Panasonic WJ-HD316 fans LOUD

[Shplad 0]

Hi there:

 

I haven't come by here in quite a while. But the place is so friendly and helpful...I thought

that this would be a good place to come to for my question.

 

I got a used Panasonic WJ-HD316 DVR a month or two ago. It needs a bit of work,

but I used to be an IT technician, so that doesn't scare me. I am hoping to use

this in my house.

 

The one thing I didn't expect when I bought it is.....the fans are SO DARN LOUD.

 

I took the cover off the unit, and cleaned everything out. I noticed no difference.

Are the fans on these units typically this noisy, because I couldn't imagine using this at home

unless I could quiet the fans at least somewhat.

 

I see they're small fans (what, 40 or 60mm?), which are typically more noisy that larger ones,

but these are probably the loudest fans I've ever heard.

 

I thought about swapping them out with quieter ones, but then I noticed they have

proprietary connectors on them with tons of pins. I would imagine it would be pretty

hard to find replacements with the same connector, no?

 

Can anyone suggest anything to quiet this monster? It would be shame to have

to let it go when it's working fine, just because of the noise

 

 

Thanks

[Kawboy12R 0]

Sometimes the grillwork protecting a fan causes turbulence and a very noticeable increase in noise. Snip out the grillwork and the noise drops. This isn't specific to your DVR, just a trick that quiet PC enthusiasts use to drop noise levels while still keeping airflow. I have heard of some people trying this with their DVRs with some success.

 

Your mileage may vary, may void your warranty (ha!), don't get metal grindings in the works of the DVR, fan may bite your cat's nose after modification, et cetera et cetera.

[Shplad 0]

Yeah, thanks. I thought of that. But I'm reluctant to pull out the Dremel.

As you said, ya gotta be really careful about filings, and then if it doesn't help much,

you're back where you started.

 

Anything else I can do other than get some quieter fans to swap in. With checking

pinouts and everything, that could be quite a lot of work.

 

Do the fans tend to get noisier with age?

 

 

 

Shplad

[Kawboy12R 0]

Fans do get noisier, but they generally sound sick and rattley when they get noisier if you know what I mean. My ears can tell when a fan sounds sick and the sound difference bothers me a lot more than any increase in sound. If the fan sounds crisp and consistent (no wuh wuh wuh sounds or varying pitch) then it's probably healthy and as quiet as it used to be, unless dirt/dust on the fan blades or obstructing the grill increases turbulence slightly and makes it a bit louder.

[Shplad 0]

Kawboy:

 

Thanks again.

 

Well, you sound like you know what you're talking about. Can I post, an mp3 here to give you an idea what the unit sounds like? Does that sound reasonable?

 

 

Right now, I'm trying to figure out if the unit is formatting the disk, crashed, has even started formatting? Not too intuitive this UI for such an expensive unit.

 

 

 

Shplad

[Kawboy12R 0]

Well, I'm not exactly a fan noise expert but I've listened to a bunch of computer fans slowly go bad over the last few decades. Fan noise = bad, particularly if it's not needed. Post away if you want but your ears are no doubt better than what I'll hear through the recording. I don't mind listening though.

[Shplad 0]

Thanks Kawboy.

 

I'll record it and post when I get a minute. Turns out now it doesn't want to format the

hard drive either.

 

F*(NG E*R(F

 

 

Brad

[Shplad 0]

After speaking with Panasonic support, I believe the fans are slowly beginning to wear out. I got the recorder working fine, but the fans are getting extremely noisy-I think the bearings are going. So I decided to try to replace them.

 

Panasonic (what a surprise) wants upwards of $60.00 each for at least two of the fans, so I Googled and found almost identical fans drastically cheaper. The new fans are made by the same mfgr. and have exact same specs, except they don't support the DVR's alert feature for when the fan stops (Am I right in calling this the locked rotor feature, or is it the RPM sensor)?

 

Can anyone guess if these fans will work in the DVR, or is it more likely that the DVR will just not operate because of that missing sensor/wire. I know the alarm feature may not work because the sensor is not there-I don't care. I just want the fans to spin and the unit to operate.

[Kawboy12R 0]

Haven't a clue which exact fan it uses but I would assume that no RPM wire will be interpreted as not spinning so the alarm will probably sound. If you regularly win the lottery then you might be lucky enough to find an option in the menus to ignore that error.

[Shplad 0]

Kawboy12r:

 

That's good sarcasm, I like that. But seriously, I thought there actually WAS something in the menus

I saw that allowed you to disable that feature, no?

 

Were you being entirely sarcastic or ??

 

I know what you mean, though. That thing does have a SH*(tload of menus, doesn't it.

[Kawboy12R 0]

I'm never TOTALLY sarcastic. It is entertainment with a hook and a hint. I don't have that DVR so I don't know for sure but the DVRs I own or have looked at don't have the option to output an alarm when the fan stops, but do for HDD full, HDD failure, or whatever. I figured it was worth a shot to check anyway. If the fans are annoyingly loud well before the alarm goes off then the alarm is pretty useless to you, right? Might as well save some money on the fans.

[Old Car Guy 0]

I’ve had a WJ-HD 316 since they came out and never had any problems. However, the fans are noisy and a common complaint. The noisy fans are the nature of the 316 beast.

[Shplad 0]

Old Car Guy:

 

Thanks for that. The guy at Panasonic said as far as he was concerned, they were very quiet. I guess it was either corporate propaganda, or different experience.

 

I'll think again about ordering the fans. Shipping is so cheap from Digikey, I thought I'd order two and see if they are quieter. Then, if they are, I'll order the remaining two.