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PC Fan of the Future?
baptiste writes "While we marvel at the latest CPU release or new motherboard chipset, we still put the same old fans in the neon lit cases and then complain that it is too loud. Well, maybe someone has finally come up with the next generation PC fan. Y.S. Tech has announced a new fan which is driven at the blade tips by a magnetic motor in the housing. Without the motor in the middle they claim a 30% airflow improvement meaning, potenitally, you could get the same airflow of today's fans at a lower RPM meaning less noise. They also claim the fan tips result in the bulk of fan noise. In this design they are sort of enclosed, reducing noise further. There is also a PDF datasheet available."
Neat idea. I like to have enough fan noise to know that it's working with out having to put my hand behind the PC. I would not want to use one to cool a hard drive though.
This is why dual-fan HSF setups primarily dominated, especially back when slot CPUs were still popular: you didn't have that static area of air. Sure, you had a hell of a lot more airflow from two fans, but one can argue that a lot of the kinetic energy is lost when air from the two fans collide.
Either way, this is a great improvement for CPU fans. Bravo, Y.S. Tech, it looks like you're taking the crown back from Delta (which is just more RPM, albeit much more noisy, for better performance).
This is a good time for a next generation cooling system, as AMD's hammer chip will almost definitely require advanced cooling techniques to operate at safe levels.
The ability to monopolize an industry is insignificant, next to the power of the source.
A big part of this for me is being able to turn off the MP3's every so often and have enough silence to think! I'd rather have a 500mhz that can do all the development I can throw at it, than a 747 powered fan sitting on top of a Gigahertz!
Seems that some of these companies are catching on that it might be possible to have the best of both worlds. My hope is that consumers will follow along enough to bring the cost of production low enough that even I can afford them. :)
The more you know, the less you understand.
well, if nobody here has ever heard of them before, odds are they don't have much demand quite yet. give them some time after being slashdotted and see how much prices go down once they can mass-produce.
Wow... I'm suprised nobody has though of this before. The design looks quite simple and is better than a traditional fan, much more so than just its looks.
The website shows here some of the interesting effects of moving the motor to the outside. The most important implication is that airflow is inceased near the perpendicular axis to the fan, ie., more air blows in the center of the fan than the traditional design allows. This helps out in heatsink designs in that it allows more air to cool the inner parts of the sink and thus cool it closer to the cpu core itself. The efficiency of the heatsink is now improved without a major redesign.
In the near future, I'm sure this technology will migrate to large fans for the case and powersupply, where its reduced noise will be appreciated.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
It seems like every once in a while someone comes up with a latest-greatest new heatsink design. I've seen weird platinum peacock feathers and those wavy metal strips from a while back. They all look kind of goofy, and when really put to the test, don't do too much better. Short of pipes nd pumps, big hunks of copper attached to really fast traditional fans are still the best thing going, and I don't think that's for lack of effort at finding new things.
Because this is an improvement on the *fan* and not the whole heatsink, I give it a little more credence, but I won't be that interested until I actually see some Tom's numbers on it.
And I really won't be interested in it until the pricetag falls below $100 for a fan. For that money you could water-cool, or just soundproof your case.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Having torn a many pcâ(TM)s apart, to the risk of slicing my hands upon the un de burred sheet metal. I have noticed 1 common elements that contribute to fan failure.
Too much heat on the oil seal
Looking at this compared to a ordinary fan, it looks as though the bearings and oil seals are evenly dispersed over the surface area of the heat sink, where most common fans have the bearings and oil seals right in the center in the middle of rising heat. Iâ(TM)m not a thermodynamics expert but I can tell you from experience that I have been able to bring many a dead CPU fans back from the dead simply by peeling the sticker off in the center and dropping a dab of oil in there.
Anyways thatâ(TM)s my 2cents
Wouldn't it just be easier/better to stick a plastic duct over the CPU, and put the fan a little bit away from it? That way there's no dead air space.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
I have several servers located in my garage which is a fairly dusty and hostile environment. Cheapest and best way I found to keep dirt out is to install kitchen pan scourers (I mean small flat pads made of a kind of rough plastic mesh) as air filters over the cooling input holes.
These things are very cheap at hardware shops and whilst not impeding the airflow they really do keep dirt out and uptimes up.
"Don't belong. Never join. Think for yourself. Peace." V.Stone, Microsoft Corporation
Another one of those "too cool to be
useful" cooling fans.
Center area has minimum effect on air
transportation. Outside region of blade
has most effect on air transportation.
Too sad that blade diamater is redudced
because "motor" sits outside.
Heat from chip goes into heat sink. Heat
sink has very good thermal conductivity
(Alumininum or copper, much better than
transition region heat sink -> air). So
think of heat sink as an ideally stirred
container. Weak additional middle air
flow doesn't improve cooling. Reduced
outside air flow _does_ reduce cooling
performance.
What makes an effective cooling device?
* High surface heat sink with good thermal conductivity.
* High volume, turbulent of air flow over whole surface.
* Fancy design does move your money but doesn't move heat.
If its done right, you build a round version of a linear motor and you don't need any bearings at all.
Since the blades in a circle and the mounting package is a square, there is not mucf (if any) space is lost.
I interpret that question as "is it possible to cool by convection driven by the temperature differentials." Yes, provided:
1. No extreme hot spots -- like Pentiums. They are too small and make too much heat, so I don't think passive air cooling alone can handle it. Scale back your MHz, or add a liquid-filled heat spreader.
2. The case is designed for air flow, the cables are tied out of the way, and the customer can't get inside and f* it up.
3. The case a tower, and it is always operated right side up with the covers on and the vents clear. Techs have to know how long they can keep the power on while the box is open to work on it. A customer that lays something on the vent, or puts his tower on it's side is going to have trouble.
Yes, it is certainly possible to cool fairly high-powered electronic devices passively, but this device wouldn't be used the way PC's are.