Fans

[mjatas]

I am not sure if you guys talked about fans, but let me ask you a few things since I am not that much of an expert on fans?

1. What is the difference between 80mm vs. 120mm fans vs. other types of fans (I mean fans for cases)?

2. what is the best way to cool hdd and what type of fans do I need for hdd?

3. Where else besides the CPU and case can I add fans to cool my PC down more without making it louder/noisier?

4. what fans (manufactures - brands) are best to buy?

thanks!

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by mjatas I am not sure if you guys talked about fans, but let me ask you a few things since I am not that much of an expert on fans? 1. What is the difference between 80mm vs. 120mm fans vs. other types of fans (I mean fans for cases)?

The main difference is size. Obviously the 120mm is bigger than the 80mm and moves more air.

Things you want to look at when choosing a fan is the size, type of power connector, the amount of air it moves and the noise levels.

Originally Posted by mjatas 2. what is the best way to cool hdd and what type of fans do I need for hdd?

It depends on where the HDD is installed. Some drive bays don't leave you much room for any kind of fan and some drive bays have provisions for active cooling with a fan mount. If you mount a HDD in one of the 5.25" bays you can install a drive bay cooler. But you really don't need active HDD cooling unless you're using SCSI HDDs. As long as your case has good cooling the HDDs should be okay.

Originally Posted by mjatas 3. Where else besides the CPU and case can I add fans to cool my PC down more without making it louder/noisier?

That's the problem...the more fans you add the noisier your computer gets.

Originally Posted by mjatas 4. what fans (manufactures - brands) are best to buy?

Depends what you're trying to do. For quiet fans look for Panaflo, ADDA, Vantec, Pabst, NMB and Zalman.

For high volume high speed fans look for Delta, Y.S. Tech, Sunon and Top Motor.

Other good fan brands are Thermaltake, Artic Cooling, Cooler Master, Nexus, Enermax and Aerocool.

Cricket

[ror_b211]

Panaflo tend to have the best power to noise ratio.

Delta fans actually sound like a jet engine at full power, although the 120mm ones push 200CFM (at about 60db...)

[TwoRails]

Just a note, but it's not normally required to run extra fans for the HD: 7200 RPM units just don't require it. A lot of folks do recommend cooling highspeed SCSI drives if you have several of them.

[ror_b211]

SATA drives get hot if your running a game that uses Virtual RAM. I've got 512mb of RAM which isn't really enough for some games, so they start using loads of virtual RAM, then the HDD gets hot, then it slows down...

[TwoRails]

SATA drives don't run any hotter than regular IDE drives running at the same 7200RPM.

[mjatas]

what fan sizes are there for cases? I bought my new case yesterday and it has room in the back for 3 sizes I think 2 are 80mm and 120mm what is the other 150mm??? I am attaching the 80mm fan I have to the side of the case.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by mjatas what fan sizes are there for cases? I bought my new case yesterday and it has room in the back for 3 sizes I think 2 are 80mm and 120mm what is the other 150mm???

No, the sizes for case fans are normally 80mm, 92mm and 120mm.

Cricket

[mjatas]

Originally Posted by Cricket No, the sizes for case fans are normally 80mm, 92mm and 120mm. Cricket

oh, because in the back my case has room for three different size fans. So I will by the 120mm fan for the back.