Right now I'm imagining a few raised eyebrows and someone is going to say seriously, dude 80mm fans ? I might be mad, off my rocker, out of my tree and to be honest I agree with you, but the fact of the matter is I can't afford to buy a new case for this build (my file server come media server) and the only spare case I had for the build was a Cooler Master Praetorian that was big enough to manager 5 hard drives. It's come with a host of 80mm fans, and the majority of them are Delta's running at around 4,000 - 5,900 RPM - and my god are they loud, even if they do push a lot of air threes no way I can run this system making that kind of racket. It's fitted with 4 of the sods ! Back in the day when 80mm were what everyone was packing I seem to recall Akasa Ambers were the way to go but I suspect they are no longer made and I'm very out of touch on cooling these days - anyone got any suggestions ?
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/be-quiet-shadow-wings-fan-mid-speed-80mm-fg-016-bq.html Are about the best. Mind you they're pricey alright. Time you buy a few of those you could have bought a new case.
£10 for one 80mm fan? That's not pricey... that's just silly. You can get four Arctic F8s for £10.95 on ebay, brand new. Alternatively, if you want to save even more money, you could spend a few pennies on resistors and try running these Deltas at 1000-2000rpm. It depends on the fan model specifically so any more info you could provide on the Deltas would be helpful, especially pics of the labels.
I'm going to pop them out the case over the weekend and look at the models to be 100% sure they are what I say they are. Given how loud they are though they sound like a low flying jet coming into land at close range.
Yeah I know what you mean. Whether they are Delta, San Ace, Nidec, NMB etc. it doesn't matter - as long as you know the rated amperage, you can throw a resistor in there to take them down to approx. 5v and see if it's quiet enough. Being 80mm fans I doubt they'll be considerably higher than 1A each, however it depends on the model. Delta have an 80mm fan that's over 2 amps...
Arctic F8 are not bad, especially considering they are only £4.99 on OcUK, £3.39 on ebay. With PWM control and a PWM hub with PSU power you can control them all with one motherboard PWM header. But they are only 700-2000rpm so don't move near as much air as what you have. https://www.overclockers.co.uk/arctic-f8-pwm-co-fan-80mm-fg-038-ar.html http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Arctic-F8...846566?hash=item2a4e64aaa6:g:je4AAOSwX6VTxmA6 4-pack is £11.95 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-Pack-Of...120705?hash=item4aed053281:g:eqQAAOSwHnFVn7-o
Wouldn't the cheapest solution be to mod a molex to supply the existing fans using the 5V line, or failing that wire two fans in series to supply each with 6v.
The system in question is purely a server. It does plex, it records CCTV. It won't be used to play games on just so long as I can keep it cool and not having to hear it from upstairs when I'm down stairs (council lego brick built property) or hear it in our bedroom at night when we are trying to sleep. You don't want to see what damage I can do with a soldering iron either lol - I can be pretty dangerous with one of those things - forgot it was on and picked it up by the hot end !!
The quietest ones from the 80mm era I ever heared were the Verax Cairdb. They were shockingly expensive though, and probably no longer available. Deltas were known for beeing screemers, any branded newer 80mm fan should be better.