quiet cases (namely case fan holes)

[116e32s]

For power supplies, it is supposedly quieter to have a a big hole and
a fan guard made of wire, instead of just punching lots of small holes in
the sheetmetal box. Now I looked at cases I have, made by Antec, Cooler
Master, Thermaltake, Foxconn, HP and Dell.
Those have the many-punched-holes for the case fan. The only ones with the
wire fan guard are an "XBLADE" whose manufacturer I don't know, and a
Lian Li (which I hate for other reasons) also a Silverstone. However, it
seems these just have the wire fan guard at the rear, and the punched holes
for other case fans.
Who makes a case with all wire fan guards?

 

[PeterC]

For power supplies, it is supposedly quieter to have a a big hole and
a fan guard made of wire, instead of just punching lots of small holes in
the sheetmetal box. Now I looked at cases I have, made by Antec, Cooler
Master, Thermaltake, Foxconn, HP and Dell.
Those have the many-punched-holes for the case fan. The only ones with the
wire fan guard are an "XBLADE" whose manufacturer I don't know, and a
Lian Li (which I hate for other reasons) also a Silverstone. However, it
seems these just have the wire fan guard at the rear, and the punched holes
for other case fans.
Who makes a case with all wire fan guards?

I did - cut out the perforated area and just put a wire finger guard on the
fan (mainly to keep the filter off the blades.
Beware - a finger in a 120mm fan, especially if repeated, will nacker the
fan!

 

[Paul]

I did - cut out the perforated area and just put a wire finger guard on the
fan (mainly to keep the filter off the blades.
Beware - a finger in a 120mm fan, especially if repeated, will nacker the
fan!

I think I'd be more worried about the fans being used
than anything else. In the experiments I've done, the
fan design itself, swamps out anything near it as a
source of noise. I've tried the plenum idea, and
that didn't help at all.

If you need a quiet case, Zalman used to make a
couple cases fitted with heatpipes. The sources of
heat in the computer, have the heat coupled into
the doors. And that allows convection cooling.

http://img.hexus.net/v2/news/tnn300/open.jpg

And that concept has limited total power rating.
Probably no more than about 400W. Preferably
a lot less. It doesn't have the mechanicals for
SLI builds, so the best you can do with one
of those, is a single mid-range video card. And hope
the power conversion on the video card doesn't
fry with no cooling. The case has heatpipes
that adhere to the GPU, but no provision to
cool any other coincidental sources of heat.
Low end video cards now, have idle power as
low as 3W, so it is possible to find perfectly
acceptable cards for use in a case like that.
Just no 300W gamer cards.

Those cases cost in the neighborhood of $1000,
so don't even look for a review of one, unless
you're a "rich guy"

Paul

 

[PeterC]

I think I'd be more worried about the fans being used
than anything else. In the experiments I've done, the
fan design itself, swamps out anything near it as a
source of noise. I've tried the plenum idea, and
that didn't help at all.

Noctua are probably about the best for longevity and quietness. I'll put
them in my next build.

 

[Paul]

Noctua are probably about the best for longevity and quietness. I'll put
them in my next build.

I've been using Vantec Stealth here, which is a pretty low CFM fan,
and the main reason for buying it, is it was stocked locally. I tend to
buy fans on impulse, rather than have any grand plan and order them
off the Internet.

Paul

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

Beware - a finger in a 120mm fan, especially if repeated, will nacker the
fan!

Doesn't do your finger much good either

 

[Flasherly]

Who makes a case with all wire fan guards?

My Antec LanBoy. Very popular once - maybe now available. All
aluminum. Isn't what it's cracked up to be, next best thing to sex.
Still, overall, it's a slick piece of merchandise. It's a vacuum
cleaner when setup stock. I pulled all that crap, went down on core
processing heat.

All I watch for is the HDs in the front, which, ironically as all
hell, is ony shit-for-brains Antec engineering design concept.

Ergonomics strikes one dead in the brainpan, once again.

The fan intake cowling is open, which you want with the wire (except
it's plastic, oh-well same difference). The bad part is Antec's
oddball cross-cage HD mounting system with more bullshit rail
attachments to secure the HD in their proprietary cage.

The aluminum benefits are then totally defeated, which is why they
took 120mm monster "suck the chrome off a trailor hitches" fans, front
and back, to make up for it.

Well, almost Antec...but, sorry. Go sit in the back corner of the
room and proceed to Donning the Cap of the Dishonoralbe Dunce.

Take aviation wire snips to it and you'll probably do better. I will,
eventually. Regular steel cutting accruements for the rest. Conduct
yourself within the assured impunity that some of the coolest PCs are
breadboards screwed to a slab of plywood.

 

[PeterC]

Doesn't do your finger much good either

This arose at work, due to the so-called electronics engineers (oxymoron)
whingeing about using fans off their own bat, sans 'guards, then saying that
they were dangerous (they tried the same re. rubber bands - I said that my
mother had taught me about those when I was 2. They shut up - putting guards
on rubber bands would have been an interesting exercise!). Yes, the 120mm
metal ones were (only used in environmental test chambers), but the plastic
ones were OK.
I ran a test by stopping the fan with a matchstick; after twice it struggled
to start and after thrice the bearing was shot. Off-centre load, I guess.
Then used finger - certainly a hit, but not pain as such. Only one test with
finger, as testing was getting expensive.

 

[Mike Tomlinson]

Then used finger - certainly a hit, but not pain as such.

You were expecting it. It's much worse when you do it unintentionally,
and the embarrassment if someone else is present makes it worse.

Only one test with
finger, as testing was getting expensive.

 

[ting]

Noctua are probably about the best for longevity and quietness. I'll put
them in my next build.

I can vouch for quietness of Noctuas, as I run 120mm Noctua fans and a 120mm Noctua CPU cooler in my current box.

Another source of fan noise comes from the PSU. You want a PSU that runs fanless most of the time, like the Seasonic X or Platinum series PSUs that run fanless below 300 watts.