ARCTIC F8 Silent - PC Fan, 80mm Case Fan, Very Quiet Motor, Computer, Almost inaudible, Push- or Pull Configuration, Fan Speed: 1200 RPM - Black

I bought this one to replace the very old and failing fan built inside the ATX power supply of my home brew DVR. (A pc with tuner cards)The original was a cheap made in china power supply made in 2003. Last year the old fan locked up and the house smelled like a fire was going on. Took it apart cleaned up the fan and re oiled it. That worked until last summer when it started making horrible noises again. I ignored that and just now installed the new fan. I had to replace 9 failed capacitors on the motherboard anyway, since it totally died the other day so changed out the fan as well.I had read that a PWM fan sometimes will not work by just supplying 12 volts and ground without the use of the feedback line for the PWM drive. I tried this first with a 9v battery to see if this one would work that way.At first it did act like it required the PWM input. (would start, run a few seconds, then stop) for whatever reason after doing that a few times, it ran reliably and constantly at full speed on the battery only.I tested the PWM input and it is already at a logic one voltage-wise so has a pullup resistor inside.Put the thing into the power supply, finished the job on the rest of the computer, and its working flawlessly.It is very critical that the fan in the PS of that computer ALWAYS runs for this application. The DVR pc is set to turn itself on and off as programmed to record over the air TV. I may or may not be at home when it does that, I may or may not be sleeping at the times that it decides to switch on or off.Reliability is critical. I dont want to come home to a burned down house some day.This fan is not my first purchase of the same type from the same company.I changed 2 of the fans in my normal pc with this same type and brand (2 bearing PWM) some 3 or 4 years ago to pull air in and pressurize the case through homemade filters. Different sizes of fans. Those two using the PWM on the motherboard.They still operate near silently. Speed is regulated by the system BIOS according to temp sensors and power demand.They still havent degraded in any way.Extremely well made and reliable fans at a reasonable price.

I require two things from a fan, which make it hard to find a good one: (1) that it be quiet; (2)That it not emit toxic vapors.This fan meets both. Don't know why toxic vapors are so common among fans, but finding one without them is hard. Why? this is so is beyond me, but I get nasty headaches from most third-party fans. I have not found this toxic odor on the top name motherboards and cases in the last few years. The Europeans have very a very high bar for allowing toxic odors, fire-retardants, etc.My only complaint is about the absence of adapters that come with it. There are none. It does have a 4-pin male-female daisy-chain connector on it for another fan that can use the motherboard-CPU connector for more than one fan, and there is another connector with just the speed control wire for another connector, but it must use the daisy-chain for power. The 4-pin can also fit non-proprietary 3-pin connectors.The instructions are not very comprehensive and keep you guessing. I have a 5-pin intel plug on my Dell motherboard, so I had to make an adapter plug to get power from the power supply's 4-pin molex plug. This is tricky because the molex 12-volt wire is yellow (and you must use the black wire next to the yellow one, not the red one.) The 5-volt molex wire is red.But on the fan connector, the 12-volt wire is red (there is only one black wire.)The yellow P/S molex wire and it's black wire (next to it) connect to the red fan wire, and fan's only black wire.With just the 12-volt power wire (and it's black ground) and without the speed control wire(s), the fan defaults to low speed, which is extremely quiet, and enough air movement for my motherboard case.It seems like top quality electronics and bearing.

PRO:-relatively inexpensive for fans (albeit a bit pricey for 80mm fans)-PWM support, so you can control the speed easily, or automatically, depending on your application.-pretty quiet, I wouldn't call them silent but they don't bother me. I installed these in a server, where they are still more quiet than the other fans.-dual ball-bearing design for long life and reduced friction. Most fans use "sleeve bearings" which are basically two cylinders (one inside the other) with a layer of oil between them. Fans with sleeve bearings generally wear out before ball bearings.-installation screws are included, so no need to buy any.CON (really none, these are more explanations, and nitpicks.):-ball bearings make these fans more expensive than if they used another kind of bearing. Still, $9 isn't bad.-two tone color might not be your ideal design (but since fans like these generally go inside an enclosure, you shouldn't be looking at them very often. two more colors on the sticker brings these to 4 colors, which is pretty aesthetically loud.-sticker on fan blade hub, could eventually come off and get stuck in blades (I've seen this happen but not on this model of fan)