Snafu, be very careful if you leave all your equipment in the system when you cut the out the grills, metal shavings and microelectronics don’t play well together. :!: :!:
I think the best route would be to take your motherboard and other components out of the case before you start modifying it. I know it’s a pain in the @ss but, it’s the safest way.
Either way, just be careful
Thanks. Thought I should take it all apart before hacking it apart but I was hoping I could be extra careful.
I will take a look at the case and see if I can positively shield everything from the grills (it will be like taping off a car before you paint it). If I am not sure then I will dismantle it all (but first need to do some folding).
I have opened up the 2 front fan grills (the rear are yet to be done). Although the air flow increased a fair bit I did not notice any significant difference in temp.
CPU - 47C, MB - 36, RT - 19, CPU fan - 2600 rpm
Noticed that RT plays a part in the temps of the CPU and MB. At the same settings temps :
CPU - 44C, MB - 33, RT - 17, CPU fan - 2600
I still needed to add some ram cooling so rigged a piece of 3/4" angle aluminum and added 2-50mm fans over the ram (about 1/2" away) - pics to follow. I also added the Arctic video card cooler to help the 9600XT card oc to 555/321.
With the cooler CPU and MB temps and with the ram cooling I thought I would try to push the FSB back up to 235 (the ceiling reached previously for this 3.0C).
To start I set the FSB to 235 (vdimm@2.85, vcore@1.600) and backed timings to 3-3-3-6-8.
Memtest okay (ram bandwidth at 2929MB/s),
Sandra bandwidth scores: 5530/5610MB/s,
Aida32 score (memstat) 5316/2015=7331,
QuickPi (memstat) 88.71
I have since tightened the timings (a few steps later) to 3-2-2-7-8.
Memtest okay (ram bandwidth at 3058MB/s),
Sandra bandwidth scores: 5680/5609MB/s,
Aida32 score (memstat) 5486/2055=7541,
QuickPi (memstat) 86.22
At the higher FSB, temps were fairly consistent with the different timings and slightly higher than runs when FSB@230 (partly due to higher RT). The only difference using different timings was the speed of the CPU fan that increased from 2600 to 2900 (compensating to keep proc temp the same?). The temps are:
CPU - 52C, MB - 37, RT - 20, CPU fan - 2900
My next steps are a bit of debate. I am not sure if I should try to tighten the ram further (ex. cas of 2.5) or first see if I can get a stable higher FSB over thw 235 ceiling hit previously.
Any thoughts?
i think FSB would help you out more than tigthened CAS timings.
but i just experimented with my case fans. instead of having air being sucking in on one end of the case and out the other i have air being pushed down into the case and being sucked out on all sides. Temps dropped a bit. but to make it work i think a 120mm fan is needed on the top to give the air enough push to make it down.
this way air isn't cooling down one thing, then moving on to cool another when its already been warmed up. air will now cool one one thing, hdds, mobo etc, then get sucked out right away.
Thanks. Gonna give it a try once I open up the rear grills. Unfortunately I have a FSB-challenged 3.0C that does not seem to like anything over 235. I am hoping with cooler temps I can pass 235.
Cool idea for the fans. Might be a dead spot in the lower middle but there isn't much there to worry about. What did you do with the PSU fans - are they sucking air out of the case?
I think with my next case I will use 120mm fans all around rather than the pairs of 80mm fans I have now. The larger fans move more air or can be run slower/quieter. Might even consider a PSU where its intake is directly from outside the case. Definitely do more thinking about it before buying the next case. By then it will probably be BTX standard and I will have to rethink things a bit.
Snafu,
I have also thought about the PSU thing that you mentioned. If your PSU is close to the top panel, you may be able to flip it over and then just cut a hole in the top.
the 2 80mm on my psu blow out. and the 120mm is right next to the psu so the psu gets a large chunck of cool air then spits it right out. but a lot of that air also get down past the ram the out by the hdds, cpu and g card.
i bought a cheap case and used a dremel to cut holes where there wasn't any, thats why i got a 120mm on the top and one in the front. wanted one in the back but it would take out screws i need for my remole motherboard tray. tempted to cut them out anyways but not sure. what do you guys think, sacrfice sever removable motherboard screws for a 120mm fan and make new screw holes else where or leave as is.
Hi RH - a great idea. I was thinking about this change but still have a fear of cutting into my new case. I now only wished I bought a cheaper tower case so I could cut away with impunity. Might still do it in the future.
One possible down-side (?) is with the PSU cables. Currently they come out the lower back side of the PSU. Once flipped they will come out at the upper fron side of the case. It might actually make it better for routing the cables out of the way but there might be a problem with the length of the cables not reaching.
I plan to make a duct so that the intake flow of the psu is not so close to the rear intake (i.e., right now th rear intake is blowing very close to the PSU intake so the psu is likely sucking up some of the cool air coming from the rear case intakes). Got about 1-2" to add this duct.
KM - I woudl try to avoid removing the MB tray. This is something that I really wish I knew about before my system was assembled. It is a hassle pulling out the MB without it.
You can try to make a duct so that the psu fan does not suck up all the cool air from rear case fan. I plan to make this duct using pieces of plastic that were the dividers in an old 5-1/4" disk holder. The sheets are about 5"x5" black and I can mould them with a small butane torch and they can be glued together using normal model glue (the good stuff with toluene).
PS - I will post a pic when I can (still using film and having the pics transferred to a disk so it takes a while to get the pics posted)
Case cooling work
Hi guys,
I have been looking around at what everyone is doing and was going to run by some thoughts and ideas on the case I'm going to try and setup. I have attached (I hope!) a picture that (ugly as it is) shows how I was optimally planning on setting up my case fans for the following reasons. The two largest heat producers I think are the CPU/NB and the GPU. It seems that you want to get as much cool(er) air to these guys as possible, but whatI think I have seen is that most of the time cases and cpu coolers actually push the warmed air back down on all the components. If you look at my drawing I have indicated that there are 3 outlets and 3 inlets as listed below:
Out:
PSU
~120mm over top of CPU HS
~120 Case top
In:
2 120mm in front drawing air in (Not sure I can get this, might be 1-120mm or maybe 2 80mm
1 120mm blowing in on CPU HS from rear
Now I haven't taken in extra cooling for the memory, but think that the 2 front fans would provide enough cool air to negate the transfer there.
My thinking is that the CPU being the primary heater you would want to get that air out as fast as possible. So with the xp-120 I was getting I was going to have the fan draw air up and thru the xp-120, and then the side case fan would give even a bit of extra draw for that fan pulling out the heated air as soon as it was made. This would also benifit all the components around the cpu as there would be increased cool air flow (practically speaking) all around the CPU. The rear fan would supply most of the direct cool air for the CPU and the 2 front fans would provide overall case flow with the rising warmed air going out the top.
I was also thinking of adding an additional fan on the right side case that would draw air around and under the mobo creating underside cooling as well. I want to try and write all this up showing if its a flop or not. Still need to get some advice on what temp probe system would work best and how to instrument the CPU/other components.
What do you think? Lame?Possibilities?
Scott
it might work shayd. the cpu is the hottest component and it does blow warm air at everything using the normal method. the only problem i could see is that sucking air away from the h/s instead of forcing air on it would give for a large temp rise. your rear intake might or might not negate the temp rise by pusing air horizontaly arcoss the heatsink but i doubt it'll be concentrated enough to help much.
give it a try, i might be wrong
snafu, my mobo tray would still work, i'd just lack 2 scres in the back that help it be as secure as it can to the case. i could possibly make new screw holes for it but i don't think they'd help much in the positions they'd be in.
i gotta remeber to get a case that has a removable mobo tray and can fit a 120 on the back next time.
Are you guys just using the mobo temperature probes or do you have an external system you are using?
Scott
Shayd - I have Asus probe, MBM5 and an external temp probe that sits under the proc. Asus probe and MBM5 do not work well together so only run one at a time (as I found out when they mistakenly reported that I fried my proc at 83C). MBM% is no longer being updated. Asus probe comes with the MB CD and you can record temps, fan speeds and voltages. The external probe, although positioned as ideally as possible still does not give me 100% accurate readings. It tends to be 5C below Asus probe unless my stress testing has run for several hours and it has equilibirated somewhat and even then it is 1-2C below Asus probe.
P.S. Pondering your set-up and will post something later.
KM - yeah I too need to remeber to get a case with a removable MB tray. Those are sweet and I was too noob when I bought my case. Glad to hear it still works.
The set-up could work but the best thing to do is to test it out. You could set the system with fans in the "normal" set-up, run some stress tests and take some temps then compare with the set-up. This is the best way to know for sure if the set-up works well.
Please share your results. It would be great to know.
Ok, after thinking about it for a while. I thought that instead of putting a fan on the case side that will draw air out from the CPU Fan, I wondered what creating a foam ring that would go from the HS fan out to the case side? It would optimally get compressed slightly to for a perfect seal to blow the air directly out of the case without having to use another fan. Having the rear 80 and the lower front 80 blowing in, and the cpu with the blowhole drawing out should give some pretty good air transfer. Can't wait to get my case in and try it.
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