'd prefer to simply attach a radio shack purchased resistor of sufficent size to the 12v lead.

running those fans at 7v should give more like 25dB which will likely be plenty quiet for a server room. Five fans at 43dB are over 50dB combined and thats in free space, not mounted on a heatsink or enclosure so I can imagine how things could get out of hand.

 

[NRG = mc²]

To clarify, 25dB *each* at 7v

 

[ddrueding]

To clarify, 25dB *each* at 7v

I think that's good enough, I'll be reducing the number of fans as well (to 3 from 5) hopefully keeping it under 30dB total.

This is a really simple server config, and shouldn't require all those fans in such a spacious and well-designed case (in an air conditioned server room).

I'll be heading out soon to get a hold of those resistors, shrink wrap, and some solder.

 

[P5-133XL]

I've had very good results from Enermax ultra-cool UC-001B-TC fans

I found them searching the web and got this review. I tried them and I liked them.

I've also found that experimenting with removing fans is a good idea. Very often surplus fans do not improve air-flow or internal temperatures. I've found that generally with a good case the PS fan plus one other fan (for redundancy purposes, not extra cooling) sufficient. I've found that surplus fans may reduce the internal case temp a few degrees but not enough to affect CPU-temperatures.

 

[ddrueding]

Well, radio shacks selection dissapoints once again...it's McGyver time.

I have 50 and 100 Ohm resistors (10 Watt).

IIRC, 2 50s in parallel give you 25 ohm, correct?

Can I stick these 2 50s on a 12V line leading to 3 of these fans? I don't think so, but I am a wishfull thinker on drugs...

 

[NRG = mc²]

IIRC, 2 50s in parallel give you 25 ohm, correct?

Yes

Can I stick these 2 50s on a 12V line leading to 3 of these fans?

Yes, it should comfortably handle it as maximum dissipation allowed will be 20W and we're only asking them to dissipate under 10W.

 

[ddrueding]

Great, thanks. I'll need to wait for my hands to stop shaking before I do the work. Stupid drugs...