Calming the Vantec Tornado

[KvHagedorn]

I got most of the stuff for my new computer today, among which is a 92mm Vantec Tornado fan to go atop my Thermalright SP97 CPU heatsink. I took everything out and played with it for awhile like most kids on Christmas morning, and while I was looking at the fan I noticed that, the way the thing is constructed, there is the fan blade part, and then a series of fins pointing the opposite direction, apparently to duct and force the air downward and create more pressure. At the inner and outer edges of these molded plastic fins, there are big chunks of flash with sharp 90 degree edges on them. It dawned on me that air rushing over these at the speed this thing turns was bound to create huge turbulence and added noise, so I have been sitting here with a razor blade smoothing them down. Didn't do a before and won't do an after with a recorder or dB meter, but I'm sure it can't hurt.

Maybe someone more intrepid will do an actual benchmark.

[Kooldino]

Pics?

[KvHagedorn]

No pics, sorry. It might have helped a little, but this thing is still damned loud.

[UtwigMU]

Do you need such fan with mobile Barton and best heatsink on the market?

I'd just get Panaflo or Zalman F2 and run it at 2000 RPM.

[bsdgeek]

You're crazy KvH, I heard one of those things in a store where the ambient noise was pretty loud. I know I couldn't live with one of those in my home!

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by UtwigMU
Do you need such fan with mobile Barton and best heatsink on the market?

Probably not. We'll see. Just got it to play with anyhow.

Also got a Panaflo and a Silenx 14dB fan, so it will be interesting to see what sort of performance I can get with each.

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by bsdgeek
You're crazy KvH, I heard one of those things in a store where the ambient noise was pretty loud. I know I couldn't live with one of those in my home!

Me neither, most likely.

[Tom]

Originally posted by KvHagedorn
but this thing is still damned loud.

I'll bet...I have the 80mm Vantec Tornado and I also use a Thermaltake fan controller so that the Tornado isn't always spinning at full speed....I save the full speed setting for benchmarking