Heatsink fan

[odie072]

I touched on this question in another thread, but felt I should move it to the appropriate area.

I have a Biostar motherboard that is very small. I upgraded a new heatsink and fan(Zalman 9500), but it wouldn't fit as the bracket was touching one of the electrical pieces on the MB. So I just cleaned the old heatsink/fan and put it back on, as there was really no problem, just the fan was old and loud. The fan is a thermaltake 8032t(80mm x 32mm I assume), it normally runs just above 5000rpm and my cpu has never gone above 43 degrees Celsius.

I read an article on liquid cooling and fans where it explained some on fans, but I'm not to sure how it applies to a heatsink. My question is; should I stick with the 32mm or would a 25mm be ok, maybe go up to a 38mm?? Should I get another 5000rpm or would a lesser rpm be ok?? Would a case fan work or would I need one specifically for a heatsink?? What fan would you suggest??
As I stated above, my temps are not a problem now and they stay between 36-43 Celsius and I'm going to upgrade all my case fans too.

My stats:

Biostar P4M80-M4
Pentium 4 3.0 Prescott (478) w/thermaltake Polo735 heatsink
1 GB RAM
160GB SATA HDD
X1650 Pro
FSP SAGA 400R PS
Thermaltake Xaser III case w/7 80mm fans (replacing w/3 120mm)

Thanks

odie072

 

[Trotter]

Outside of the size of the fan, the biggest considerations are air flow (CFM) and noise (dBA). The higher the CFM, the more air the fan is pushing. The higher the dBA, the louder the fan is (if I remember, 30 is equal to a soft whisper, while 120 is equal to a jet taking off).

If you go to Newegg and pull up case fans, choose 120mm. You can either choose the air flow level you want or choose Advanced Search and plug in the air flow and acceptable noise level. Basically, you can get powerful, quiet fans, but you will pay more for them. If noise is not an issue, you can get cheaper fans.

Another thing to consider is the bearing(s) in the fan. Sleeve bearings make a lot of noise when they start to wear. Ball bearings and the rest are silent, period.

 

[rkagin]

I found an interesting website regarding fan noises:
The Listening Room

Find the specs of your current fan and find out how loud it's rated, and then sync your speakers to an mp3 file rated at the same (or similar) dBA. Then you can find out what various other fans sound like.