quiet fans

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Fri, May 27, 2005 at 06:05:05PM +0300, Peter wrote:
> I guess one has to know where to look:
> 
> http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/9dbPapst.html
> 
> Service life is at least 4 years. Note that this fan has sleeve bearings 
> and spins at only 1000 rpm. Extrapolate to the usual 'screamer' at 5000 
> rpm and you get under 1 year fan life with the same bearings. This 
> reflects reality more or less (brand new screamers do not last 2 years 
> as a rule). ebm/papst is a very well known fan manufacturer.

I sure won't buy it if it has sleeve bearings.  They tend to last only 6
months in my experience.  Maybe these guys make special sleeve bearings.
I can hardly hear my PC running and it uses ball bearing fans at about
1900rpm for the cpu and I think around 1500 for the case fan, and it's
no problem.  The enermax power supply doesn't seem to make much noise
either.

> ebm/papst has a website for usa here:
> 
> http://www.ebmpapst.us/
> 
> Panaflo (panasonic division) is another well known maker. As to the rest 
> of the strange-named 'ball bearing' fans on generic coolers, imho they 
> are not talking about the kind of balls needed in fan bearings, but 
> about those required to print such lies (80% of the cooler fans marked 
> 'ball bearing' have sleeve bearings).

I believe there was a company making cheap fans under the brand
'ballbearing' which has caused no end of confusion (and probably many
underserved sales) and yes they use sleeve bearings, which no fan I
ever buy for a computer will have.

Lennart Sorensen
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