Ml pro series fans clicking/ticking noise

Hi, I've recently installed 4x140mm Pro as case fans (3 intake, 1 exhaust) and 2x120mm Pro on my H100I V2 cooler. The case fans are all connected to 4 pin PWM headers on my Asus Hero VIII Mobo and set to PWM mode. At low rpm there is a definite clicking/ticking coming from the case fans. It's fairly quiet and you wouldn't hear it in normal day to day use but I use my PC a lot in the early hours when the house is dead silent and the noise is very noticeable (and irritating.)

Has anyone else noticed this issue?

Is this noise just inherent to PWM motors "pulsing"?

Could there be some MOBO setting I'm missing?

Should I just accept that all fans are going to make at least "some" motor noise?

I'm a bit peeved that I've spent £120 to eliminate fan motor noise and it hasn't! I don't care about the noise of air moving, this is just normal and unavoidable but motor noise drives me crazy :-(

Thanks in advance for any and all info, cheers Adam.

Hi, thanks for response. I've already tried isolating the fans. I've had them all out of the case testing them one at a time on different MOBO headers. The issue applies to all the 140's. If I hold them close to my ear I can hear this noise on all of them, even when not screwed into case, so over tightening the screws is not the issue.

I've read some people claim that Asus 4 pin headers are not genuine PWM?? Not sure what they mean by that but I've checked my Asus manual and the pins on the Cha headers are labled exactly the same as the cpu headers.

1 gnd

2 pwr

3 fan in

4 pwm

The noise isn't loud but the front grill of my pc is about 20cm from my ear and in a silent room it is very noticeable. Maybe "clicking/ticking" isn't an accurate description but there is definitely some motor noise. Maybe I just expected too much from this whole Mag Lev business. The motor noise is equivalent to every cheap case fan I've ever owned but It bothers me much more with these as they cost so much. I could have stuck with the cheap fans that came with my case and had equivalent noise. IMHO as case fans these have no advantage at all over any thing else on the market. They do not have zero motor noise as many reviews I read claimed.

Lol sorry if that was a bit of a rant but I'm very disappointed in these fans

Cheers Adam.

Asus and other manufacturers in the past (Z77/87/97) used 'dummy' 4 pin headers to masquerade as PWM headers. This is not a problem on the Hero VIII and is usually only found on the very low end boards less than $100. I don't think this is the issue. I also took one of ML140 Pro's and ran it off a DC and PWM header. There didn't seem to be any noticeable difference and if anything, it was slightly quieter in DC mode, although that was at the minimal volts needed to start it up. (EDIT: Don't run ML series fans at low voltage. It will impact the bearing stabilization and likely negative long term consequences for the fan.)

If you've already taken them out of the case and it's all of them, we probably are not talking about a defect, but something inherent in the design. I am not sure what say about it. I have 4 of ML140s, both LED and black Pro. At low levels they are quiet, but all fans have a detectable noise profile if you are close enough. I don't know that I consider the ML series to be a zero-noise (that doesn't exist) or among the super quiet variety, simply because of the high top end speed. I think the mag-lev bearing is more important for those using them in the inverted position (top case exhaust). They do not chatter and wobble like a typical rifle bearing fan. I can hear motor noise when I put my ear right against a single fan. I loose it at about 12 inches away in free air. I have never used more than 2 at one time (radiator duty), but I also run 3x120 in the front and another 140 rear, so there are 6 fans or 8 in my Air 740.

There are some other fans you may wish to consider with low profile noise as the prime objective. Take a look at Silent PC Review. Those guys might be even more critical than me. However, keep in mind the lower you reduce the room noise floor, the louder everything else becomes. Sometimes it is not possible to reduce it, but you can make room adjustments or even deliberately add other noise to smooth it out. I don't notice my louder fans in the Summer with the overhead fan and air conditioning running. It's the rather quiet ones that seem 'loud' on a cold Winter morning when the world is still. Be careful if you decide to go down this path. It is partially how I ended up with 300+ fans

Another thing you might consider is going into the BIOS and deliberately setting all the ML140's to DC mode. Note, this will change the minimum run speed to 60% (25% for PWM). AI Suite/Fan Xpert would be able to further reduce the minimum run speeds at the desktop level, likely to about where you are now. The only purpose of this would be see if the PWM pulsing is the irritant you are hearing and you can then make an informed decision going forward.

Wow, thanks for your detailed replies. I too don't think the fans are defective, I think what I'm hearing is the "pulsing" of the motor at low (400rpm) speeds. As the fan speeds up the pulses get closer together to the point where you can't distinguish them. I think my problem (apart from being OCD lol) is that I have 3 x140mm about 12 inches from my ear. TBH I didn't even notice the noise for about a week but once I heard it I can't unhear it.

I did consider Noctuas but can't stand the thought of something the same colour as a National Health hearing aid in my PC lol!

I have a mastercase pro 5 and you can actually buy a sound damping front panel for it which I'm currently trying to source though it may be some time till they get their act together and actually have some available, which should help.

Thanks for your advice Adam.

Hi there. I can confirm that both ML-140 Pro and ML-140 from Twin Pack have ticking sound on low RPM. You won't hear it in usual PC but if you are making silent PC you definitely will hear this crazy sound. I made some researches and found that almost all fans has ticking sound on low RPM.

I have silent PC - noise blocking case, semi-passive PSU and GPU, almost silent CPU cooler from DeepCool. So that ticking sound is very hearable in my case. So I tried several fans from Noiseblocker and Corsair ML-140. And they all have ticking sound. So I read several forums and found that Noctua NF-A15 doesn't have such an issue. So I went to store and bought 3 of them. And they really silent until 550-600 RPM and without any ticking sound. And they start from just 300 RPM. And cost less than ML-140. Now I'm totally happy. :)

There should not be any clicking. This has not been a common complaint with these fans, so you might want to make sure it is in fact the motor is the source of the noise. It is possible to create this effect if you overly tighten the mounting screws. Take a little 1/8 to 1/4 turn off the fan screws and see if this eliminates the issue. If not, you may need to take them off and test one at a time to find out which is the troublesome of the lot.

Loosening the screws fixed the clicking for me.

I have it as well since a couple of days. I turned them on and off one by one and could track the noise down to 1 out 9 ML120 fans in my case. I already screwed it loose and there is definitely nothing caught between blades or similar. It clearly comes from the inside of the fan.

Sucks big time since (if faulty) replacing one fan means taking apart half of the rig, cables, etc....

So, the noisy fan sits on my push/pull configured AiO cooler. Essentially, 3 fans are connected to the AiO pump (H150i) and the other 3 are sitting in the Commander Pro which also holds the other 3 case fans. Since it is only 1 noisy fan I don't think PWM header is the cause.

Also, increasing rpm has the sole effect of accelerating the ticking. Currently, I mitigate the noise production by running this particular fan on low rpm. At 600/700 which it would normally run it is kind of annoying without headset on.

Btw: An off-topic question... does anyone have a clue where (and if) I can change the setting that the fans run on pre-defined rpm before Link is up and running when I start the PC? I believe I once had this functioning but somehow now the fans max out before I log into Windows and Link starts. do I need to change something in Bios?

In Link, go to the Option menu header, drop down to devices. This make a small pop up box that appears to be for firmware updates. However, if you look at the underlined part beneath the cooler name, you should see "Use current settings as default". This will save lighting and fan profile to the device. There are some limitations with complex or reactive lighting and controls, but it will save your custom curve and I deliberately set a solid pump color that I don't normally use. This lets me know when the Link software loads and is a visual indicator if it didn't start correctly, something that is becoming a more frequent issue.

If it increases with speed, it really has to be the motor or its clipping something. Once you rule out contact, move on to replacing the fan. You can contact Corsair through ticket support system in the menu at the top of the page.

In Link, go to the Option menu header, drop down to devices. This make a small pop up box that appears to be for firmware updates. However, if you look at the underlined part beneath the cooler name, you should see "Use current settings as default". This will save lighting and fan profile to the device. There are some limitations with complex or reactive lighting and controls, but it will save your custom curve and I deliberately set a solid pump color that I don't normally use. This lets me know when the Link software loads and is a visual indicator if it didn't start correctly, something that is becoming a more frequent issue.

 

If it increases with speed, it really has to be the motor or its clipping something. Once you rule out contact, move on to replacing the fan. You can contact Corsair through ticket support system in the menu at the top of the page.

Thanks! The settings work for the Cooler. So LED and fans attached to Cooler are saved but remaining fans attached to CoPro still run at max until Link starts up.

The fan noise has miraculously disappeared again but I will monitor.