Noctua NF-A4x20 FLX, Premium Quiet Fan, 3-Pin (40x20mm, Brown)
The NF-A4x20 is a highly optimised quiet 40×20 mm fan in premium quality, which uses future-oriented construction measures such as Flow Acceleration Channels as well as Noctua’s AAO frame system. The FLX version offers three speed settings via the included low-noise adapter (5000/4400/3700rpm) and thus ensures full flexibility between maximum flow rate and almost silent operation. Its excellent smoothness, the SSO2 reference class bearing and Noctua’s proven premium quality make the NF-A4x20 a sophisticated choice for the highest demands.
40 x 20 mm format.
Compared to Noctua’s award-winning NF-A4x10, the NF-A4x20 has double the depth. This allows for higher printing performance and makes the NF-A4x20 the perfect choice for higher air resistance applications.
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Flow acceleration channels.The impeller of the NF-A4x20 is equipped with so-called flow acceleration channel. By accelerating airflow in critical external regions of the fan blades, suction side vortex detachment, resulting in higher efficiency and lower turbulence-related noise emission. | SSO2 bearing system.The NF-A4x20 is equipped with the further optimised second generation of Noctua’s proven SSO bearing system. With SSO2, the rear magnet sits closer to the fan axis, resulting in even better stabilisation, resulting in further improved precision and durability. | Integrated anti-vibration pads.Made from extra-soft silicone, the anti-vibration pads reduce the transmission of minimal vibrations and are also compatible with all standard screws as well as standard mounting systems or fan clips used in CPU coolers. | Box contents:Low-noise adapter (L.N.A. Ultra-low noise adapter (U.L.N.A. OmniJoin 4-pin Y-cable, 30 cm cable extension, adapter set, NA-AV3, anti-vibration attachments, fan screws. |
AAO frame system.
Noctua’s AAO (Advanced Acoustic Optimisation) frames have integrated vibration buffer as well as a stepped inlet area and an internal micro-structure (inner surface microstructures) that allow even better performance/noise efficiency.
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| Connection & Pin Configuration | 4-pin PWM. | 3-pin. | 4-pin PWM. | 3-pin. |
| Operating voltage: | 12 V. | 12 V. | 5 V. | 5 V. |
| RPM. | Max. 5000 / min: 1000. | 5000. | Max. 5000 / min: 1000. | 5000. |
| RPM with L.N.A. | 4400. | 4400. | – | – |
| RPM with U.L.N.A. | – | 3700. | – | – |
| Noise: | 14.9 dB(A). | 14.9 dB(A). | 14.9 dB(A). | 14.9 dB(A). |
| Noise with L.N.A. | 12.2 dB(A). | 12.2 dB(A). | – | – |
| Noise with U.L.N.A. | – | 8.5 dB(A). | – | – |
| Format: | 40 x 40 x 20 mm. | 40 x 40 x 20 mm. | 40 x 40 x 20 mm. | 40 x 40 x 20 mm. |
| Weight: | 180 g |
| Dimensions: | 4 x 2 x 4 cm; 180 Grams |
| Brand: | Noctua |
| Model: | NF-A4x20 FLX |
| Colour: | Beige / brown |
| Batteries Included: | No |
| Manufacture: | NOCTUA |
| Colour: | Beige / brown |
Very good product. Ultra silent, used as an upgrade for my 3d printe
Very good product,after buying three other fans that said they were silent,and turned out to be louder than my fridge.very quie
What a great fan, totally transformed an old 24way gigabit network switch that sounded like an air raid siren. Now it sounds like a PC. Very happy.
Quality fan obviously part of a wider range.
Packaging overload, seriously the fancy packaging for this 40mm fan took twice as much carbon to produce as device itself (joke).
Great fan, supremely quiet but for the love of the planet offer it in a “basic” option, I.E. fan, no adapter leads, no mounting kit, minimal packing 100% cardboard.
Awesome. Dont waste your money on chinese fans. Get quality ones
Im using this in my UPS as the original fan has always been bugging me in the background but this is a beauty yes you can hear it but you have to listen for the hum rather than it be there
I got this fan to replace a very noisy one on SBC I have on my desk for everyday development work.
I can’t even hear it spin – it’s just wonderful !
I should have done this years ago instead of putting up with that annoying high pitched sound 40 hours a week. I’m delighted with the Noctua fa
I’ve used these to replace the dabs in some 1u equipment. The airflow is close to the pen fans but much quieter. Installation was a breeze thanks to the included extras.
My 3d printer had a very noisy fan in its control box and I decided to replace it with this one. I did mess it up the first time around and used the same connection (which by default is 24v). So this is my second fan .
Connect it to 5V and you won’t hear that fan ever again. The airflow is very decent when compared to the older 24v fan. Quite happy with it.
Brough to replace the fans in my MD array and OMG I have to keep checking it’s still turned on it’s that quite
These are the best fans I have ever had and I have always Ed used them on my servers with a little modification to the wiring
OK there are a lot cheaper fans, but you get what you pay for. I’ve used Noctua fans/sinks on a couple of PC projects and know that they’re well made, solid products.
Very quiet. But it didnt cool my device as the original fan.
A fan is a fan! Well you will be pleased to see what has to be a design that so much care has been taken on it. The box it comes in (product) is very informative and then you spot all the extras that come with it for various mountings. Truly stunning to have. Absolutely this is worth every penny and so is the Highly Recommended. Andrew.
very silent and worth the money made my 3d printer much better sound wise
A great little fan that you will struggle to hear running at normal work loads.
… but I’ve not binned a Noctua fan yet.
These things do the job well … they are quiet and they are flexible in terms of fitment options.
Never been let down by a Noctua fan. Being so small you’d think it’s noisy but it actually runs pretty quiet. I’ve got no complaints about it at all. If you want a good fan and you want what you pay for, then this is the brand.
Great quality – very quiet..
Comes well presented, with all required cables and connectors.
I bought several of these to put into a 48port Netgear switch that currently sounds like a jet engine.
Amazing difference putting these fans in, they probably aren’t as high air flow as my current fans, but the switch is not particularly stressed and doesn’t get very hot at the moment anyway.
After replacing my USG-3 with a USG-PRO-4; the noise level from the gateway is dramatic and instant — the AVC fans that come built in are both loud and inefficient.
After debating between this and the 10mm model; I opted for this 20mm model and the sound difference is immediate. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not silent, but the “whine” from the AVC fans is gone — you’re just left with the noise of turbulence produced by the fans.
I also opted to go for the NA-RC12 Ultra Low Noise Adaptor (ULNA) after first testing the NA-RC10 LNA (both are included with the product) — which work ultimately by reducing the RPM of the fan (hence the reason to opt for the 20mm; to shift more air at lower speeds).
Even with the lowest RPM; the fans ran cooler than stock.
CPU with stock AVC: ~65c
CPU without LNA: not tested
CPU with LNA: ~29c
CPU with ULNA: ~34c
I installed this on my 3D printer and it is dead quiet. Even when right in front of it I cannot hear the fan.
Performance is good, I don’t have a baseline to measure it against.
The packaging is great and you get a wealth of accessories with i
An excellent product presented in a nice box with all you need to install correctly.
Silent and functional.
I bought this to fit to my 3d printer as the stock 40x40x10mm fan could be heard from the other side of the house. This fan is better in every way except the colour, but it’s something I can live with as I don’t have to listen to it.
I had to cut and re-solder the wires as they’re not long enough to reach the board, once I’d finished the solder and tested the fan, I had to cut the wires so I could solder again as I hadn’t done it properly but realised once I cut it that the fan was working, it was just that silent!
Installed on my LED panel. Now I can do interviews in a small room without any noises .
I have bought many of these to replace the stock 3d printer fans,
quiet and high quality, highly recommend.
Noctua NF-A4x20 FLX, 3-Pin Premium Quiet Fan (40mm, Brown) – 12 VOLT
That is the exact model you need for the Ubiquiti UniFi USG (Security Gateway) [2 required]
and for the UniFi Switch 250/500W [4 required]
Make sure its the 12 VOLT FLX version!!! {NOT THE PWM VERSION]
Excellent fan with lots of accessories but would be nicer if it came with a shroud or rubber seal.
Used to replace noisy fan in Creality CR-10 3D printer’s extruder. Can hardly tell the fan is running without putting my ear right next to it. Premium packaging and lots of accessories, most of which I didn’t use, but I’ve no doubt they’ll be useful at some point!
Massive improvement over the original fan. Switch is in a data rack under the stairs and could hear the original fan in the next room. Now you can hear the fan while under the stairs, but once the door is shut you cant hear it anywhere else. This is on a 2pin setup with no speed control as well.
Wasn’t sure about this – but decided to buy. Glad I did. Very impressed, so much so I’ve ordered another one to help cool raspberrypi. Super quiet compared with the old fan on my 3-D printer. Package came with a good selection of cables, even a snap type set which was helpful as my 3-d printer had a non-standard connector.
This really is a great fan. Its quiet, it performs very well and comes in the box with all the accessories I needed for my set up.
No doubt these are much more expensive than any other brand, however they do have value for money. You will start to notice by the quality of the packaging, material and assembly. Very very silent, and efficient flow. I believe they are the best cooling fans on Amazon.
This is a chunkier version of the A4-10, designed to give more air flow for beefier devices (like network switches, set top boxes etc) that need a little more oomf to move air around.
These fans are so good! it has transformed the noise output from my 3D printer considerable! There not cheap but in my opinion worth the expense. The PWM is generally cheaper and still operates as per standard 12V fan just don’t connect 3rd cable.
my OEM fan died in my switch, decided to splash the cash on this and it’s worth every penny. excellent build quality, and so much quieter than the original one. good stuff.
Used it ti replace a noisy fan in my Swann cctv unit. First class product, comes with all the fixtures and fittings, connectors. Very well packaged.
I bought this fan for the hotend of my 3D printer, now I can’t hear it unless I put my ear right next to the fan, and then only just. The loudest part of my 3D printer is now my PSU for sure. Buy this fan, you won’t be disappointed.
Brilliant little fan, perfect size for attaching to the top of my Odroid gold heatsink. Totally silent comes on and off automatically.
I have a ES-48-500W which is not the noisiest but the pitch of the fans were quite piercing and there is no way to tune the fan speed. Replaced the original fans with these NOCTUA ones, which took a bit of a trick, but the result is fantastic. The switch runs them a 90% duty cycle all the time as they are not as pressure good as the original ones, but the volume of air moved (I also changed the flow sense to match my rack air extraction) keeps the switch cooler than the original fans at about 60db quieter !
Absolutely recommend.
PS: DO get the 40×20 for that kind of equipment. The 40×10 are just not suitable for that work.
Bought this to replace a cheap and noisy OEM 5V cooling exhaust fan in my CCTV recorder. Fitted fine and very silent, it still pulls out enough warm air from inside the 1U sized metal case, whilst drawing in cooler air from the opposite side’s grill vents. The supplied cable adapter was ideal to fit the fan to the original 2 pin cable which fitted to the fan header. The packaging and design is overkill as others have said, but it’s clear it’s a good quality product.
Very quiet and moves plenty of air for cooling my hot-end on my Creality Ender 3. It comes with plenty of useful accessories. I’m super satisfied!
Love the fact its so quiet, and came with a 3pin –> 2pin adaptor. Word to the wise – if you’re using on a 3D printer then print out a fan cover asap. I managed to slice off a fingernail less than an hour after installing it while I was fiddling about rearranging wires 😀 Well worth the money.
Not silent, but very quiet. Happy with purchase as I needed it to replace the noisy case fan on a DVR box.
Excellent quality fan, really quiet. Used to replace a worn out/noisy fan in a SwannView DVR unit.
or maybe you could get a specific other brand for a particular job – but if Noctua make one that fits my need, I’ll just get that.
Stupidly over-packaged, loads of rubber mounts, screws, click-to-join-wire thingies, extension cables, voltage drop cables, everything you could ever need – sure you’re paying a bit more for all this – but not that much more than chinesium alternatives and they just work.
I used this fan as a replacement for the main heart sink fan on the hot end of my cr10s. It is near silent in comparison . I didn’t even have to solder it, the snap links provided did a wonderful job. The fan is worth the extra few pounds compared to the competition.
Very quiet actually thought it was broken at first really worth the money Thanks again .
Used to replace the loud fan in my reolink rln8-410 Nvr. Chose this fan as it come with extension leads, 3 to 2 pin adapter and a noise reducer (which I just think half’s the fans speed). Simple to fit and although I can hear fan, it is much less high pitch and unlike old one I cannot hear it when a meter away. I’ll try fitting speed reduce cable when I get 5 minutes. Wish price was alittle cheaper is my only moan.
Great fan, the only reason its not getting 5 stars is the price, over priced for what it is.
Bought these to use on a 3D Printer in place of the originals that permanently screamed at full speed. I really find it hard to tell if they are on or not without looking or putting my hand in the airflow
I use this to cool the hotend on a custom built 3D printer and really can’t fault it – or even hear it!
I wish that I could replace all my fans with Noctua ones! They are absolutely outstanding, & the only drawback is that when you first use them, they are so silent that you have to look at them to check that they’re actually on. You’ll be absolutely amazed & they’ve made a world of difference to my 3D printer, which used to sound like a big airliner taking off.
Replaced a worn fan in a cctv recorder box with a vanilla replacement from maplin. It worked well and moved a lot of air, but really made a racket – too much. I bought this looking at the db levels, and Noctua is known for quiet fans. It was more than double the cost of the maplin vanilla, but I just needed this sorted. Fan arrived quickly really smartly packaged with a range of adaptors and some useful rubber mounting pegs. I used the 2 pin adaptor and quickly installed the fan – and… tbh the noise difference was pretty incredible. Really impressed. A key things seem to be every contact point with the chassis it’s mounted to is insulated by rubber pads and tbh the bearing is prob just really well made / balanced – barely any noticeable viration even touching the fan casing. I think it moves a very tiny bit less air – so perhaps drop on rpm prob helps it too. Either way – I’m very pleased with this buy.
Good product and service. Turned my 3d printer from a hoover to a humming bird
Very quiet fan that has helped to cut down considerably the noise from my 3D printer. I bought two of these, one for part cooling and the other in the printer’s control box.
My CCTV NVR had a very noisy cooling fan, which was very annoying when you spend a large sum of money on the system itself, after some research, I found that a large number of NVR’s and DVR’s seem to come with these cheap cooling fans made in China which are very noisy in operation.
I found that a vast number of people were experiencing the same problem and were fitting this fan to rectify the high noise levels, so I took the plunge and ordered the fan after removing the outer casing of my NVR to measure the fan size first. Make sure you check the voltage which will be printed on the sticker attached to the fan, as you can get 5 volt and 12 volt fans.
The fan arrived quickly as it was kept in stock by Amazon, the outer packaging of the Noctua fan was high quality which was a good start.
I removed the cheap Chinese fan and fitted the new Noctua unit, I required the (NA-AC2) lead which converts the 3 pin fan connector to a 2 pin connecter, this plugs straight into my Reolink NVR Motherboard socket. The fan unit kit also comes with a further noise reduction lead (NA-RC11), this slows the fan down to a lesser RPM rate which gives you an even quieter fan while still giving me enough cooling capacity for my NVR.
The Low-Noise Adaptor lead (NA-RC11) plugs in-line in-between the fan plug and the 3-2 pin converter lead (NA-AC2).
All leads come provided with the kit.
The result was excellent, I now have a quiet NVR unit.
Replaced fans in a Dell PowerEdge R310 with these and the noise difference is amazing. The hard disks are the loudest part now. Some significant manipulation was required to connect these to the proprietary Dell connectors, but the included accessories made this much easier. The little snap-connector blocks are fantastic.
Yes it’s sturdy and very quiet which is what was important to me. I use it for external cooling a laptop running straight off the laptop’s USB port (5V) works fine. Nicely packaged with accessories as shown in the description.
A great little fan that moves plenty of air and makes very little noise. Would prefer an option to purchase it without the huge box and unwanted extra cables/connectors and adaptors but I guess you can’t have everything!
I have fitted these to Kenwood TM-V71 Amatuer Radios and they are a huge improvement over the standard fan.
I bought this to replace the fan in my old AV reciever as it sounded like it was taking off. This however is completely silent. Was going to buy a cheaper fan but bought this knowing how the good the brand is and is well worth the extra couple of quid.
great! keeps my 2.5 drive bay cool and is practically silent. Came with a load of cool little extras too, shame I don’t have occasion to use them.
So silent you have to check it’s still running.
I love Noctua products, the attention to detail is astounding and quality is second to none.
Very very good – I bought this for a old Sapphire Fusion E350 mini ITX box running as an HTPC. Several previous fans were too noisy so as to be annoying. This is great, very quiet and keeps the temp’ stable. Good packaging and presentation, along with lots of extra cables if you should need them.
This is really quiet well engineered fan which I’m using to cool the Northbridge chip on an old motherboard.All accessories are supplied. I knocked off 1 star since the product is a tad expensive.
Putting the price aside as they are a primium price, these are great little fans. They come with everything you need to fit them to a pc and are as quiet as a fan gets
If you know notctua then theres no point reading this review. But for anyone else This will probably be the best fan you will find. Near silent, high air flow, amazing packaging. This is my first noctua fan but i know their reputation but seriously their reputation is nothing compared to the actual quality of their fans perfect for my 3D printe
Supremely quiet and was a perfect replacement for my 3Com switch. Not quite as much air displacement as the OEM unit
but nonetheless the end result is perfect.
The best fans out there on the market. I use 3 of these on my 3D printer and you literally cannot hear them. Shame on the colour scheme as they are FUGLY!
I needed a fan to replace one in a NAS box that had got loud and annoying. The NAS box needed a fan with a “sense” (rpm) wire, and my previous attempts to buy 40mm fans from that-auction-site just ended up with fans with no sense wire (the one that did have a third wire had it just connected to the +12v line). This one is pretty quiet, better than the original, and came with an impressive collection of bits and pieces. Time will tell, but this looks like one case where paying more gets you better quality.
Very quiet with adaptor, good fitting accessories. Not the colour I would choose but works well. Buy a 40mm fan guard though as it is bare when fitted.
I bought two of these to replace the fans in a Netgear router, one had failed and the other was very noisy.
These are very high quality fans very well made. They are completely silent as far as I could tell – with my ear right next to them the only thing I could hear was the air being moved.
Supplied with a great selection of connectors and fittings too.
The rubberised corners of the fans where they are fastened with screws is a great touch.
I have added a few pictures, you cant go wrong with these, 6 year warranty too.
i used this fan to replace a stock noisy 40x40x10mm fan on my 3d printer, works great.
Pros:
1. Extremely quite.
2. Comes with loads of accessories.
3. Noctua build quality is amazing.
Conns:
1. Quite pricey for 40mm fan.
2. Quite low airflow.
3. Rubber mounts looks like not made for this fan.
Conclusion:
If you need a very quite fan, almost noise-less – perfect purchase. Price is quite high but if noise level is more important than saving couple of quid – go for it.
The fan is extremely quiet, and comes with accessories including a low-noise adaptor (to reduce RPM), extension cable, various socket adaptors, and mounting screws. Everything, from the fan itself to the accessories and packaging, have a premium build quality. I’ve used several Noctua fans over the years, and all have been extremely quiet and reliable: in my experience, Noctua make the best computer fans, by far. A pair of these 40mm fans made a good replacement for the noisy stock fans in a network switch.
This fits ASUS Z97 SABERTOOTH MK1 motherboard (with a little persuading).
Bought as a replacement fan for the above motherboard as the one ASUS supplies it incredibly noisy. This however i cannot hear! Excellent and worth the money.
Remember that these fans are 40mm – they are not completely silent, miracles cannot be performed. HOWEVER they are the quietest 40mm case fans I have ever owned, and having neeeded to use the low noise adapter on one of my 2, can confirm that this also helps considerably.
I was very short on options for cooling a passive SoC (AMD A4-5000) ITX system which I built, and apart from a mesh side panel the case has very little venting, and the board only has 1x CPU fan and 1x Case fan connector – installing the fan has reduced CPU temperature by 15c which I am very impressed about.
Fantastic Noctua quality in a 1U chassis size, great for switches or 1U builds.
Be aware that you cannot replace the delta fans of some switches with this as it doesn’t spin up anywhere near as fast as the deltas, and the switches may think the fan is broken.
One thing to note (which may explain some of the negative reviews on here) is that the fans themselves are utterly silent, power one up outside an enclosure and you have to hold it right up to your ear to detect any noise at all.
When you put the fan into the enclosure, the airflow itself may be audible depending on how much restriction there is – in my case the fan vents have quite a lot of material in the way and hence there is a detectable sound. I suspect an entirely open vent with a wire grill over it would minimise this.
Still even with the restriction on the switch chase these are massively better than the stock fans they replaced. 10-20dB reduction if i had to guess.
Very quite but not quite as powerful as the standard fan it replaced. Has its place for low heat generating appliances such as tv or home entertainment devices that are close to people.
Installed to studio flash head where OEM fan was damaged. Required pin reconfig but no biggie. Could hardly hear it running compared to the OEM fan. Time will tell for longivity.
brilliant little fan seems to produce more air at a lower volume than other fans of the same size definitely recommend and will be purchasing again when i next need a 40mm fa
Very good quality fans.
Used to install some extra cooling into an Acer SFF case that had passive only cooling.
Very impressive packaging and great choice of accessories/cables in the packet (only thing we had to purchase extra was a y splitter (Noctura – NA-SYC2) to let us install 2 onto a single Motherboard header). Basically you can replace pretty much any fan setup you may have with the various cables or universal adapter if needed. Documentation for the accessories was impressive with instructions on how to use their universal adapter in an easy to understand format (although we didn’t use it opting for the 3 pin header instead – due to SFF case layout)
Only gripe would be that due to the lower power of the fan motor one of them did stick once until the machine was restarted when the case was bumped however since these are designed for switches and not cooling a case (Given the dimensions of the case this is the largest fan we could fit into it) that’s hardly a complaint. Impressive airflow for such a small fan.
If only Noctura sold their fan range with colour options or LEDs then I would be putting these into my own personal case. As it is a great range of fans and we will certainly be considering them in future for client upgrades/repairs/custom builds.
What a fan. For a few bucks more than ya cheap and cheerful fans you get an amazing well packaged fan which comes with many cables etc to tweak to your heart’s desire. I dropped one star due to its noise being the same as the fan I had before in my shuttle PC. Was hoping for something super quiet.. but I can hear this as the one before.. maybe I need to look at water cooling or something…?
Very quiet as expected, and the various adapters allowed me to trial-and-error the best solution for me. I fitted this to a Marshall guitar amp, notorious for their noisy and unreliable case fans. Not the cheapest solution, but perfect if not sure in advance exactly how you will fit it.
I bought two of these to provide extra cooling for a Mini ITX computer that I was building, they are nice and quiet and seem to shift quiet alot of air considering the size of them. I would highly reccomend these if your looking for a small enough fan to fit a HTPC.
Bought to replace an extremly noisy fan in a CCTV DVR, I have full Noctua fans in my PC so i already knew the quality was unmatched. I did have to swap the wires around for the DVR as the negative/positive was round the wrong way but it’s been working good for the last month and you barely hear it running now.
I used this to replace the stock fan in an FSP FLX (1U) PSU.
The PSU in question was used to replace the DC-to-DC converter in my slimline Silverstone ML-02 case so a) there is very little room for the PSU and b) there are no vent holes for it in the case so it vents inside the case. Bearing all that in mind, my PSU has not overheated or failed once. It gets a little warm but not too much and if I turn off the other fans in the case, you can barely hear this one – which is impressive for a 40mm fan.
I was also greatly impressed by the packaging. However, I do feel they could have dialled it back a bit and made the fan cheaper! I also liked the quality of the included adapter wires. All-in-all, it’s a premium price for a premium product.
I bought this to replace a heatsink fan on motherboard with hard wired CPU. It’s super quiet and it seems to be of excellent build quality. I think its a little expensive, and i’m not sure all the fancy claims about its design really make much difference overall but it works much better than the stock fan I had and is lovely and quiet which Is what I wanted.
Great fan, really quiet. Replaced the stock fan in my DNS320L with this and wasn’t disappointed. Reading through the back of the box shows you what they have done to improve the fans design and theoretically it seems sound. Or doesn’t sound as the case is. Very quiet, decent air pressure and flow and bought another for my Dad’s NAS
It can recommended from multiple sources and I have to say, the recommendation is well deserved. I have this fan in a tiny HTPC build so it needs a good bit of air pumped onto the cpu to keep it cool in an already hot and confined case. It works amazingly well. I have it running at full power and, though not silent at full speed, I can’t hear it over the dehumidifier fan I have running three rooms over behind a closed door.
The only possible downside I could see to the fan is, if you have some kind of colour scheme going; this fan looks a little odd. But for me, with it shut up away inside the case, I can’t complain. 5 stars. Excellent product. I’d recommend even despite the higher price.
Mine lasted 14 months of continuous use before the bearing went and no amount of lubricant would bring it back.
As others have commented, this is a decent little fan, with a kit of parts “to suit every occasion”. Desperately over-packaged – shame there isn’t an option to buy just the fan, as that’s all I needed. Time will tell how robust it is.
After buying this product, I still think that the price point was a bit steep. However I have to admit that it is an extremely good product of the highest quality. Lots of accessories in it and very smartly packaged too. Bought two of those for a high end piece of networking equipment that I keep in my flat instead of the data centre and they converted it from a deafening beast to a silent appliance. Highly recommended.
Initially I was disappointed with the fans. It is always going to be hard to make a silent fan this small, after all, the smaller the fan the faster it has to spin to move sensible volumes of air. At the default speed the Noctua fans actually have a slight wining noise to them which I could hear from a long distance away. The extras saved the day however. The fans come with an adapter that lowers the fan speed and after installation became silent against the noise of the other fans in the case. The temperature inside the enclosure suffered not a jot.
Now if only they could make them in a nicer colour!
I got hooked on Noctua products 2 years ago when i built a beast of a PC cooled by 2 140mm Noctua fans and one of their crazy NH-D14 heatsinks.
Straight away their products impressed me due to their exceptional performance and relatively low noise.
This 40mm fan did initially disappoint me as it was noisier than the stock fan on my PulseBox media center, but once i added the Low Noise Adapter to slow the fan down to 3700rpm it was virtually silent. Temps only increased by 2 degrees from stock fan but i’d rather that than a noisy fan. Would be 5 stars if the temps would have kept the same or lowered but still a great purchase and still loving Noctua.
The packages alone make this product stand out from the rest. I am yet to throw away the box as they are so well made. This matches the product inside. Lots of extras mean that any combination of form factors are accounted for, there will be no configuration these fans wont fit or be able to be made to fit. The products themselves are quieter than my motherboard supplied originals and are more effective at around 1/3 of the RPM. Overall very pleased indeed. Quite expensive though, it would be nice to simply buy the fan without all the extras that sadly I will not be using anyway. This would make them simply the best in their field.
The price is pretty high for such a tiny fan, but I feel that the generous accessories pack makes this a good value package overall. I would have gladly paid 5 for the accessories, which means that you get the very high quality fan for the same price as a dodgy ebay no brand fan.