fan suggestions for SUPER QUIET 22dBA COOLER and case fans

truegrace

Enthusiast
Haha, the yellow look nice with your case, can get the scythes for £7.99 and got my last sickleflow for under a fiver, so a fair difference when we are talking 3-4 fans.
The noise isn't so much of an issue, as game with headphones on and would whack the rpm down for browsing etc.
I thinlk the sickleflow I have is supposed to be 29db and to be honest at full whack I don't even notice it now, so 40 odd would probably be ok regardless, I am however half deaf for listening to metal too loud :p
 
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Corfate

Author Level
I have 2 sickelflows in my case, and yeah, they're LOUD when running full pelt.. Even on low they aren't silent.. But as you say, you use headphones so you won't hear them :) they shift a load of air though!
 

truegrace

Enthusiast
Def swaying with just buying sickleflows, 4.33 is the best price I can find without needing to pay postage, so could replace and fill every slot with one for about the same money as I would spend on 3 vipers. Just a shame the led power on sickles can't be controlled on its own as will have a button on top now that does nothing, wonder if I could wire that up to something else cool :p

Found running them @ about 1700 rpm is just about right for sound vs flow while not gaming, then just dial it up when needed.
 

Wozza63

Biblical Poster
ive never seen LEDs controlled by themself (mine increases/decreases on the same fan controller switch as the fan itself, you could always attempt to cut off the LED wires, but you'd need to be sure
 

truegrace

Enthusiast
The stock cm fan with the 690 case has a seperate led wire so I can turn it on and off from the case, don't mind them being on all the time, just a waste to have a button that doesn't do anything :p
 

tom_gr7

Life Serving
Just something to think about, the vipers are PWM 4 pin fans, so you need/must think about if you can connect them to your fan controller. So don't rush in and buy loads, because you will have a nightmare trying to connect them all!

ALSO - MAKE SURE YOU GET THE 2000RPM version of the sickleflows!!!!

ps sorry for caps there, but ya really dont want the slower versions.
 

truegrace

Enthusiast
gonna order 5 sickleflows i think, 2 for top exhaust, 2 for base intake, 1 to replace front intake, and will hang the one i already have on the back of the hdd tray to push some air towards the GPU. 2 fan splitters so top 2 go to one channel, bottom 2 to one channel, all for less than £30 :)

The 4 pin was the other issue with the vipers, would either need to cut the adaptor down, or buy a load of adaptors
 

truegrace

Enthusiast
Would only need filters for the 2 side fans as every other grill on the cm690 already has a dust mesh filter thingy on it.
 

tom_gr7

Life Serving
Would only need filters for the 2 side fans as every other grill on the cm690 already has a dust mesh filter thingy on it.

well thats good news, if you are to buy any, post before you do, as some are better than others, and some can reduce airflow quite alot.
 

truegrace

Enthusiast
Well 4 of the 5 fans I bought are in (all sickleflows) and my temps have dropped by about 10 deg C, after about 3 hoursish on swtor (not the most intensive game i know) and with an ambient room temp of about 26 I am on 55-57 deg on GPU and 39-41 on CPU so am quite impressed. Just need to buy some rubber fan pins for the HDD cage mounted fan as I cant get in there with a screw driver to hang it.
Have currently got both my old 140mm stock coolermaster fans as intakes on the side panel, gonna have a play about tomorrow and set the one by the GPU to exhaust and see what it does temp wise, cirrently have a load more positive pressure so losing the intake will balance it a tad :)
 

Buzz

Master
Well in theory its actually good to have a case with more positive pressure then negative as you are pulling in MORE cool air, and forcing more "dead air" or the stale air thats left in the case from the PSU and GPU out.

Also with extra negative pressure apparently what can happen is the heat from the likes of a GPU can actually be sucked back in more and stay in the case rather then release.
 

truegrace

Enthusiast
With the side fans set to exhaust I dropped another 3 degrees due to the vast amount of heat being pumped out the side of the card into the case, at least having the exhaust there sucks most of it out. Gonna give me filters a clean later so will see what sort of dust I have got internally with running negative pressure for the last few weeks.

Am happy so far though, gpu hasn't gone above 60 after 3-4 hours of bf3 on ultra so will do me nicely since the ambient room temp is normally 25ish.
 

Karnor00

Bright Spark
Your case isn't airtight so whatever setup you go for means that air will find a way through whatever gaps it can to equalise the pressure inside and outside.

Generally negative pressure will provide slightly better cooling but the downside is that it will tend to suck dust into the case through those unfiltered gaps. And unless you clear the dust off regularly then over time this layer of dust can significantly reduce cooling.

This of couse assumes you only have a modest amount of positive or negative pressure. If you do a really silly setup with, say, all of the fans pushing air out then you will have terrible cooling. Plus make sure that all of the fans on a particular side of the case are blowing in the same direction.
 
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