I need some ideas on case cooling

[John Eckels]

I have a 1.2 gig Athlon in an Enlight Mid Tower (yes I know It should be in a tower) and the case and processor are getting little hotter than I like. I have a fan blowing in on the front of the case and an exhaust fan in the rear. The Processor runs about 58 degrees C at full load and the case temp is in the high 30's. When I remove the side panel, the processor temp falls to around 51 degrees. I am thinking about adding either a PCI slot turbine exhaust, or an 84 CFM fan to the 5.25 drive bay. Are either of these methods effective? Is there anything else I should be considering? Thanks in advance for your suggestions

[Maxout]

I would consider cutting a "blow hole" in the side of the case opposite the processor fan. Mount a 92mm or 120mm moderate flow/noise fan sucking air/heat out of your case. You also might consider simply upgrading your existing fans to higher flow units. Here are some good cooling links...
http://millisec.safeshopper.com/52/cat52.htm?179
http://2cooltek.safeshopper.com/index.htm?57073
http://www.coldcpu.com/

http://www.cardcooler.com/index.html

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If you lived here, you'd be home by now...

[Todd a]

Do you have a spot for a fan in back? Have you put a fan there? Do you have a good fan up front?

Those are the basics. Then we go to the advanced. This will require you to rip apart your computer. Cutting metal produces metal shavings that are very bad to electronics. Clean well after finishing all cutting and filing. These are some options:

1) Cut all the grills offf the fans in your case (even the power supply. The basic grills are usually stamped sheet metal and restrict up to 50% or more (I had a case with a grill up front that was just a cluster of small holes drilled in the case which blocked probably 90% of the air flow). Leave them open or add wire grills. The grills are only a couple of dollars each and are a snap to attach.

2) Tie up all loose cables and reroute the wires and cables to free up as much airflow as possible. The more obstructions the less air actuall moves through you case.

3) Cut blow holes. These are really good for cooling down a case. Goto a hardware store and get a hole saw (they run about $10-20). Good places for them are 1 or 2 directly across from the CPU. You can also cut a blow hole in the top of the case between the PS and CD bays. If you dont like the looks of blow holes, you can put one in the bottom of the case. Just cut a hole right about the middle of the bottome. You want it to land between the hand drive bays and the expansion cards and blow directly up (you might have to add rubber feet to raise the case up about 3/4" to alow air flow under the case. I've tried this befor and it worked reallly good. I used a Sony case that had no fan holes and the front had a sliding panel, but it worked really good. It was for a friends system. I used a Duron 650 overclocked to 900Mhz with a FOP32-1 and his CPU never topped 37'C and the case temp stayed around 22'C.

4) Card coolers and bay coolers are OK, but do not work as good as blow holes. I have heard that the fans they use are rated befor building into the slot coolers and that they generate much less airflow then they are rated for. About the best they are for is to pull the heat dirrectly off the graphics card and out of the case (which will help cool the case a little).

Fans have a big impact on the cooling of the case. The only problem is they can be VERY noisy. Generally the best fans for cooling are 92mm low noise fans. They are rated for a specific CFM (cubic feet per minute)airflow and a noise level mesured in DB (desibals). DB double the noise every 3, so be very careful here. Rubber washers can help any vibration and can be picked up cheap at any hardware store.

There are a few good low noise fans like the PanaFlo L1A 92mm from Panasonic. It generates 43CFM at a quiet 27db and can be found here:
http://www.caseetc.com/cgi-bin/caseetc/000006.html

For any case fans that are restricted to 80mm, you can use a Sanyo Denki 80mm low noise fan. They generate 36.5CFM at 29db. You can find one here:
http://millisec.safeshopper.com/52/470.htm?179

If you need a lot of airflow the PanaFlo H1A 92mm works really good for 60CFM at 35db. The PanaFlow 120mm fans is pretty good to, but big. It generates 69CFM at 30db. Both these places above have the grills and CaseETC has window kits, lighting, blow hole kits, fan busses and a few mod'd cases.

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The COMPUTER is your FRIEND!
Happiness is manditory.

[Mr. Ivan]

Hey Todd, I just installed my case fans and the temperatures are the same, when I want to cool off my CPU I just open the case (the temp fell about 5C)

What can I do?

I`m using 80mm (30CFM) Just Cooler fans in the back for exhaust and one in the front.

The CPU fan is a Global Win FOP38, that helped to cool off my CPU about 10C from my previous AMD cooler, now my CPU is about 42C with the case open, with the case closed goes up to 47C.

any ideas?

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My stuff:
Asus A7V + Duron 800
128mb PC133
GeForce 2 MX
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Quantum 10gb UDMA33 HD
Philips 4x4x32 CDRW
Adaptec AHA-2940AU SCSI
Toshiba 32X SCSI CD-ROM

[Mr. Ivan]

Is this a good idea?

-1 80mm fan in the back of the case for exhaust
-1 80mm fan in front of the CPU for exhaust
-1 92mm fan in the front of the case blowing air in.

Is this a good project?

thanks


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My stuff:
Asus A7V + Duron 800
128mb PC133
GeForce 2 MX
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Quantum 10gb UDMA33 HD
Philips 4x4x32 CDRW
Adaptec AHA-2940AU SCSI
Toshiba 32X SCSI CD-ROM