120mm Fan Testing on an MCR120 Radiator Round 6

[mindwreck]

should try the tfb1212ghe for kicks.
not so bad when you undervolt it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMpqGQrVyQI

[Martinm210]

should try the tfb1212ghe for kicks.
not so bad when you undervolt it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMpqGQrVyQI

Interesting...

[Martinm210]

FYI,
Here is a start on tabulating the results so far. I need to spend some more time reviewing videos to better dial in the subjective sound quality columns, but I figured this might be a good suppliment to the cfm/dba graph. I could do some easy data sorting and simple bar charts out of this too..

It basically just consists of range for CFM & dBA, then I pulled dbA off the charts at every 5CFM, followed by my subjective guess on noise quality.



Here is an example of the bar chart of the 20CFM mark:
This is only the low speed fans, high speed fans usually couldn't turn this low..

[Church]

Hmm, maybe rather how much which fan can blow at preset noise levels? (eg. 33db / 36db)

[OldChap]

There are so many ways to present this info.... and each will be just right for someone. I like the big chart Martin ....want it as a spreadsheet so I can sort on columns to suit my preferences It does kind of show up the need for something in the 2000-3000 range to fill in the lack of quiet choices in the 25-45cfm range

I never pulled a fan apart but I kind of want to with these if you could fit the blade assembly of the GT15 or Delta on the motor of say the san ace 4011... If only it was that easy

I do hope you can test the delta AFB1212HHE and HE

[Martinm210]

I'll work on several chartin options...not sure about fixed dbA, but I can always make the chart available. When I get back home, I'll put in an order with SWC for the Delta AFB1212HE as well as the Akasa Viper PWM and Slipstream HP PWM.

I've been gaining more and more interest in PWM options and want to explore that area a bit. Would be nice to have a PWM setup dial down to 600RPM in off peak times and ramp up as needed..

[Martinm210]

For those that don't care about noise, or if you're just curious about power levels, this chart gives you min/max cfm range of all the fans tested so far:


Sorry about the large size, I don't have any photo editing tools on this mobile laptop.

[Martinm210]

And the flip side, if you didn't care about performance, this is noise only..

[nex_73]

I never pulled a fan apart but I kind of want to with these if you could fit the blade assembly of the GT15 or Delta on the motor of say the san ace 4011... If only it was that easy

i have thought the same. As the blades are removable on the CM Excalibur, would be nice with a 2300rpm GT
Really look forward to the results of the fans in line to be tested (As the SS i have is the non pwm version)
@Martinm210 :
At what dBA-level in your tests would you say i starts to get "annoying" ? ex: under 40 -> good for sit and work, 40-45 -> watch movies, 45-50 -> playing music or games, 50-> benching, rendering or stuff you don't need to sit by the comp?

[Waterlogged]

Martin, a few weeks (months?) ago, I saw a chart/graph similar to those last 2 that had over lapping bars using multiple colors for each piece of data. I was thinking something like that just might work for this.

Ex. 3v-lt green, 4v-lt blue, 5v-yellow, 6v-cyan, 7v-dk green, 8v-purple, 9v-red, 10v-dk blue, 11v-white, 12v-maroon/dk red

I'll see if I can find the chart to help explain it better.

[SpuTnicK]

how about a small software (on Delphi/C++ or html/java/php or else) to display all the data as user requests? different ratios of different parameters of different fans.Now that would a superB conclusion of all the work done

[Manicdan]

Martin, a few weeks (months?) ago, I saw a chart/graph similar to those last 2 that had over lapping bars using multiple colors for each piece of data. I was thinking something like that just might work for this.

Ex. 3v-lt green, 4v-lt blue, 5v-yellow, 6v-cyan, 7v-dk green, 8v-purple, 9v-red, 10v-dk blue, 11v-white, 12v-maroon/dk red

I'll see if I can find the chart to help explain it better.

that sounds like a stacked bar chart, but you set it up to overlap, OR you do the math and simply add the noise difference for each step onto the lowest value.

[Martinm210]

i have thought the same. As the blades are removable on the CM Excalibur, would be nice with a 2300rpm GT
Really look forward to the results of the fans in line to be tested (As the SS i have is the non pwm version)
@Martinm210 :
At what dBA-level in your tests would you say i starts to get "annoying" ? ex: under 40 -> good for sit and work, 40-45 -> watch movies, 45-50 -> playing music or games, 50-> benching, rendering or stuff you don't need to sit by the comp?

Different for every user. For me, it's a combination of noise level and quality and I would probably say noise quality is even more important to my tastes. I can put up with medium speed yates at most, but I'm getting less tolerant to noise. My ideal is something absent of motor noise probabaly under the 40dbA mark. But...I know many that run 3000+rpm fans daily too.

Martin, a few weeks (months?) ago, I saw a chart/graph similar to those last 2 that had over lapping bars using multiple colors for each piece of data. I was thinking something like that just might work for this.

Ex. 3v-lt green, 4v-lt blue, 5v-yellow, 6v-cyan, 7v-dk green, 8v-purple, 9v-red, 10v-dk blue, 11v-white, 12v-maroon/dk red

I'll see if I can find the chart to help explain it better.

I could do that...just need to tabulate it out in the tested voltage steps.

how about a small software (on Delphi/C++ or html/java/php or else) to display all the data as user requests? different ratios of different parameters of different fans.Now that would a superB conclusion of all the work done

I'm clueless beyond excel, or html basics...but that would be cool.

[Waterlogged]

OK, so after tons of Googling and a bit of hair pulling, I found the graph that gave me the idea (props to rioja).

It's setup to have the different colors show CFM and dBA on the same line which isn't exactly what I had in mind...rather have all the CFM's on one graph setup like the one in the link below and then do another for the dBA.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...5&postcount=92

[antiacid]

I'm clueless beyond excel, or html basics...but that would be cool.

From my days as a souless zombie playing wow, I remember getting pretting awesome with spreadsheets. Whenever you get around to tabulating your data, let a copy come my way and I'll see if I can excellentify it

[Church]

Waterlogged: Oh, these graphs. It's from Jordan's first 120/140mm fan roundup. Here is 2nd about 140mm fans.

[Waterlogged]

Waterlogged: Oh, these graphs. It's from Jordan's first 120/140mm fan roundup. Here is 2nd about 140mm fans.

Meh, doesn't matter who takes/gets credit for the original posting of the graphs. . .I just know where I saw them first.

[Church]

Oh, my reply wasn't about due credits, it's just when i followed that url and noticed familiar charts and that rioja didn't remember where english version of those tests posted on xbit were, i pasted once bookmarked urls to those tests if someone is interested in rest of them.
P.S.
Anyone knows if there are some offtopic tags @XS?

[Aphex_Tom_9]

I'm really impressed with all the time and effort you're taking to do these tests.
User-interactive data presentation much like anandtech's benchmarks comparison section (http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/2) would be really awesome.

[Church]

Interactive test result representation would look great, yeah. But most probably possible only by hosting that somewhere else, outside XS. Everything has it's pros and cons. +I'd prefer Martin to have spent time mostly on getting more fans (or other hardware) tested, instead of spending same or greater amount of time just on representing results in more bling-ish way

[Elpy]

Interactive test result representation would look great, yeah. But most probably possible only by hosting that somewhere else, outside XS. Everything has it's pros and cons. +I'd prefer Martin to have spent time mostly on getting more fans (or other hardware) tested, instead of spending same or greater amount of time just on representing results in more bling-ish way

Skinneelabs? Someone should of course have to set it up but I think skinneelabs would be a great place to host it if Skinnee would be ok with it.

[Utnorris]

Hey Martin,
Quick question, what fan controller are you using? I was messing around with a Lamptron FC-2 yesterday and noticed that if I had the San Ace connected to it I got a lot of whine and for lack of better words, ticks. When I connected the fan directly to a molex plug at 5v the noise and ticks went away. I am just wondering if the fan controller you are using adds any noise to some fans and not others. It appears during undervolting, but not when the fan is powered all the way up.

[MagisD]

That's the freakin fc-2, it well documented its hit or miss with that controller. I'm pretty sure they solved the problem in later rev my gts didn't cause anybody noise on an fc-5. But that one had a bad screen.

I think you should take at look at the fc-t, not quite in shops yet but should be anybody day now. Rated 30 watts a line been tested to 40, 6 Channels. I didn't grab it due to no front bays in my case.

Sent from my X10a using Tapatalk

[Martinm210]

Skinnee offered to host, no problem. I'm just a bit lazy when it comes to writing/publishing..I'd much rather be testing and sharing informally.
Regardless, I did plan to put something together to host.

The controller is a scythe Kaze master...I can also control directly from the variable test PSU, but the PSU makes loud clicks when switching so I've been using the scythe controller instead for voltage control. I'll give the psu direct a try but I haven't noticed any issues.

[Utnorris]

Yeah, I knew about the FC-2 first revision causing whine, but I wasn't sure if it happened on other fan controllers, which is why I asked. Hey MD, got a link to someone selling the FC-t?