It could be limited to the Aquacomputer Aquaero only, although my Asus x99 Rampage V Extreme displayed a similar behavior. 2016- This looks to be a bug with the PWM controller and 6-pole motors, be quiet! was able to recreate this and are working on a solution.
#Be quite silent wings 3 update#
I have contacted be quiet! about this and will update this section if I hear back from them. The fans remained off till I increased the PWM duty cycle back to 50% wherein it went back to ~200 RPM again. I am used to seeing PWM devices maintain a certain minimum speed, so this was different. It is really only from 90% and below that the RPM response gets mostly linear with a consistent slope, and the fans hit an average of 201 RPM at 50% PWM duty cycle before actually shutting down. There is a second big drop, although the slope is not as steep here, going from 99 to 95% where the average fan speed was 902 RPM. This is a near 22% drop in fan speed out of a single percentage point, and not really excusable. The PWM versions, however, drop to 1117 RPM at 99% PWM duty cycle. At 100%/12 V, all 4 fans measured in at 1425 RPM which is very close to the rated 1450 RPM number. Both fans did the same as seen, with minimal sample to sample variation. The PWM version especially is really weird and does not match the RPM-PWM curve that be quiet! has on the product page as well. Unfortunately, there is a bigger difference than I would have liked to see. The fans were individually tested and the results below are averaged with a standard deviation calculated.įirst up, I wanted to map out the RPM response curves to see if there was a significant difference between the fans controlled via PWM vs DC voltage control before measuring noise and airflow through the radiator. Fan noise was measured in an anechoic chamber of size 5′ x 8′ with ambient noise level ~19 dBA and a sound probe held 6″ away to measure the sound volume in dBA accordingly. Linear airflow was measured using an Extech 45158 Thermo-Anemometer 6″ away from the fan such that it measured the airflow in feet per minute through the radiator. Testing was done with the fan mounted one at a time on a single Swiftech MCR120QP radiator, with the fans controlled using a dedicated fan controller (Aquacomputer Aquaero 6 XT) in PWM or power (DC voltage) mode depending on the fan used.