The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

I am leaning towards the coolermaster only because of the LED, but both of them give me the problem of not knowing where to place the controllers because, like abuzar, I don't want to put it in a 3.5" front drive bay... I don't even think my door can close if I put it in one of those...

sammorris: Do you know how to get the side door fan off of the lexa blackline?? I can't seem to figure it out...

 

The fan? Undo the four screws with a screwdriver, it's that simple!

mrk: the fan controller will probably fit in the top 3.5" bay, not sure about the bottom one. I know this as I can only put 5.25" bay fan controllers in the lower two bays as the higher ones conflict with the inside of the door.

 

I would do just that....if there were screws!! There are no screws on my side case fan! It's bolted in with these plastic things with no indentations for a screwdriver!!

 

Oh of course, sorry my mistake, the original Lexa uses screws, the Blackline has plastic push pins. If I remember rightly, if you take the side panel off, you should be able to push the pins out using the blade of a flathead screwdriver. I don't know whether you'll be able to put the pins back because I haven't done this myself, but failing that you can always just put regular screws in.

 

sammorris,

If you have to run an FM-121 at 2000 rpm, then something is wrong with your cooling solution as there's no way you would ever need that much airflow, unless there's another problem, with either the case airflow or the CPU cooler itself!

I noticed the the CM offers an automatic mode as well as manual control and has a 3 pin plug for the MB headers, as well as it's own controller. I've only had to run my FM-121 at 1400 rpm once when I had the side 80mm as an intake. I got a thruming noise out of it at 1300 rpm that sounded like it wasn't in tune with the other fans and the sound kept going in and out of phase. When I switched the 80mm to exhaust, the noise went away and I was able to go back down to 1300 rpm with no issues!

This is the first case fan I ever owned that lasted more than a year without making strange noises or rattling on startup. Put simply, the ball bearing fans last much longer than the "Sleeve bearing" fans I've used in the past. The high dust levels here don't seem to cause problems with the ball bearings like it does with with any sleeve type bearings. Even Sony's much touted "Fliud Dynamic" bearings start to give problems after only a few months. All that dust seems to work it's way into the surfaces of the magnetic seals, and is impossible to clean out. Once the seals are scored by the dust particles, it starts to make noise, meaning failure is just around the corner! LOL!! None have lasted more than 4 months. In contrast, the 120mm FM-121 has been in my computer for about a year and a half now and is actually a couple of dBA quieter than when it was first installed, works perfectly with almost no vibration, and it's still a very quiet machine! Considering I was buying a new case fan every 3 or 4 months before, I'll stick with what I've got now! Same way with the FM-83 80mm. I used to buy 80mm fans by the 6 pack, because they didn't last very long. now I'm going on a year with the FM-83, and like it's big brother, all the dust here doesn't seem to affect the bearings at all. Just the economics of not having to replace fans every 3 or 4 months, makes it worth just a little more noise.

I tried a bunch of 40mm fans for chipset cooling, all sleeve bearing and they only lasted about 3 months too before they started making noise and rattling. Evercool, Silenx, Sunon and Link depot all had ball bearing fans, but their rpms were so high that the fans all screamed. Of course you could always buy one of those Sunon 24 cfm, 15,000 rpm and 55.5dBA fans and call your computer "The Screamer! LOL!! The first Evercool ever I bought was 10,000 rpm! Thankfully it only lasted about a month! So far the Antec I finally settled on has performed flawlessly! At 2200 rpm and 6.5 cfm it's inaudible, even with the cover off! Best 40mm chipset fan I've found to date, in my opinion! I know it was the perfect marriage for the Enzotech CBN-R1 NB cooler. Together it's almost silent. Nowhere near the advertised 26dBA rating it has. I have to put it in the chamber one of these days, but my guess is around 21dBA! When I put it together, I tried the fan before I installed the NB cooler and was pretty amazed at the lack of a buzz or vibration. You had to have it pretty close to your ear to really hear anything. Maybe it's the Forged copper single piece construction of the Enzotech that makes it run so quiet. maybe it's the clever foam gasket that go's between the mount and the cooler, or the even more clever foam gasket for the fan/fan mount, but you'll never know there's a 40mm in there! It's already out-lasted the Evercool, Sunon and Silenx, and it's getting pretty close to the Link Depot's Death date! LOL!! I'll be thrilled if it lasts over a year! It will be a first for any 40mm I've ever used, including that screamer that Asus sent me by mistake, for an A8N-SLI! LOL!! 10 minutes of that was about all I could take! It had the most piercing, irritating scream to it when it spooled up! I think I wound up giving it to someone that had an A8N-SLI MB!

creaky,

That's a roomfull of serious noise! I'm surprised you aren't deaf!

Good luck with the job!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

mrk44 you should be able to grab the "plastic things" with your nails or maybe a small set of needle nose pliers.

Here's a little screeny that might help you mrk44..



NOTICE in the screeny the availability of the "rear" panel controller and at the bottom center there is the SAME fan but in black if you prefer NO LED.

....gm

 

I had an A8N-SLI SE chipset fan which i think is the same as the one for the A8N-SLI and it was fine, not quiet by any means, but hardly obtrusive. Rather ironically the only fans I've ever had fail or grind are ball bearing ones, a chipfan for a P3, a casecom 80mm LED fan, a Thermaltake Thunderblade 120mm and the FM121. In a reasonably dusty (but appreciably less dusty than the west coast dustbowl Russ lives in) environment, all the sleeve bearing fans I've owned have survived well, two of my 120mm Nexuses are going strong at 18 months plus...

 

Dunno about Acer, but the MSI wind looked attractive.

 

I would install XP on there! lol

 

You know what's funny, I probably would too...

 

Hey, I have Linux installed on one of my PCs, and have had for over a year. It just so happens that PC doesn't work at the moment...

 

greensman: if the cm has a rear panel controller, then i'm gonna get one....it's the same as an fm121 anyway...

sam&gm: i'll try to take off the side fan...thanks for the info...

if you guys don't like vista's performance, then you can always modify your versions with vLite... you can pretty much remove ANYTHING you don't use, and I mean ANYTHING.... The performance goes up to XP level, and it installs much faster.... I lowered the size of my dvd image from 3 GB to about 1.3 GB. Just rip the files off the DVD and modify w/ vLite...

 

I'm gonna look this up but if you have any links that would be nice. tia....

I think you'll like that fan mrk44, it's pretty good a moves lots of air if you don't mind the noise. Of course if you turn it "down" it's NOT bad at all. good luck to you...

.....gm

 

http://www.vlite.net/
That's the link to the site where you can download the software.

here's some screenshots:
http://www.vlite.net/img/shots/ss1.png
http://www.vlite.net/img/shots/ss2.png
http://www.vlite.net/img/shots/ss4.png

 

All 3 links dead...

Oh, and mrk: Your signature is Huuuuuuuuuuge.

 

I had one of those CM 110 cfm fans (gave it to a buddy) and replaced it with a scythe 110 cfm fan that does not need a speed controller (I hate fan speed controllers and prefer to contol them through the mobo/bios) http://www.svc.com/sy-1225sl12sh.html to each their own but I like the scythe much better.

 

Scythe SlipStream fans are excellent. Not only do they push superb airflow but they can also go remarkably quiet if you turn them right down.