Noctua NF-B9 Vortex-Control 92mm Quiet Case Fan

Bought these to replace HDD fans in my Supermicro SC742 case. For those that don’t know, that has hot-swappable fans that sit in little caddies with miniature four pin fan connectors, on quite short leads. The fans have the more common miniature three pin on quite long leads. I thought I could unsolder the wires/tails but, no, sadly you can’t access the solder connections even if you peel the sticker back. You’d have thought these sort of specialist fans would cater for specialist users and perhaps be even sold with no leads so users can fix their own. But I need first do a bit of surgery to chop the existing wire and connector then splice - at staggered points along the fan support arm - the existing wires into those of the fans I’m replacing. But all that aside, quiet fans trade air volume for low noise. These seem, from initial test out of the case using the four pin Molex connector, to be on the impressive and good side of that equation. So, think I’ll be pleased (in the end).

I installed this Noctua NF-B9 case fan together with Scythe Shuriken rev.B CPU cooler. Following this transaction with Quietpc.com MY PC HAS DISAPPEARED! It wasn’t stolen! It got soooo quiet that I was initially worried installation went wrong. But it went OK (although it took some fiddling) and I can hear no more spinning and howling of my 3-years old CPU cooler’s fan. And that happened on my 3-years old Dell PC equipped with Intel Core 2 Duo at 2,33Ghz. What’s more, nearly all temperature records have fallen sharply (values after slash with new cooler and case fan): Core 0: (idle state) 52’C/40’C; min.: 38’C/40’C-max.: 66’C/51’C; Core 1: (idle state) 53’C/43’C; min.: 43’C/44’C-max.: 68’C/55’C; Fan speed records (Noctua fan using top speed cable): 0: min.: 1650rpm/1030rpm-max.: 4500rpm/1150rpm; 2: min.: 1100rpm/590rpm-max.: 2600rpm/830rpm; Only my graphic card temperature has gone up by about 8-13’C (still not more than67’C). The only drawback - a very gentle resonance of PC case.

I got one of these to replace the old fan in my HP Pavilion Home Media Center PC. It fitted easily using the original screw holes in the PC case. The rubber mounts were a little tricky to pull through the holes in the fan: I was worried I’d break them, but they all came through without any damage. I’m running the fan at its full speed (without the reducer cables) and it’s more effective than the old fan, as well as quieter.

It’s extremely quiet, but it isn’t cooling as good as my old noisy one, I’ve ordered one more, just smaller. It’s really good stuff, you can’t hear a thing :)

I fitted it at the back of my rig. easy setup, although it took me a while to fit it without taking mobo first - I used those rubber parts instead of regular screws. quiet as advertised. I can hear only the sound of air moved if I place my ear within roughly 20-30cm. i slowed id down as much as i could. recommend!

Ignore the curious colour scheme. This fan is whisper quiet whilst shifting large amounts of air at max revs. Fitted as an exhaust fan to an old Antec case and has helped manage a heat problem arising from a complete CPU/mobo/graphics upgrade. No need to change the case now!

Why 9 stars then? One of the anti-vibration rubber mountings tore during installation…and that was after a smear of silicon grease too!