Customer Reviews

Zalman ZM-F3 120mm Quiet Case Fan with Silicone Pins

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This 120mm fan is really nice. It's pretty darn quiet, and very powerful. For a basic 1-speed fan, you can't do much better.

A few things worth noting:

1. The silicon pins provided for mounting the fan may not work in every application. I used screws from my computer case to mount the fan as the silicon pins were not the right size.

2. This is a mono-speed fan. However since it plugs directly into the motherboard, you can control its RPM through your motherboard's controls or a third party program like RivaTuner.

3. The fan is very quiet compared to many others. I think its probably quieter than even the fans that came pre-installed in my Antect P182 case.

A great fan and well worth the price.

I bought this fan because of its reputation for quietness, and it lives up to that characteristic very well. But installing it with the silicone mounting pins was a real headache. And the installation instructions come with no hints about how to make it easier. Just a drawing -- you know, one those language-free instruction sheets!

The four silicone pins each have two separated mounting slots -- one for the case and another for the fan. The distance between the two slots is what keeps the fan from touching the case and creating unwanted vibrational noise. But stretching and compressing the pins to fit the holes in the case (first) and the fan (second) is anything but easy. Every step along the way I worried about snapping a pin because I had to tug on and stretch them quite a bit to set them into their slots. I used a water-based lube and a small screwdriver to help slip them into place in the case, but the lube also made them hard to hold onto at the other end and tug through the case and the fan. I remedied this by holding on to the pins with a piece of paper towel. Ultimately I was able to install all four pins without snapping one off, which seemed like a small miracle to me. With hindsight I can see that the pins are tough and malleable. They have to be to take the installation abuse.

However, I'm sure that the pros who install these fans all the time have an easier way to do it. Or maybe they just have a lot of extra pins laying around and don't worry about snapping one (which I'm sure happens). I just wish the instructions would have come with some hints on how to make it easier for us "one-time Charlies" to set the pins correctly. And maybe an extra pin in the package would help to relieve some stress.

The ZM-F3 is barely audible compared to other Antec and Thermaltake 120mm case fans, yet it pushes enough air to cool just as well.

The included silicon pins, while one-time use only, do a good job of further eliminating vibration sounds.

Overall an excellent product.

Good, quiet fan. The silicon pin mounts work in most locations but the silicon pins do protrude beyond the fan and did create a minor clearance issue for my front mounted disk drive fans (in an Antec Three Hundred case). To further reduce noise (at the expense of some cfm) I have been reliably running this fan at 7 volts (connected between the +12 and +5 volt supply rails). Bottom line: I would purchase this model again.

The Zalman fan operates at one of two speeds. With quiet mode, you get 900 RPM. That should be fast enough to give you about 32 CFM of air flow. At 1800 RPM, you can hear the fan, but it's not terribly loud. You would not want that speed in a media center computer, but you'd get about 63 CFM of air flow. Compare that to the cubic feet of your computer chassis and you can see that it's a lot.

I would have preferred a 3 speed fan. A middle speed would work fine for many PCs that are loaded with more than the basic number of peripherals.

Although the fan is not variable speed, the quiet speed in a two fan case would move quite a bit more air than a PC would typically need. You might get 150% or more of the air you need. Slowing down the fan below the slow speed wouldn't save much in terms of noise or power, given that both are low to start with. Speeding up is something you are unlikely to need with that configuration, but you have that option.

If the slow speed is not enough for you and you don't want to hear a fan, look at variable or tri-speed fans instead. If you want pretty colors, this fan also comes in three brightly lit colors. But if you want a basic fan that runs quietly, costs little, and gives you the air flow you need, this is a good choice.

I just built my first rig and went with one of those Corsair closed-loop water-coolers for my CPU, which works fine but is rather loud; hence, the zalman "quiet" case fan upgrade from the default corsair fans. However, the Zalmans are just as loud as I can't use the silicon pins on the radiator. While I'm guessing a lot of the noise comes from that, it seems like there should have been at least some appreciable difference, or zalman could have at least put some silicone washers in with the pins in case people wanted to use normal mounting screws rather than the oftentimes difficult-to-install pin things. Either way, they're still fans, just not particularly quiet ones

Bought it for my new and fancy HTPC. once connected I realized..oh oh.... no chance for such noise level, definitely not in my living room.
Made a quick research and found the Noctua NF-S12B ULN, for almost twice the price but 1/6 (!) the noise level.
Noisy Zalman no more :-)

THe fan works fine. It just did not have a power rating listed. I found it was too large to run with the adapter I purchased so I sent it back and got the ZM-F2. Had the power consumption been listed on the technical specs, then there would have been no problem and I would not have gotten this one.

I ordered two of these and will probably be ordering more. The silicone pin mounting system = genius, and they're quiet and move a lot of air.

This is a nice inexpensive case fan that runs quiet and gets the job done. I will probably order another.