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Installation & Performance |
For installation and performance purposes, I decided to add 3 of these
fans to my bedroom PC where there is a real premium on noise reduction.
The rear fan installed easily,
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but I had a tougher time getting the front fans in due to the tight
space available
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The vibration pins were pretty hard to install with the fans mounted
side by side like this. It took some effort, but I was finally able
to get the fans all hooked up after a few minutes of some pushing,
pulling, and swearing. One of the more original ideas for this fan
design was the use of the temperature sensor to control the fan
RPM. I have seen this feature in some of the newer CPU heatsinks,
but I have never seen it on a standard 80mm case fan.
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According to SilenX, the thermistor responds to temperatures from
20-100 C with the greatest RPM change occurring around 50-60 C. Their
explanation was that this 50-60 C range is the area where most components
need the extra cooling to keep them from overheating. They recommend
that the thermistors should be placed near the more heat sensitive
devices for the best cooling effect. Following their advice, I placed
the rear fan thermistor near my CPU and the front fan thermistors
near my hard drives so that they should respond to the components
that need the cooling most.
The first thing you notice when you boot up is the absolute lack of
noise coming from the fans. SilenX certainly comes thru on their promise
of quiet. I put my hand next to the fan and there seemed a fair amount
of air moving thru the blades. The case temp stayed consistent at
about 23 C. This was actually the same temp that I had before with
the previous quad LED fans, but the SilenX fans were noticeably quieter.
The fan RPM fluctuated around a bit with an average running speed
of 1650 RPM (the RPM was recorded on the Asus MB’s monitoring
program). As the CPU went under a heavier work load, the fans RPM
climbed accordingly. In order to find the maximum fan RPM, I removed
one of the thermistors from the case and placed a lit match near it.
The fan responded quickly and was soon topped out at 2290 RPM. I used
the same thermistor and a small piece of ice to determine that the
lowest fan speed registered at about 1250 RPM.
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