Case fans buzzing.

Perenthis

Commendable
Apr 17, 2016
45
0
1,540
So, I've bought a new case lately, upgrading from my Corsair SPEC-01 to a Define R5.

The fans the case came with were initially silent, but soon developed a weird buzz, almost like a soft ringing sound that's been penetrating my ears for a while now while inside the closed case.

Opening up the case lessens the severety of it, as the source sound is much bassier in nature but the fans are buzzing. I could tell easily as the sound intesifies or quiets down slightly by turning the speed up and down respectively.

Initially I had both connected to the motherboard pins, then connected them to the inbuilt fan controller of the case, same issue except I could put them on a lower speed setting to make it quieter. It was still annoying enough though so I decided to buy new fans.

The stock Fractal Design fans now lay outside the case, with brand new BeQuiet Pure Wings installed (140mm) on front and back end, I connected those two directly to the fan controller without bothering to connect them to the mobo first. The new fans make the exact same sound.

I decided to connect a Corsair AF 120 from my last case to the controller too and that one too made a soft buzzing, albeit not as audible due to the smaller nature of the fan.

Perphaps what puzzles me the most is that despite all that, the CPU fan (a brand new Silent Wings 2 90mm fan fron BeQuiet as well) makes no such noise what so ever. How is this possible and what could be the issue here?

I tested the Fractal fans on an other PC as well and the buzzing is still there, albeit I could not hear it as much due to the fan speed not being regulated on that PC, the fan was spinning pretty fast.

Is this a PSU issue? It's a BeQuiet Straight Power 10 700W unit, I'd expect this one if nothing else to at least not cause issues to the fans from the very same company?..

I'm confused and would appreciate some advice on this matter.
 
The buzzing can also be made by the case when fans spins it creates micro vibrations that resonate with the defective case. Can you try put both side panels down and see if the buzzing is still there?

Make sure nothing is on top of the case or around it, no outside cables should be touching the case.
 
just untighten the fan screws a little bit
had the same issue with the stock fans in my case
it's most likely as mentioned above vibrations that resonate with the case

otherwise I have a hard time explaining how 3 different fan models would create the exact same sound


 
I put my fingers on the fan's frame, there is no vibration to it, the case is not vibrating at all (there are no HDDs present inside it either) so it's not that.

The thing is though that the sound is not a vibration. I can't tell if it's defective bearings (weird to have 3 different brand fans all come with defective bearings from the get go..) or an electric buzz (the sound has a clack-clack sound to it..), but I'm leaning towards electric cause honestly if I put my fingers on them and stop them, the buzzing continues while if it was the bearings clicking, it would stop (I had a defective bearing fan salvaged from an old case once and its clicking stopped when I put my finger on it).

The sound only changes in intesity and volume if I raise or lower the fan speed. The less power that goes into them, the less noisy that sound is.

All these fans are PWM powered, not Molex.