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Fan Thread from AVS
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Posted by: krs7272

I intentionally wanted to at least link to the "Help Fan Direction" thread form AVS but it seems all of those threads were deleted. Anyway for those who remember. I finally go tthe Vantec Thermo fan (#TF6025) and used it in place of the previous Vantec Stealth and original fan in back left corner setup.
I installed the thermo fan by itself and was seeing temps of 46-48c and at that temp it seemed the thermo fan was running full speed all the time and seemed louder than the Stealth and original Panflow combo which ran from 40-42c idle to 45c while in use. So I then reinstalled the Panflow in the back left corner blowing towards the Thermo fan which has slowed down the Thermo as its not as loud and so far I am seeing idle temp at 42c and havent had enough time to get an accurate in use temp yet.

Chris

Posted by: BlankMan

You mean the stuff below? I snarfed some of what I posted before it went away.

I don't know why your ThermoFlow is so loud, I can't hear mine, in two separate T60's, all I hear is the disks seeking. I just checked one this morning via TiVoWeb and it's sitting at 44C. In fact I just got a HDVR2 last weekend and it sits in between two T60's and I happened to notice the other day when it was quite in the house how loud the HDVR2's fan is. I may replace that one too.

**********************

I like some of the things Networker did as far as sealing up the cracks, I'm going to incorporate some of those, but the drives were never really at risk. The drives may be warm to the touch but regardless of that they are designed to operate in a 55C environment. Not that I'd want to do that but if they were in a 55C environment and they felt hot to the touch, that is within spec. I did some measurements a while ago, documented here:

http://www.curtronics.com/TiVo/TiVo...nsor/index.html

I also had added a second fan to one, shown here:

http://www.curtronics.com/TiVo/TiVoFanT60/index.html

Which I have since removed and covered up the hole.

I replaced the stock OEM fan with a Vantec ThermoFlow fan and that alone dropped the temp on two separate T60's from 50-51C to 45C and it is not louder then the OEM fan. In fact I can't hear it, I hear the hard drive.

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(I was going to post this, then TiVo Community broke so I've been waiting for it to come back up, but it seems pertinent to post it here. I'll probably re-post it there since posts here will be lost.)

I just made a cooling modification to my DTiVo's that thus far, has had the most impact. My first modification was to cut a hole in the top and add another fan, which I thought must be doing a lot of good. Well this modification has showed me that that modification was in essence, useless.

I went through the trouble of adding that additional fan when I was upgrading that unit. At the time I was impatient to get more recording time so I went to Best Buy to get the drives where my only choice was 7200 RPM. Fearing that this would add a lot of heat (which by spec, 7200 RPM drives do use 5 times the power as their 5400 RPM counterparts) I added the fan when I installed the two 80G 7200 RPM drives. Well the unit did then run at about 51-52C, so I thought I did good by adding the fan.

Later on, I replaced the two 80G 7200 RPM drives with a 120G and a 160G 5400 RPM drives. I assumed this would substantially drop the internal temperature. Wrongo. Well not by much, still ran around 50-51C.

The 120G drive later failed (one of two 120G 5400 RPM drive failures) and Maxtor replaced it with a 160G drive. Not wanting to put the 160G in that unit (I used it in another), I installed a 120G 7200 RPM drive in place of the failed 5400 RPM unit. Once again I was worried the temperature would go up. Nada. Stayed around 50-51C.

But, a few weeks ago I got to thinking about replacing the OEM fan with a temperature speed control fan. I've read a lot of threads about replacing the OEM fan with fans that push more air and as a result are louder, but I don't recall seeing anyone trying a temp controlled fan. I mean someone may have and I missed it.

So I first went and looked up the spec on the OEM fan so I would have an idea of its airflow and noise level. I then looked at a number of temperature speed controlled fans, and decided to give the Vantec one a try. It's CFM rating was well within the OEM fans rating I figured when operating at 7V, and I figured its noise level when running at 12V would be about the same when it would be operating at about 50% throttle. Which would probably push as much air as the OEM 12V fan operating at 7v.

Well I installed it on one unit that is sitting open air, on top of the entertainment center and the temperature dropped from a usual 50C to 45C (sometimes 46C now) and I could not hear the fan, only the hard disk. I left that one run a few days just to be sure, and when I was confident this was a good thing, decided to do the next unit.

This time I picked the one that had the fan I added that sits on a shelf with only about a 1/2" of clearance above it. This is the one ran at about 50-51C, lately, 50C. I decided to remove the additional fan I had added (you can see it here
http://www.curtronics.com/TiVo/TiVoFanT60/index.html) and cover the hole. I figured that the new speed controlled fan would just have to work a little harder to compensate for removing that fan. Well much to my surprise, it now runs at 45C. Period. And that's with a 120G 7200 RPM drive and a 160G 5400 RPM drive installed in it. And I can't hear that fan either, once again I now hear the hard disk.

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They've been out for a while, Antec and Vantec make them (or supply them for other mfg.'s) to the best of my knowledge, I've started using them in some of my servers. No sense in the extra noise of a loud fan it you don't need it. At full throttle it will put out 33db which would be loud, but it's never had to go there.

The trick is finding the 60mm. I didn't do this before because Antec was the only supplier and they didn't have a 60mm, only an 80mm and 92mm, I still don't think they do. But then Vantec came out with a line of them and they have a 60mm.

This is the place I bought them from:

http://www.kdcomputers.com/eui/prim...6/component.htm

Reasonable prices and flat rate $5/$8 shipping. I used to be able to drive down to their store, they were about 30 miles southwest of Milwaukee, but then they moved to Illinois so now I mail order too. Damn, that was a neat place for a geek to window shop too, everything they have on the web site they had on display. Imagine my surprise when I drove down there one Saturday and there was a Craft's store there....

Here's the link to the Vantec site:

http://vantecusa.com/thermoflow.html

And here's a link to the spec's on the T60's OEM fan, at least mine:

http://www.curtronics.com/PdFs/TiVo...-AUB6060254.pdf

Man it's going to be a shame now when this thread is lost.

(NOTE: IT's not now, that's why I saved it.)