New direction for case air flow

[bf2nut]

why u using stock intel heatsink i see?,your specs say xp90?tig welder here...

im removing my clear res and making a rectangle 4inx15in all copper res with 4-6 80 watt pelts to chill the water here(in the works)... ever since i got my water going i dont want to even plug in my opty box cause of the noise and roasting nf4 temps....gl man!! im making same lil bracket thing for my ram and pwmic heatsinks with baby fans pointed on em being i cant water cool them

[Snafu]

All I had when I started was the stock heat sink. Temps were still decent so no rush to change. Also I didn't want to change the heat sink partway through testing different air flows.

I am now running with the xp90 after tossing in the 3.4c. This rig however, is finished for testing (atm). I have two other cases I will be playing with (antec slk3000b and TT armor). Air cooling results with the antec will be posted up in a review once I finish writing it up (but a little tied up with the new kid)

Cheers

[Aka Zero]

Checking out this air forum, cause I am an air kinda guy, unless I go pelteir.:!:

I have a tt armor jr with 3 120's 2 in 1 out. I moved my hdd rack to take up the lower drive bays so I have a straight shot across the proccesor. Real quick-like.
Kinda like a tunnel but different...

Another 120 lower on the front onto the gpu, because it has heatpipes ( it needs air movement. )
Also have an 80 inwards at the proccesor.

Going to reaplace all the 120's with Tt led smart fans. Already got one on the exhaust. Hooked on a speed control. Great fan, quiet when you want it, air when you need it.

My Trump card in cooling though is location. I am in a basement, fall temps outside, cooler inside. Can't really tell the cpu temp, becasue my board is wrong (possibly a gigabyte thing?), Says it is running 17c when case temp is 30c.:?:

Anyone know of a fairly cheap temp display for a 3.5" bay?

[Snafu]

I'm in the same locale. Temps drop as low as 16C in the summer. Winter is my worst time as I have a woodstove in the same room and temps hover around 25C

Not sure if they make temp displays for 3.5" - kinda a small space for a display. The ones I've seen are for 5.25"

[Aka Zero]

I only have one 5.25" because of my hdd rack move. And I will be putting a dvd burner there. So 3.5 would be ideal.

but if all else fails, There is a vertical 5.25, and another spot that some metal could be manipulated into one.

If you look at the armor.jr The space beside the front fan, and below it can be 5.25 bays, which is kina strange, but cool if you need them.

[S2G]

Just read your thread and I did read somewhere that its better to have more exhaust than inlet..The theory being that when your fan is blowing air over your hot components its warming the air up! Its better to pull the hot air out.. I did some playing around and the theory seems to work (in my case at least)

[Snafu]

How is your system set-up?

I think that good air flow around the components is the most important (i.e., no dead spaces) with preference of cool air hitting the hot components then pulling the warmed air out.

With this case (xaser) I found that the reverse flow works well. With my wife's case (antec slk3000b) cool air is pulled in from the side vent over the cpu/board and is pulled out with the front and rear fans.

[S2G]

As you can see the only inlet is the central fan on my side panel (this blows directly over the RAM). I am considering placing another fan on the top of the case but my temps are pretty ok ( 14c idle-23c under load). I also use Speedfan to monitor temps and fan speeds. The grill is fashioned out of automotive body repair alloy and boy it really sucks air in! Cigerettes are great for detecting air movement (not so good for health tho' ). I've noticed my HDD runs cooler too.... I know it seems to go against logic but it really does work. Anyway here's a rundown of my temps...
CPU-Stock cooler- idle 25c, load 39c
M/B-Passive cooling- idle 33c, load 44c
HDD-cooled only by case fans- idle 25c, load 30c.
I'm pretty sure I have Speedfan set up correctly (after a few attempts ) and after having run the fans the usual way (more inlet than exhaust) my temps were a lot higher...My HDD for example ran at 37c idle! Oh, btw the exhaust PSU may cause confusion...I only call it that because as far as I'm aware PSU's do blow out so they have to have some exhaust effect .

[Snafu]

That's pretty much how I have my wife's system set-up except all front fans are exhausts.

I tried a high cfm fan (i.e, >100cfm but noisy) on the side vent inlet and I recall the load temps were about 2C cooler. However, it was way too load for the little gain so I left the side vent as an inlet with no fan.

BTW her case doesn't have a top fan either.

The possible trouble with too many exhausts and running negative pressure inside the case is dust. It comes in through every crevice in the case

[S2G]

After posting the previous thread it got my mind to thinking and I just checked my temps again using Hot CPU Pro tester. I just wanted to make sure the temps I'd told you were correct as they were from memory... I also placed a thermometer inside the case just for added interest. I like using the above tester because it stress's everything. Anyhow here's the temp's...
component idle load

CPU 25c 40c
M/B 34c 44c
HDD 25c 29c
Case 15c 34c

I do know what you mean about dust. It can be a problem but as we are often inside the case doing whatever its no great hardship just to clean it out a little. As I'm an artist I use a small paintbrush which seems to work perfectly.

[S2G]

OOps did I say I'd placed a thermometer in the case....Sorry I forgot to tell you the temp when I retrieved it....26c. Now it was at the bottom of the case so I guess its going to be hotter up above (warm air rising and so on). Anyhow I fished it out as soon as I'd done stressing the PC.


You asked in the meet and greet forum what I was considering upgrading to.... Well obviously depending on cash and whats out there at the time but I guess something AMD, maybe the quad core which I hear will be better than the Intel version. Also the 680 chipset looks very desirable . How about you Snafu? Will you be doing the same anytime soon?

[Snafu]

Good temps you have there

I have an armor case that has been sitting here for a bit and partway built with a 478 (3.2c ES with pc4000). I stopped building it as I got the upgrade bug and picked up an e6400 with an intel badaxe board and a seagate 3g drive. Just waiting on some pc2-8500 ram and a 7950 gt ko card to come. Once that's done then I will probably unload some old 478 stuff (might keep a 760m that I haven't had a chance to play with yet )

The armor case should flow well but we will see.

[TopHat]

An issues that I have with my case (SLK300B) is that the top right area of my case holds alot of dead air. Since my PSU has a fan below it and not at the end, it tends to get hot up in the corner to a certain degree. I've tried many things to get rid of this, all either failed or make things hard to move around.

So I've decided I need a case with a top mounted blow hole or attempt (again) to make my own. Sober this time.

[S2G]

Well good luck with that build I have to confess when it comes to Intel based systems my experience is a little lacking. Altho' I did run a Celeron based machine a while ago and have to admit was quite impressed on the performance for such a budget chip. Unfortunately I couldn't overclock it due to m/b limitations.
Have fun...

[NINaudio]

Snafu, I love my armor case. Very happy with the temps.