be quiet! Silent Wings 3 140mm PWM High-Speed, BL071, Cooling Fan

So first thing first, I am leaving the review for both the BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 4 and BeQuiet Silent Wings 3 at the same time, so you can see the context of my review.I want to start by addressing that I am a sound engineer, and a person with an ear that most just don't have. I have difference in mini-decibel range (10th of a decibel), I am a recording engineer, with a psychology understanding of the brain, and I have built computers for a while now. I have tried more fans you can imagine, but actually listened to them besides of using them as well.Here is what I can tell you for both of Dark Rock Pro 4 and BeQuiet Silent Wings:They produce frequences below the level of human ear hearing, and above hearing range of normal human being.We can hear from 20hz to 20,000 hz, but not everyone, some start hearing from 45 hz, and only hear up to 14,000 hz. Hearing is very important, but the way the brain works is even more important in this review.The BeQuiet fans in Dark Rock Pro 4 are Silent Wing 3 fans, with 135 mm variation fan specific only to BeQuiet coolers. Those motors/bearing in the fan produce frequencies around 6hz and above 19,000 hz.Why does it matter? Well, 5 hz is frequency of the brain, if the sound produced is around that frequency it affect the brain, and it can actually make the person very angry (without knowing) or make them sick, physically or mentally. Frequencies above 17 hz are very damaging to the ear drum, they make your ears hurt, and you will feel a dull pain in your eardrums. Reason why, is the follicles in the ear drum are damaged in the process, and the pain is of hair follicles dying. Hair follicles in our ears act as nerves that transfer fluctuation of sound as perceivable sound that is transferred directly to brain, and then decoded into a set of known memories within our database of the brain. The problem with high frequencies is that they damage the ears, make you go deaf eventually, and erode your ear canal follicles in the process. Here is a key issue on top of it, frequencies above 17khz are very seldom heard by a human ear, around 18,000 hz-19,000 khz is where the dangerous zone trully begins, you cannot hear those frequencies (most people) but you are killing your hearing, but your brain is subjected by the sound and goes "insane" after a while. To subject a person to a 19,000-20,000 khz will cause a person to go insane, as will producing 5 hz - 8 hz, that range is very dangerous as well.I studied science behind it, so I understand it, but I am not paranoid about it.After sitting for 2 hours next to 3 fans of Silent Wings 3, I started getting annoyed, and I could not figure it out at first. I started hearing my fridge more, I suddenly started hearing air conditioners around my house (that I never noticed), and those sounds started hurting my brain and ears.I am a logical person, so I started to check outside and inside for any kind of malfunction. What I realized that the frequency of the fans heightened the perception of sounds around, but NOT in a good way. I isolated the issue to the 3 fans first. I removed them, and my pain in the ears and irratation has subsided by about 80%. I returned the fans back to Amazon, but was greeted with the same issue in 4-5 hours of sitting at my computer. My moods are very stable, and they are not fluctuating up and down by the way.I realized that the fans in the Dark Rock Pro 4 are causing the same issue, but to a lesser degree. Due to them being less rpm, but the frequency is the same, just to a lesser degree.After removing the cooler, I realized it was not loudness of the fans, but the frequency it produced. I ABSOLUTELY would recommend to STAY AWAY from these fans for health reasons.That is of course if you belive me, I have nothing to gain by it, but wanted to warn people.Also I don't blame BeQuiet, as I am sure they are not aware of this, but maybe you will see that email and do a revision, because I care for people in this situation.I will be sending them a separate email as well.Other reasons for return: I am returning Dark Rock Pro 4 for several reasons, this is the main issue. Second issue is that cooling is very unstable. That part is more trivial now. It cannot compete with Corsair H105 that I had, and to me temps are jumping up and down. Tightening the bolts a bit less on the cpu, untill you hit the pressure is enough. Otherwise it will push the thermal paste all over, and thin it out too much where is more physical contact with the cooler, but no thermal paste to speak of now.I would stay away from this cooler because of the fans first of all, and also, you cannot switch the fans to something else. It uses mounting mechanism that is specific to BeQuiet cooler. I would stay away altogether from it, because of those frequency issues, and unstable cooling performance. The fins are too closely stacked together, and fans cannot push substantial air through the fins to cool it. Fan is too low of rpm, and you cannot replace the fans with off-brand ones like Noctua.Also, the cooler scuffs from tiniest contact of mounting brackets, chips the paint so easy...you will likely be pissed after a while. Fins bend so easy too, it's crazy fragile, and black paint just flakes off the fins, and from the mounting brackets.Quality is poor in my opinion, but I saw some success with it in HIGHLY ventilated case, but you have to be realistic too. I have Cooler Master Geminii S524 cooler, with 4 heatpipes total, and Dark Rock Pro 4 has 14 (7 on each side), my old Cooler Master has a downward fan and never pushes above 72 Celcius on full Noctua fan profile, with Dark Rock Pro 4 I have seen 68-70 on full RPM load. What?Geminii S524 was $35 by the way. Good engineering vs not so good. BUT...I will give the cooler 3 stars, because it's not garbage, but it's poorly designed, and not optimized for overclocking stability. I run Intel i7 4790k at 4.8 ghz, but you are telling me that Geminii with 4 heatpipes handles the cpu just as good but with only 1 Noctua fan vs BeQuiet 2 fans?Results may vary, but I know what I am talking about, and I have to say...if you want great performance, perhaps go with water cooling AIO, or Noctua's high end air coolers.Hopefully it explains it all, even when it comes to cooling with it. Cooler is fragile, fins, paint, and installation is semi-difficult if you have motherboard out of the case, but if it's in the case mounted....my goodness...may the peace be with you, my friends...it will drive you nuts trying to put those bolts into the bracket.Unless you have 4 arms and patience of a god.

I look back now and I know I had a problem. My case 2 builds ago had 120mm fans and I had probably about 12 different fans with about 2 or 3 of each. From Orange Cougars to Gentle Typhoons to Corsair ML to Noctua browns and probably any fan that was hyped to be good. Noctua (super ugly beige and brown) with gentle typhoons on the rad gave the best sound to performance profile, but something was still missing. Noctua took too long to come out with black fans and lets be honest, not all of us wanted those ugly beige and brown things all over the case. So I was introduced to bequiet fans and I have not looked back.Let me be straight. Noctua and bequiet are so close that you can't go wrong with either. I prefer the sound profile slightly better on bequiet and have had 1 RMA on a Noctua fan, but you can't go wrong with either and I would be happy with Noctua (blacks) as well.Both cost a premium. You can get 90% of the performance out of most other fans. But that extra 10% means lower speeds/better sound profile which matters a lot to me.My opinion is that Fan tech from a pure performance aspect has really advanced fairly moderately since the days of 60mm and then 80mm, then 120mm and now 140mm. What has really advanced is optimizing the sound profile and taking advantage of 140mm fans and the advantage of similar airflow at lower speeds compared to smaller fans. 140 seems to be that sweet spot where you can run the fans at a relatively decent speed even at full loads without hearing a jet engine sound. I would recommend only cases that use all 140mm fans as even 120mm fans still have that higher pitch sound that isn't as pleasant on the ears.I prefer the High speed PWM fans and only use the motherboard to control fans to my speed preference. I never understood and still don't understand the draw of a fixed speed case fan controller. I have removed the fan controllers from my last 3 cases and have used splitters to combine usually fronts or bottom/top fans to the MB headers and have had no issues.I admit I probably have a mental block over the "1000" rpm mark and notice that 1000 rpm is probably too high for 140mm fans unless you have extremely limited airflow or bad thermals. You can probably get away with the normal PWM fans that max at 1000, but I like having the extra headroom just incase and with 350ish rpm being the lowest speed on the high speeds, it is more than low enough for anyone that isn't overly obsessed about a fully "silent" computer. My fans run at around 500 to 700 at idle to normal loads and about 850 to 1000 at full loads/gaming.As for the fans, they come with different mounts. I almost always use the screws. They have no vibration issues and are really just the "fan" I have been looking for. They have the best whoosh sound among the fans with the noctua being basically the same but subjectively I like bequiet a smidge more. I have had no issues using them as both air flow or pressure fans which used to be more of a thing.My recommendation is 140mm all around is a must. My last case had all 140mm except only support for a 240mm rad with dual 120mm fans. Those 120mm fans were responsible for most of the noise I heard. Changing from Corsair ML120mm to bequiet silentwings 3 120mm had a postivie impact. But 140mm fans are just a giant leap better and finding cases that can fit a 280mm rad are better unless absolutely the smallest case is all that works for you.TLDR best case fan, but you pay a premium.

The 120mm case fan works as advertised! Not only is it quiet but I immediately saw a decrease of 4-5C just by replacing the stock case fan. And yes the default case fans were not good but it just goes to show how much a good one really helps.

Keeps Temps low and sound low too. After 4 different brands I've tried this one is amazing. It's kept quiet and doesn't make any annoying noises while still moving a good amount of air

I bought another low-profile fan that also has a reputation for being quiet and after a couple of months, It got noisy enough that I turned down the fan speed. I have not had to do that with this fan.

I purchased this item to replace a broken circulation fan in a beverage refrigerator. It's in a bedroom, so noise level was very important to me. This fan is silent and still produces plenty of airflow. Great product.

The media could not be loaded.  I looked at a lot of fans and opted for the high speed 140mm silent wings 3 fans from be quiet!The fans come with two types of corner attachments - plastic and anti vibration. The instructions are quite simple, but the fans are too notch. Very quiet when not being pushed at full speed.They're well made and easy to install too. Very happy.

Addendum Circa 2021/22:After ~3 years one of 140mm fans developed bad imbalance/scraping noise. I think it was actually badly balanced out of factory (I've noticed rotor visible beating), which gradually got worse with time.Initially I've tried to go through beQuiet support which previous was great for me, but they ended to be not so great now - they wanted me to ship fan internationally to Germany (at my expense!) to simply "inspect" the fan and then decide whether it qualifies for replacement. I had to raise claim and obtain replacement through Amazon instead (after some back&forth proving that beQuiet actually advertised 5 year warranty on SilentWings 3).Deducting a star due to this, and now back to original review.These fans I consider the best "all-around"/universal fans available. That mean, they could be used both in airflow and static pressure applications, and have best airflow/noise ratio.Noctua fans have (very slightly) better raw performance, but they are somewhat more noisy - at least in "perceptual" sense. Noctua fans (especially in latest China-made revision) have almost smooth blades and very sharp-edged plain square hub spokes - this creates pronounced "boop tone" at certain resonant RPMs, which (at least for me) are a lot more annoying than white noise of rushing air.While Silent Wings fans have very "ridged" structure on their blades - this creates more air turbulence and while it technically makes fan to lose some small amount of performance, it also makes noise spectrum almost all white noise, which is a lot easier for our brain to filter out and stop noticing even at moderately high fan RPM. Also Silent Wings 3 fans have aerodynamic-streamlined hub spokes, removing "impeller passing noise" (caused by blades pass the hub spoke at exact frequency).The only downside that SilentWings 3 have somewhat noisy PWM circuitry - you get "coil whine" noise, especially noticeable at low RPM when rest of fan is silent. At the contrast, Noctua fans have SCD PWM driver which completely silent - sadly seems that beQuiet still haven't implemented such tech. Also PWM control lacks smoothing - fan tries to change rotation speed instantly which causes other kind of "rumble" noises on abrupt RPM changes (e.g. when temperature spikes).Note that electronics noise disappears if you control fan by voltage. The only downside of voltage control I see that lowest rotation speed becomes ~450RPM while in PWM mode its ~200RPM. But I'd say it does not really matter - since fan is already 100% silent at 450RPM. So I'd recommend getting voltage control model and save money - but PWM model is still ok since it supports both control modes.Note that I've now tested 8 (6x 120mm and 2x 140mm) fans and they all exhibit same characteristics.Addendum circa Jan 2020:After changing to X570 Gigabyte Aorus Master motherboard (Previous was Asus Prime Z270-A), I don't notice PWM noise from fans anymore. So it might be motherboard dependent and you might or might not get it. Always worth trying PWM first to see if it suits you (it also looks like the price on PWM model often actually less then on 3-pin one).Another thing worth adding that these fans actually very electrically efficient - according to beQuiet own official spec sheet, single 120mm fan draws only 120mA current. This means you can drive even 4x fans from same standard 1A motherboard header no problem - no need for complex splitters with external power.

A few years ago I purchased a be quiet PSU and was extremely pleased with it so when looking at fans for my cpu radiator I went for this one. Again be quiet have excelled. I can't, yes can't hear this fan at all, even at load. I have to check system monitor to see if it is on.It is as it says very, very, very quiet. This is due to the fan blade design, the blades aren't flat which allows air passing through to be broken up, Gigabyte use the same technology on their gpu coolers. Not giving a tech. lesson but the idea comes from bird's of prey's wings which splay feathers at the wing's end to break up air and thus hunt silently.Excellent product, a little pricey but hey - silence is golden.

Getting a consistent fan that's quiet at all rpms, without ticking or other noises is very difficult. The Silent Wings 3 is one of those great fans. I've got a few and they're all very good with no annoying ticking or buzzing. At extremely low rpms they can grind/tick, but that's almost right at stall speed. For this reason you're best using proper fan control, rather than let software auto-control where the software can sometimes hang around that stall speed. The reason for this is these fans run at a lower rpm so in 'quiet' mode the power from the auto-control can be a little too low.Bundled with the fan are two sets of rubber insulators. One for screws, and one for completely isolating the fan with rubber. You'll be familiar with this if you've used Noctua fans. However, unlike Noctua where the rubber 'pin' is super annoying to use - it's super easy with the Silent Wings fans.

I have so far refrained from writing this review as I deemed it only fair for BeQuiet to have a chance to resolve the issues I've had. Unfortunately the issue is still not resolved, therefore I'm writing this review just to warn others of the potential issues that I've encountered.The first fan (top of the case) is the Silent Wings 3 (non high-speed) version which I purchased first. It works an absolute dream and is literally silent even at full speed, although the rpm is only 1000 I believe.Being so happy with this purchase I decided to purchase another for the back of my case, this time a 120mm high-speed version as I figured that extra push would help the cooling in my case. To say they're different is an understatement. The high-speed version is ridiculously loud at high-loads, making me question whether there was an issue with the fan as it's absurd to have it branded as 'BeQuiet' otherwise.I contacted BeQuiet online and their customer support has been far from amazing. I was told if I send them a picture of the fan dismantled then they will send me another one, to which I replied that doesn't really help my issue as I need my PC to be operating for work and I no longer have the old fan to replace it with.So in conclusion, I still don't know whether this fan is faulty or if this version is just horrendous in comparison with the original purchase.