F35/F65 Fan noise

[Talexis]

Thanks everyone for this thread and for posting up your guide to replacing the fans Yachacha; it convinced me to go ahead with mine; I came across 2 stripped screws in my camera's body keeping me from getting at either top or side fans last time I opened it up.
Purchased a set of precision bits/drills for removing them (and a drill, turns out you can't do it by hand after all) and after some nervous work managed to remove both screws. (I don't have pictures of these, only relief)



I decided to wire in the low noise adapter with the noctuas to combat the max fan issue I still have. Maybe not the most right answer, but I can always undo it later.




And the top fan




It's still noisy thanks to the OEM bottom fan (which I'm contemplating taking out the boards to get at), but it's definitely less loud than before.

 

[Archduk3]

It's still noisy thanks to the OEM bottom fan (which I'm contemplating taking out the boards to get at), but it's definitely less loud than before.

Look into replacing the thermal pads on the processors as well. I went with ThermalGrizzly minus 8. They feel colder to the touch the stock even. And will help a lot with pulling out heat.

C

 

[Talexis]

Look into replacing the thermal pads on the processors as well. I went with ThermalGrizzly minus 8. They feel colder to the touch the stock even. And will help a lot with pulling out heat.

C

Will do, thanks! The temptation to tinker with and shed/disconnect 'unnecessary' parts is strong, but baby steps for now!

 

[Archduk3]

Will do, thanks! The temptation to tinker with and shed/disconnect 'unnecessary' parts is strong, but baby steps for now!

You're going to have to talk to Yachacha about that. I prefer keeping my baby as she is, just make maintain her

C

 

[Talexis]

Yep will do and fair enough!

 

[yachacha]

"Low-Noise Adaptor for full flexibility
The NF-A4x10 FLX (Flexibility) is supplied with a Low-Noise Adaptor (L.N.A.) that reduces the maximum fan speed from 4500 to 3700rpm so that it can be fine-tuned for superior airflow or maximum quietness."

Looks like the Low-Noise Adaptor is for max fan speed so it shouldn't change the auto1 or min fan settings. The Sony F35 is using the wire which tells the camera the RPM of the fan so the camera is setting the RPM regardless of the voltage.

You can access the power supply fan without taking out the whole power supply. Remove the 4 side cards and you can unscrew and remove just the lid of the power supply which houses the fan. The issue is this fan is what is called a blower fan and it sucks air in from the side instead of the top. This fan is important one because it is cooling the massive power supply capacitors. To just replace it with a regular fan could risk it's ability to pull cool air in from the side. There exists other blower fans in the PC market but it's a game of finding one that is quieter. Noctua is high end of PC fans so buying the very best 2020 fan tech gave improvement. The path to a high quality blower fan is not as clear. Any Blower Fan will also need modification to mount to the points inside but this wouldn't be impossible, finding a fan which can greatly out perform the Sony F35 might be.



In reply to removing parts from the F35. The camera will function normally without any of the ports inside the camera connected. If you do not have the side panel with LCD connected, or somehow misconnected missing pins, the camera gives MAX FAN error. MAX FAN error will happen if No side panel is connected, or one of the 3 fan boards isn't reading back to the camera. So for example you can boot the camera without the side panel connected and connect the assistant panel instead and it will not go into the error.

So if you get MAX FAN error most important is to first check all 3 fans and that the side panel is working. F35 can have everything else, front ports, side ports, memory stick module, either docks disconnected and it will turn on and function as normal.

Is it much weight? No not until you remove the dock mechanism's. I like pulling the mess of back and forth cables out of my F35, It certainly makes navigating inside the camera a lot cleaner, there is A LOT of cable inside F35 and most of it we don't use. It's all based on personal decision of what you want your F35 to be, they built it with a lot of functionality.

Upgrading the thermal pads could be worthwhile but there are multiple layers of boards which use the pads. If you are cooling just the outer board, there are much hotter chip's which is 3 boards down. The outer board of the F35 is processing the signal to the docks, each chip sends to each dock, this is the board under the first heat spreader, and these chips don't seem to get super hot. If you remove the dock processing board and the heat spreader underneath it, you will see the other thermal pads which are cooling the main image processor of the F35, I have seen these thermal pads dried out, they become brittle and break apart, the outer thermal pads do not have this issue.

See photo of the pad that wears out vs the one I am pulling back which is fine. That big Sony Chip is probably the 2nd part of the F35 Magic besides the CCD.



Also Fun fact that grey wire fix you see on the board is on all 1st Gen F35's (10 starting serial) and F23's. 2nd Gen F35 (11 serial) does not have the wire fix and they don't use the same thermal pads that dry out.

 

[Archduk3]

Upgrading the thermal pads could be worthwhile but there are multiple layers of boards which use the pads. If you are cooling just the outer board, there are much hotter chip's which is 3 boards down. The outer board of the F35 is processing the signal to the docks, each chip sends to each dock, this is the board under the first heat spreader, and these chips don't seem to get super hot. If you remove the dock processing board and the heat spreader underneath it, you will see the other thermal pads which are cooling the main image processor of the F35, I have seen these thermal pads dried out, they become brittle and break apart, the outer thermal pads do not have this issue.

See photo of the pad that wears out vs the one I am pulling back which is fine. That big Sony Chip is probably the 2nd part of the F35 Magic besides the CCD.

View attachment 143283

Also Fun fact that grey wire fix you see on the board is on all 1st Gen F35's (10 starting serial) and F23's. 2nd Gen F35 (11 serial) does not have the wire fix and they don't use the same thermal pads that dry out.

Yeah, I that is what I noticed as well. And since I actually bought too much of thermalgrizzlys minuspad for a different project I replaced all of them. However, they seem to be using different thickness. The Sony branded chip used 1.5 mm and the other used 2 mm (or the other way around, was a while since I did it).


Regarding the low noise adapter. I feel the need fans are way more silent, so I never saw a reason to actually install them. And finally, thanks for all the information on the blower fan.

C

 

[yachacha]

If anyone is reading this thinking about doing this, it really isn't worthwhile. The Noctua runs at a slower speed than the F35 fans, this is mainly why it is quieter. The F35 fans running at the same speeds as the Noctua produce nearly the same dB level so the quieter levels are from the rans running slower and this also means the slower fans are moving less air.

See below. The Fan used in the F35 has M speed rating, this is faster than the Speed rating of the Noctua which is L. If you look at 3rd chart the far left shows the difference. The problem is the top speed is not achievable on the L motor as it is on the M so the F35 stock motor is going to push more air when running at max.

 

[Archduk3]

If anyone is reading this thinking about doing this, it really isn't worthwhile. The Noctua runs at a slower speed than the F35 fans, this is mainly why it is quieter. The F35 fans running at the same speeds as the Noctua produce nearly the same dB level so the quieter levels are from the rans running slower and this also means the slower fans are moving less air.

See below. The Fan used in the F35 has M speed rating, this is faster than the Speed rating of the Noctua which is L. If you look at 3rd chart the far left shows the difference. The problem is the top speed is not achievable on the L motor as it is on the M so the F35 stock motor is going to push more air when running at max.

But if you run them at 100% all the time it sort of does a good middle ground?

On a hot day, it might cook it. But at normal day it makes it usable?

I was trying to find alternatives that matches the sizes. I found a few that is 27db at max.

But they move a LOT more air than stock, and the noctuna ones.

https://www.newegg.com/p/1YF-01H2-00211?Item=9SIAS45HV90582

You got any better suggestion.

C