Takaharu

The fans in my PC are getting to a notably loud level in my PC so I want to work out what my best course of action would be.
The CPU fan is pretty quiet so I'm quite content with that. The same goes for the PSU.

Graphics, however, are the most audible, as are the whopping great fans at the bottom of the case. I could crank up the bottom fans to decrease the fan speed of the graphics but then I'd end up with an overall louder case.

So, is it worthwhile replacing the case fans and what would be my best course of action for the graphics cards?
Card 1 sits around 50 degrees Celsius idle, card 2 at around 40.

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CJLMTLCA

You can always replace the case fans with some that are quieter. What size are those, 120mm? As for the GPUs, are there any 3rd party coolers for them? Haven't seen any.

You have a side window so no way of mounting a side fan? Then you could dial down the GPU fans a little maybe and compensate with that side fan.

Depends on your budget too. What are you willing to spend to "experiment" with trying to quiet down your PC. I once installed acoustic foam in my case, but with a window you would lose that side of the case.

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Takaharu

I'm considering getting replacement fans for the bottom of the case, though the size of the fans gives me a somewhat limited amount of options - 180mm fans. There's Silverstone's Air Penetrators but I don't know how they compare to the default ones. I'd be willing to go for them but I don't want to spend £45-odd to try them out.
I haven't seen any third-party coolers for the 460 either

No fan on the side window.
As for the things to try out, I'm thinking along the lines of fans but I'm open to suggestions. Acoustic foam, to me, seems a bit excessive, however.

I tried moving the second graphics card to the bottom slot but I found out that you can't SLI between the first and third slots, which was kind of annoying. The drivers just assumed that's now a dedicated PhysX card.

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simonw

The Prolimatech MK-13 and Gelid Icy Vision appear to be GTX460 compatible according to their websites, although since you are using your gpus in SLI config, I'm unsure if there will be heatsink clearance issues.

EDIT: I spoke too soon, it states on Prolimatech's website that the MK-13 is not compatible with your case, the Raven RV02. The Gelid cooler also has similar dimensions, so I assume that will not fit either.

Takaharu

The Prolimatech cooler looks great. I'm a bit puzzled though as to why they specifically mention the RV02 as being incompatible. Can anyone explain why?
I don't think that space would be an issue - is there something to do with the airflow in the case?

The Gelid, however, I think would have a hard time with circulation due to the lack of space. Is that a fair analysis?

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Tipstaff

When you say that they are "loud", do you mean noisy, or that they are on full tilt? If you take the side panel off, do things quiet down?

The problem I have is that the Raven's fans on the bottom are switchable, and either run a 700 or 1000 RPM, so at max 25-27db, minimum 15-18db. That's kinda quiet as it is in either setup, and it sounds like they are already on low. You might want to try just upping the middle one to high since that one directly blows onto your video card. Are they noisy because they are failing, or could it be that they struggling to move air(don't forget to clean the filters for those fans, btw).

If the fans quiet down when you run with the side panel off, this could be a sign of an airflow issue. The one thing I've always hated about that case is that you have 3 fans bringing air in, and you rely on the 120mm top fan to exhaust (can't rely on the power supply as it's pulling air from outside the back, and exhausting it out the top). If the fans quiet down after you take the panel off then you may need change the setup to either exhaust more or less air. I've noticed that with cards that exhaust their air out (like the GTX200 and 400 series running the reference cooler) that you need to turn up one or more of the bottom fans to high to compensate for the pull of air by the card.

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Takaharu

Taking the side panel off just sounds louder to me because the noise from the bottom fans are no longer muffled. However, after a couple of minutes, the noise from the graphics cards do die down a bit, though not by much. According to the stats, the fans run 2% RPM slower and the temperatures are about the same.
I clean the filters for the fans on a fairly regular basis and the graphics cards are all but brand new (about a month old now).

I've stuck the middle fan on high and that's dropped the fan speed on the first GPU by 1 RPM with the case closed.
Excellent point about the airflow though with just the one exhaust fan. Taking into consideration that I have a dirty great big CPU heatsink sitting in front of it that probably doesn't help at all.

Looking at the fan speeds on the graphics cards it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't actually them at all - 32% RPM on one, 30% RPM on the other. I know that the CPU fan is dead silent so there's not a lot else it could be.

My next step (which I'll do at some point tomorrow) is listen to each fan individually to find out which one is the loudest and probably swap that one out.
Either that or invest in a new case...

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Tipstaff

First fan on the roster: the PSU. It's got the only fan you can't disconnect to test, so I would disconnect all the fans in the case (except the CPU one of course), then move onto the top one. It's the only one "technically" not covered via a filter (although the top of the case is "technically" one giant filter), and given it's position it's susceptible to having dust getting into the sleeve (this happened to me all the time with my Antec P180 until I covered it with screen door mesh).

As for replacing the 180mm fans, unfortunately your options are very limited here as there aren't that many decent manufacturers that make them. Thankfully Silverstone does, including the same fans that are in your case already (there's also Akasa, but frankly I don't trust them). I would suggest going with the FM181 from them as it's a bearing based fan while all their others are sleeve based fans.

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Takaharu

Thanks, Tipstaff, I'll keep that in mind. I'll be checking on the fans this evening.

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Takaharu

Well, after much trial-and-error (with a nice heart-stopper when the CPU fan didn't start back up) I discovered it's the CPU fan whilst the PC's idle. Around 35 degrees and nearly 2000 RPM.
So, new fan for the Hyper 212 or new heatsink?

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blibbax

Well... if you can find a fan that's silent at 2000rpm, that ought to do it :P

Is there any way to make the CPU fan turn off completely when temps are low? Given that you have case fans, I am guessing that the heatsink would be ok passive at idle.

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Takaharu

Going from 1900+ RPM to 0 for doing the same things... I don't think I'd risk it even if I knew how.

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Tipstaff

I would say go for a new fan on that Hyper 212. The cooler is just fine (great cooler in fact), just that the fans Coolermaster uses on certain coolers are garbage. That particular one, at low speed, makes this odd clicking sound that can drive you nuts when new, or when it starts to wear down it can vibrate like crazy because the sleeve bearing is all gunked up or worn out.

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Takaharu

I did a bit of research and I'm thinking of getting a Noiseblocker Blacksilent XL2 120mm. Would that fare well on my heatsink? Apparently it has a pretty high air flow for 120mm whilst keeping the noise to a minimum.

I was considering a Noctua but I really can't stand the colours. Should I go with the Noiseblocker or is there an alternative that I should consider?

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Tipstaff

The only thing about them is that they use a 3pin header, so you won't get PWM support. I've never used them personally though as they aren't sold over here, but Grace did a review on the older versions of these fans for DH a long while back, and pretty much gave them a thumbs up although she recommended the UltraSilents for being of better quality.

Personally I usually go with the Arctic Cooling Arctic F12 Pro PWM when replacing CPU fans (can only be used to push air, not pull, so it can't be used for intake use). After that I go with either Noctua NF-S12B FLX, although like you said, they are ugly (not a problem if you have no window in your case), Silenx iXtrema Pro, the Scythe Kama Flow 2 Extra, or Scythe Gentle Typhoon. All of the above fans are fluid bearing based, btw.

For those that don't care about noise I get them a good old Delta TFB1212GHE dual ball bearing fan that runs at 4600RPM and pushes 220CFM at 65dba. Sounds like a damn freight train, but man can this thing push air!

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Takaharu

Took delivery of the Gentle Typhoon I ordered today and just installed it. Wow, what a difference! You can barely hear my PC now.
Unfortunately, because the CPU fan is now whisper-quiet I can hear the fan at the top of the case. It's like it's telling me to buy another Gentle Typhoon to replace that one too. I must be strong... I must resist...

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Tipstaff

Dangerous, isn't it? Once you start down the path to a quiet PC, my, how things can escalate.

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CJLMTLCA

Thinking back to a P4 system i had. The CPU and GPU were cooled by the Reserator 1. So i had no CPU or GPU fan, moved from a noisy 80mm rear-mounted fan PSU to a bottom-mounted 120mm fan PSU, acoustic padding on all sides of the case, 2 SilenX 120mm hardware-controlled case fans, replaced a 74gb Raptor drive with a quieter slower RPM drive, in a Tsunami case with front door so even that muffled the noise a little. If you stood next to the computer you couldn't tell if the system was on or off.

What RPM did you end up getting?

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Takaharu

1450. As it's for the CPU I figured the ability to go that little bit higher would come in handy.
I tried taking off the CM fan without removing the whole HSF - wow, what an impossible task! I gave up before I got half way.
Annoyingly, the RV02 seems to be designed for anything but socket 1366 so the hole at the back of the case overlaps two nuts by just enough for the nut screw thing to not fit. I used fine-nosed pliers instead.

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Takaharu

I've been running the new fan for a while now but usually it will max out at full speed on minimal load. I checked the temperature of the CPU and it's reported to be at around 40 degrees Celsius whilst the fan's maxed out (or close to it).

Any idea why?

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Tipstaff

I'm really sorry about that. Reading back I noticed I forgot to mention this. The other fans in my list are not really intended to be used on CPU coolers, at least not on newer boards that have a 4 pin PWM CPU header. I forgot that to mention that you'd need to do some adjusting in the bios to get it to what you want. That fact that it's a 3 pin fan could be part of the problem. What you could do is check the bios under "Power" menu, go to "Hardware Monitor", and make sure "CPU Q-Fan Control" is "Enabled". If it is disable it, shut down the PC, turn it back on, and change that setting back to "Enabled". As for the profile, it is most likely set to "Standard". If so, change it to "Silent". That should help. The fan is efficient enough to cool the CPU on that setting regardless of how much you push it.

If you do notice temps get a bit out of hand after that go back in, change the profile to "Manual", and fool around with the settings there. You could use "Turbo" but that sets the fan to 90% (disabling Q-Fan support ups it to 100%). Instead I like to alter the range the fan speed will run in based on CPU temps. If I remember you should see 2 settings, each with it's own fan setting: one to do with the upper temp, which you could try setting at 60c or 70c with a listing on what percent the fan should run when the CPU hits that temp (try 100% for now, and lower it as you go), and one to do with the lower temp (set it to 40c or 50c) again with it's own fan speed setting (set it to 20%). You might have to fool around with different ranges and fan %s before you find one you like.

Oh, on a side note, don't use AI Suite to adjust fan settings. It can mess things up, and not report the proper speeds/temps after a while. Sometimes I find I have to not only uninstall it, but go back into the bios and disable/enable Q-Fan for things to work again.

And although you might not like to here this, another thing you might try is picking up a PWM fan, use it for your CPU, then replace the top fan with the Gentle Typhoon.

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Takaharu

I think I can live with that. Any recommendations for a PWM fan?

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Tipstaff

My 4 choices:

1) and 2) The one I mentioned before, the Arctic Cooling Arctic F12 Pro PWM, or the Arctic F12 PWM. The difference between them is that one is a square with raised fan above the centre, which is designed to reduce or get rid of any buzzing noises from the blades and/or motor. The other is a standard square shape.

3) The Scythe Kama Flex PWM 120MM (made by Sony).

All 3 of these use Fluid Dynamic Bearings.

4) Another one for consideration is the GELID Silent 12 PWM which is a Hydro Dynamic Bearing fan. I'm really surprised by the GELID one. Pretty solid so far, and very quiet.

Of note: the Scythe Kama Flex PWM is the more expensive fan of the lot. Will probably set you back $15-20. The other 3 are, at most, $10.

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Takaharu

Under £7 for Arctic Cooling Arctic F12 Pro... I expected it to be more expensive.
I enabled the Q-fan this morning and set it to silent but it still registers at around 1400 RPM and 40 degrees. I'm surprised.

For the record, I now use ASUS PC Probe and I never set any settings though the app, only through the BIOS directly.

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Tipstaff

Woa woa! Not that one. LOL... you would have fun getting that working. LOL. That's a temp controlled case fan version. It's good, but it'll send you for a loop trying to get it working on a CPU heatsink.

It looks like they don't have stock on the F12 Pro, but that's OK. Go for THIS one, the older F12. With the F12 Pro they changed the housing slightly, but the old one works just the same. Just note that the pic might be wrong. As you can see HERE the old one was black.

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Takaharu

Thanks, I'll give that one a go in the new year (when I have money - lol).

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Takaharu

Come to think of it, I might just bite the bullet and go for a CoolIT water cooling kit for the processor, depending on one thing: Would the fan/rad combo fit on the top of the RV02, in place of its current 120mm?
The fan on the ECO ALC is 120mm but obviously with the rad it's a whole other kettle of fish. Apparently, the Corsair H50 fits though...

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Tipstaff

Good question. From what I remember that fan sits in a sort of recessed pocket, right? The thing about the ECO ALC is that it has reservoir.. best word I can use is "pouches" on 2 sides, one of which has the hoses attached. From what I remember the RV02 only has space between the fan and the mount for the PSU, so I'd have to say no... I don't think it will fit.

I'd say that if you know the Corsair H50 works, go with it, or look at the Corsair H70. The rad is the same on both. If I'm right you would have to mount it with the hoses on the side where your PSU is as this is where you have the most space in that pocket.

Edit: The Corsair is also safer to mount. The ECO uses a 3 position screw system to mount to whatever Intel socket you are using (775, 1156, and 1366), and if somehow one should move while installing the thing it won't line up with the hole. Everything will look right until you start, but then you will do what did, and screw your board.. literally. Very expensive mistake.

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synthesis204

For the record, I know nothing about watercooling, but the H50 and H70 use different rad's. The H70's is much larger.

Tipstaff

The H70 is larger in depth only, but the the reservoirs are almost the same height as the H50, so it should fit (it also comes with 2 fans in a push/pull setup). Plus I've seen specs for people on other sites (including HardOCP forum) where the person had an H70 installed in an RV02 case, so it should be fine whichever one Takaharu decides.

Edit: Here you go. A review done of the H70 by HardOCP with the RV02 used as the test case. It just fits in there. They have pictures of both the H50 and H70 installed, but ignore the fan setup. I think they setup the H70 as they did for clearance, and the setup for the H50, while not unacceptable, isn't needed either. Either way it shows that both coolers work in the case.

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