Adding a fan to the front

[fwtong]

I'm planning to put a fan in the front of my computer. It's been long overdue. It'll be either a 92mm or 120mm, depending on what fits. What should I use to cut the plastic front, and what can I do about the little pc speaker?

 

[Cheetah8799]

You can do it with a hole saw. THe heat generated may cause the plastic shavings to melt a little. You'll need to file it down when you are done. The plastic will cut easy, so you could attach the hole saw to a regular hand held drill. Although a drill press would help with accuracy.

As for the pc speaker. you can move it to a different location and hot-glue it to the metal. Maybe glue it to the bottom of your case?

 

[fwtong]

Originally posted by: Cheetah8799
You can do it with a hole saw. THe heat generated may cause the plastic shavings to melt a little. You'll need to file it down when you are done. The plastic will cut easy, so you could attach the hole saw to a regular hand held drill. Although a drill press would help with accuracy.

As for the pc speaker. you can move it to a different location and hot-glue it to the metal. Maybe glue it to the bottom of your case?

After taking some measurements of the front panel of my case, I think I'm just going to cut a big square opening into it with a dremel, for airflow. I can easily use a nibbler to cut the metal plate of the case to mount the fan, and then see if there's some mesh material I can find at the hardware store to cover up the opening. I just need to figure out how to attach it to the front of my case so it looks somewhat normal.

Does it have to be hot-glue, or can any adhesive do? Because I have a tube of epoxy laying around, which I'd rather use so I don't need to buy any more adhesives.

Hopefully this will be the last mod I have to do with this, because moving around my case is going to give me a hernia!

 

[mechBgon]

Is the case just not very well-vented up front? One possible trick, depending on your bezel's design, is to simply cut off most of the bottom edge of the bezel so it's like an air scoop pointing straight down. Since the bottom edge isn't visible, it looks stock from the front. I did this with my ol' Inwin S500 and Q500.

 

[fwtong]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Is the case just not very well-vented up front? One possible trick, depending on your bezel's design, is to simply cut off most of the bottom edge of the bezel so it's like an air scoop pointing straight down. Since the bottom edge isn't visible, it looks stock from the front. I did this with my ol' Inwin S500 and Q500.

My case has no virtually no ventilation up front, except a small opening on the bottom, that's why I'm looking to add a fan there. A 120mm fan without a large opening isn't going to do much good, particularly since my computer sits on the floor, on carpet. The only fan that I have on the front is a TRIPLE FAN HARD DRIVE COOLING KIT .

 

[fwtong]

Should I also get a fan filter? I know that they can cut down a bit on the airflow, but since the fan is going to be so close to the carpet, I'm concerned about how much dust is going to get sucked in.

 

[0roo0roo]

there are fan templates on the net, just google. i did that with one of my cases. just cut with dremel. i used the template so it was a square hole with rounded corners. used screws to hold it in. used a normal chrome fangrill. as u can see, i went overboard http://www.fox302.com/index.pl?s=vg&user=oroooroo&category=cases

if it doesn't quite fit inside, mount outside the hole hehe, thats why the blowhole was on top

filters.. i think they are overrated. case fans rreally are bad at ffighting back pressure,u need blowers atleast to slam air through filters of any worth. filters u can buy for fans are pathetic, and they still slow airflow. to compensate u up rpm + noise. my solution was ugly, a washable furnace filter 1/2 thick that was attached on the outside with masking tape. distanced about 1/2 to 1inch away from fans themselves by making em bulge a bit, lots of surface area = low resistence. still slowed air a bit though, but was effective. i don't think its really worth it if u care about noise more then dust though. either way u gotta clean it. newer case now has no filters. http://www.fox302.com/index.pl?s=vg&user=oroo&category=Case

 

[Davegod]

The stock filter (kind of thin foam stuff) on my coolermaster atc-710 works very well, never had to dust inside since I got it, at a guess about 18months ago.

 

[Nickel020]

You might also want to consider cutting a hole into the bottom of the case (if there is some space between the floor and the case). This should be alot easier and will also result in a less noise from the fan.

 

[fwtong]

Because my case is sitting on carpet, there's not space between the floor and the case.

I looked at the some fan templates, but the problem is that is my front bezel isn't straight, it's a little curved, so I'm not sure how accurate using the template is. My preference would be to cut as much of the front bezel as I can and cover it with some material, such as mesh, but I'm not sure how that would look. I'm not really into decorating my case, but I'd like it to look neat and tidy.

Sometimes I wish that I wasn't so cheap and went ahead and bought a new case...

 

[0roo0roo]

mine was slightly curved too. but it doesn't matter as long as its flat enough for the 4 screws to bite into the plastic. as for accuracy of template, it doesn't matter all that much. just mark the screw holes using the actual fan before you drill and u'll be fine.