Fans of near silence?

[NerdUprising]

was wondering if anyone could point me towards some really quiet fans...

I have 4 in case right now, but all are, well, loud as hell, and I wont just unplug them for silence's sake, because my beautiful baby would melt into a puddle of silicon and plastic

on a sidenote... two of the fans are on the front, and pull air through some relatively small holes. I dont know if it is the large volume of air going through the holes making the noise, or the fans themselves, resonating from the position they are in...(any physicists/ aerodynamics specialists here?)

so, in summary... any suggestions for (relatively) cheap, quiet 80mm fans?

 

[Taurus]

air being forced through too-small holes will add extra noise. i suggest taking hte front of your case off and cutting wide-open holes around the blades so there's no impedence. same goes for the back, if you don't mind the way it would look. you could put some gold fans guards on the back to help dress it up. but it will all help cut down on the volume a little and get your more airflow.

if you have the rom, you can cut a hole for a 120mm fan in the back. now that would give you tons of airflow and not nearly as much noise as you have now. it's a more intrusive surgery, though.

you can also run yours fans at 7v instead of their stock 12v. they'll be practically silent after that. it involves running them off the power supply's molex connectors and using the 5v (red) as the negative and 12v (yellow) as the positive. 12-5=7.

[edit] oh, you're talking about the front plastic case holes. i don't think those are too bad. especially if you get quieter fans or run yours at 7v. you sure you don't have an intake under the front of the face?

 

[Dubbin1]

Finding quit 80mm fans with good flow is kinda hard to do. I would put 1 120mm fan in the front and then put all the fans on a controller. Those small hole in the front don't help much with the noise and airflow ether but there don't look like theres much you can do about that.

 

[NerdUprising]

there are vents at the bottom of the front face (between the metal chassis and the acrylic face) but the majority of the air is still pulled through the holes - which I discovered through some slight, interesting experimentation, dont actually create that much noise - its the fans themselves.

So Im back to my starting place - If I pick up 1 120mm fan for the back of the case, and three 80mm for the side and front, which (from actual experience... not based on just numbers on a website - those lie ) do you suggest I put my funding into?

 

[LeeJend]

Get a fan speed controller. Nexus makes a quad one. I crank my three case fans down to minimum on the controller. The noise level drops to below the noise from the airflow and the case and cpu temp stay the same.

 

[NerdUprising]

... and the case and cpu temp stay the same.

!! wow, thats impressive - if I hadn't heard it from an ntfs brain, I might not think it was true... this is what I am looking into now, so many thanks to everyone

[saved me from hacking the crap out of my fan wires to lower to 7v via self made fan baybus (=fire waiting to happen)]