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If you’ve read yesterday’s feature on building a silent PC (if not click here), you will already know that it was installing low-noise case fans that made the most difference. With this in mind, I thought that the AcoustiFans that we used in the feature deserved a review of their own.

With PCs getting faster, more heat is produced and better cooling is needed, but we’ve now reached a level where noise is becoming a major issue on home PCs. This is where companies such as Acousti Products come in, offering a wide range of accessories that can quiet your PC down to a whisper.

The AcoustiFan is available in three different sizes so it will fit in almost any case. As long as you can fit an 80, 92 or 120mm fan to your case, you can use an AcoustiFan. This covers some 90 per cent of PC cases on the market so unless your PC is built in a proprietary chassis, you should be ok.

If your case is already full of high-speed fans you’ll be well aware of how much noise pollution they produce, especially since cheap fans that tend to come pre-fitted in system cases are generally the noisiest. The noise produced by a case fan is dictated by several points, such as the quality and type of components used, as well as the manufacturing process. Ball bearing fans tend to produce more noise than sleeve bearing fans for example.

The AcoustiFan uses sleeve bearings which means that one cause of noise has already been reduced, but it’s worth noting that this could also have an impact on the life of the fan. Sleeve bearing fans tend to wear out quicker than ball bearing fans, although this shouldn’t be an issue for a home PC, since this type of machine rarely spends its time powered on 24/7.

What makes the AcoustiFan a little different from your average fan is the thermal sensor that’s part of the package. This little gadget automatically adjusts the fan speed depending on ambient heat inside the case. Most fans with thermal sensors, have the sensor built into the fan, which is generally one of the coolest places in a PC, but the AcoustiFan has the sensor mounted on a wire instead. The wire is long enough to place the thermal sensor close enough to hotter areas of the case, such as near your hard disk or processor, allowing it to get a more accurate thermal reading and adjust the speed of the fan accordingly.

When you first power your PC on and it’s all nice and cool inside the fans run very slowly and cause minimal noise. Start playing heavy duty 3D games or run any other intensive application for that matter and the AcoustiFans speed up as the PC gets hotter. The only downfall here is that the thermal sensors are very sensitive and it only takes a small variation in temperature to make the fan speed up or slow down at will. Unfortunately the fluctuating speed causes a variation in acoustic tone from the fan, which can get a little annoying.

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