Computer Case Cooling: A few things to consider..

[KMARTshopper]

Introduction....

Your Computer case... a box storing an infernal amount of heat... Your Computer Components.... The heat generating monsters that need a bit of cooling down........

In this thread, I will be going over a few different methods and suggestions to help you cool down your box and greatly improve airflow in your system...This is a good post considering that some have bought a new PC and use it on the warehouse shipping area, with the sun might be clockin in at about 85 degrees F outside the box, or maybe you're at home with great airconditioning, but overclocking the CPU to some absurd number... either way, lets get on with it

Case Shopping

Why is this important? Well if you like to drive fast, you might not be purchasing an old volkswagen beetle..

1st thing's 1st.. The absolute 1st thing you want to look for in a case for any reason in for its FUNCTION. Yes, function.. The case does more than hold stuff inside. You have a wide variety of cases spanning in size and shape.. The list of functions of any case I will purchase would be the following..

1: Price (yes, because I work for a living. )

Yes the 1st considerationn is price... My current case was 20 bucks at the store.. It is however, a great buy considering the "RAID" Rack" it has inside and its ability to be modified..

So, what we are looking to do is set a price we are going to spend then go hunting... make a list we will soon chop down to nill.. Besides, you can save that money you would spend on some pre-fab computer case,, and buy pizza, or 2 or 3

2: Device Accomodation (Does it fit all of my crap inside efficiently?)

Well what kind of space you need? Id say that my 20 dollar case was a good buy , considering i also seeked out the "RAID" Rack", yes--six HDD bays for SCSI and IDE combination i have in there... lets put the PCI SCSI controller card to work. I also have a dvd and a cd-rw, and 2 vid cards, so you can say its a full house.. My mother board (ABIT NF7-s) is a mid tower board, and the largest that fits in..

You want to make sure that your guts will fit in properly, or your PC will have indigestion later, with the HDDs sitting on the case floor etc etc

3: Airflow (Can I wave a flag inside the case?)

Look in the case, Does it sing to you? hope not,, you need to take your meds LOL. FACE PLATE- How does it look? does it have some grill on the front of it? Does it have some kind of efficient way to get air from the front of the PC to the back? ALUMINUM FRONT PLATE (its whats behind the face plate) Did it come with mounts for the fans? front and rear of the box( also perhaps on the sides for some)

The airflow of a computer is simple.. You want to efficiently channel a flow of air so that "wind" blows by all of the components that get hot, in an efficent manner.

HOW? well.. quick example.. My computer has a huge fan
at the front and at the base of my computer case.. It serves as the intake.. I also have a smaller fan mounted at the rear just under my power source (which also has an exhast fan) I found this to be a great system, since hot air will rise, and the intake fan is allready using about 40% of its thrust to cool the hard drives in front of it. Well Ill get into my particular comp later,, but on with it... Just make sure you can get air in , and out ,, and pref from the bottom up.(help that hot air escape)

4: Fabrication (Can I make it pretty? )

If its ugly , paint it , If you want a pressurized train horn mounted on the top, and a disco lighting array of LEDs inside , go to town..... I dont get much into welding aluminium,,, id rather screw it in and paint it,, But i have noticed that you go to the junk yard you can find a 100 nic-nacs to add to your PC.. Did you know that new cars come with LED tail lights now?? Cant wait to see them in the junk yard... would not mind substituting the floor of my PC for an LED bed...

moving on

5: Pretty (Did it come pretty allready?) Well if its cheap, accomodates your mobo and extras, great airflow, and its great for modifying, it prob fell off the back of a truck (stolen buddy) so just keep that to yourself That or you have low standards for your poor PC

Wait now i will give you a few tips based upon my current PC configuration...

Ok, I will not go SPECs crazy,, but I will fill you in on what i "basically " have..

here we go. I have a mid tower, find it here....


This Computer Case... CLICK ME


And yes it did come with a rack of 3,1/2 slots..

i have

2 iDE dirives, 3 SCSI drives 2 CD drives...

3 PCI cards, and an AGP card...w/fan

AMD 2600+ with a speeze cooler on an ABIT NF7-s

425watt power with a sfew splices to accomodate the extra HDDs.


Ok now on with the show....

So my temp before this mod was about 27-29c on the case,, and about 48-51 on the CPU.. 23c/42c under stress after mod

Lets get cutting.... Now, lookingt at the picture above,, i see a face plate grill... cool ill use it,,,

take off the entire face plat of the case... you notice that the grill on the front is there for show,,, not anymore....

we are going to add a 120mm fan on the front..... Now this is simple,, take in to account that we will also slaughter the bottom ftont portion of the aluminum front of the PC.... but when you are done,, (if you have the model with the HDD rack to the bottom 6 slots) the fan will fit nicely....

Ok so we are cutting the plastic backside of the front face.... oh dont be shy,, remove the grill for now.. it has 4 bend out lips on it.

Once you have made a hole and you have made the 4 little holes in the plastic, and mounted the 120mm monster. (remember intake not exhaust.) we will review the disaster, i mean cutting that we have done to the aluminum aswell... If you do this right, you should have a clean square to the bottom lip of the case alujminum.. where it folds...

Ok,, that mod was quick right?

Now exhaust.... you can do this the easy way,, or the cool way or the very cool way.....

Easy... slap an exhaust fan on the back.. done...

That sucks, since those gril holes dont look like much could pass through them...

Cool: Cut out the grill and mount the 62mm fan... Done..

Wait it can get better.... this next one requires a bit of fabrication like the last..

Look at the space between the top CD drive and te power source... Room for an exhaust fan? YES.. on the inside between those two,, plot out a circle for a 62mm fan... mount it from inside and wa-la ... wait.. you blocked your power source intake? more fab.. drill a bunch of really small holes into another side of it (WARNING: you fool, unplug it,,, also analyze the box before drilling... is there anything on the other side that i might ruin?) drill but be careful. You might want to get decorative and put a care exhaust tail pipe piece on top chrome would be my choice also helps if you spill something...

Ok after al is complete.. you want to do 2 things...... before you plug in the case fans for this mod,, look at your hardware monitor or download one and use it.... look at your fan speed.. if your fan normally runs at 3000 rpm,, then it should run at 3000rpm or a bit higher after mod is complete..

WHY? Well we want, either to make airflow so that the case doesnt disturb the intake of air to the CPU<, or it enhances it...

HUH?

Well lets put it this way... if i put a fan that blows extremely well on the side door of my PC, i could help the ambient temperature of my PC< but ruin my CPU temp... well what is air cooling.... moving air over hot surfaces to cool that surface.

The CPU is like the ceiling fan in your house.... The air in the middle of the room gets sucked down and to the floor,,, then the air blows out to the corners then back up into the air along the walls of the room... then back over to the top middle of the room....... thats 1 cycle.... If i have 5 ceiling fans covering the ceiling and al pushing down,.,,, the wind is oing to stagnate...(not go anywhere) SO-> FOr the computer,, we want to ensure that the CPU fan blows in, through the grill, and out and up the side grill slats..... cool air in,,, hot air out.... grill cools the CPU

So lets make sure that the revs are the same now after plugging in our fans... If performance decreases,, then unplug fans 1 by one to get the situation back under control... (my mod had no ill effect on the cpu fan..)
If you cant get it straight,,, you might think about making some mod that will encorporat adding an exhaust pipe of some sort attached to your grill and straight out of the pc or aimed at an exhaust port... remember if the exhaust is les than the intake,,, you make the intake work harder,,, and fan failures cost money...

One last thing.... If you wantto go crazy and add some Air Conditioner filter inside that front frill,,,, add a 120mm fan grill inside, and sandwich the filter between the front face grill and the 120mm grill


Thats about it... I know my directions are a bit exentric,, but its easier than you think... I have an up and comming mod that will require burning out and fabricating the front face of this case...

New Black PC

When im done , I should be able to add 2 62mm fans to the front bottom of the PC mounted to the inside of the aluminum front.. The plastic face will get a makeover- ... much to do,,, great case... sturdy and spacious.... but too narrow for my taste.. lol used to the servers at work

Ok thats a mouth full..... Add your own ideas at your leasure

KMARTshopper

[Xiun]

Very good post. Now at least there shouldnt be as many questions about fan placement. One thing I would add is that is at all posibble, bigger fan = better. bigger fans mover more air and are generally quieter. A win-win situation.

Good luck with all your case cooling,

[bigandy]

Good info Kmart. But to tell you the truth, it's a bit long-winded .

[KMARTshopper]

ZUIN -- I agree.. in most cases,, the 120mms that you find in the older server cases, and on the market for home computer use are generally quieter....

HOWEVER I do have a "sunon" fan that you solder an electrical cord and plug it right in (she runs on 120v standard) It is a fan designed to go into inteligent lighting fixtures... Shes made of metal... needless to say that she sounds like having a small economy car in your living room.. 192mm on steroids ... well thats the only exception to this rule

oh i forgot to add if this helps,, if exhaust doesnt equal intake in airflow,,,, take out a few of those PCI slot covers (if no pci present in a slot ,, and pref the one below the agp... it doesnt hurt to vent through the small ambient space,, or, in some cases,, the "VOID" of non-moving air below the AGP,,, with an open slot just below it..

If i can offer anything else than im greatfull

BIGANDY -- Sorry,, I do tend to rattle on... I did have fun with this mod and I wanted to do a few things... I wanted to add a pseudo-tutorial for the begginer,, add a few ideas.... and run through it step by step.... Ill try to tighten up on my info giving lol...



I do have an old Compaq prosignia i just ogt in . (CANIBALIZE IT !!!) Big fan,,, monster power supply etc etc.. have to love the old servers

hopefully i can use some of the fans i get out of there to make this next mod raid friendly aswell..

LOL had to EDIT the fan size 120mm not 192 ARG lol



KMARTshopper

[bigandy]

Originally posted by KMARTshopper BIGANDY -- Sorry,, I do tend to rattle on... I did have fun with this mod and I wanted to do a few things... I wanted to add a pseudo-tutorial for the begginer,, add a few ideas.... and run through it step by step.... Ill try to tighten up on my info giving lol...

I was just kidding you a bit. No worries .

[KMARTshopper]

Ok... So i just got a donated server (Compaq Prosignia 500) Well the metal beast goes straight to the trash witha pitstop to my screw driver... 120mm fan and and hmm whats the mm size 1 up form 62mm,, well yeah that size,,,,,

Im ready to mod again ... Of course, now im working with a shuttle motherboard /AMD1700+ bundle (Its a motherboard i highly recommend if you like skeet shooting.. R M A)

Well, like an idiot, I cracked 2 blades on the AMD fan... Hmm perhaps its time to work on a mod that involves some aircraft and auto tubing to get straight ventilation to the PC......

ok, heres what im thinking... 1 fan shoots through a tube straght to the grill then ported out 1 side to rear exhaust(for CPU)... Second fan arrangement will blow like standard intake and exhaust out the back.(CASE)

I allready have a mini fan from an old pentium to slap on 1 side of the cpu grill to enhance even airflow across thgrill and to help channel air into the port.. I have 2 62mm intake fans ready to spit out .25amps each of 12 volt excitement.

Should be an elaborate design, resulting in some science-fiction contest winner that should be very functional...

Well this is all prelim,, Im lanning on sticking some donated 2 gig drives including two 2 gig scsis 1 12 gig and wa-la the poor mans super computer lol... Home depot this week and Il let you know how it went.

This is the ugly computer case pictured here WITH a window

I would love to hear if anyone has any luck with using fans with ducting with any positive results.... I see that HP and other cookie cutter computer companies make combo fan arrangements that shoot air from the back and use a baffle to aim it at the grill....then out to the rest of the pc... (not very efficient in my opinion)

KMARTshopper