Alpha 8045 and side blow/suck holes

[beatle]

Well, if an exhaust is a blowhole, an intake would be a suck hole, no? I'm trying to figure out how to get more cool air on my cpu. I have an Alpha 8045 with a Panaflo L1a on it right now sucking air away from the heatsink and a Panaflo M1a at a 90 degree angle to the heatsink blowing air out of the case. My problem is intake. I don't really have anywhere to pull air in from in this case, as my 2 harddrives block most of the air coming in from the front. Should I do away with the mentality that the Alpha should be sucking and flip the fan over, cut a hole in the side over the CPU and mount an intake there? The case is a Nikao XJazz, seen here. I have already cut away the slots and made a large hole with a standard wire fan grille on the rear and front of the case. The intake holes on the bottom I consider a joke.

 

[SWScorch]

I have an Alpha PAL8045 on my server, and for a long time I had a Panaflo L1A blowing air down into thenheatsink, rather than away from it as Alpha recommends. It actually seemed to work better that way; I guess my case's airflow was geared towards that particular setup. Either way, you shouldn't see more than a 2-3 degree difference between the two fan orientations, so it couldn't hurt to switch it around.

 

[FlowerMan]

Use a higher flow fan and have it sucking air out of the PAL8045. Alpha's tech specs show less thermal resistance when the fan is sucking air out of the heatsink rather than blowing into it. Less thermal resistance is better As for your problem with intakes, I'm sure you can find creative mods to do with your particular case to get more airflow in. A blowhole next to your CPU would not be a good idea if you're using an Alpha heatsink... Perhaps a blowhole intake across from your AGP/PCI?

 

[SFang]

If you have an unused CDROM slot, drill some holes (about 40) on the slot cover, it will solve your problem with airflow. It works for me.

 

[Jeff7]

Or if you're into case modding, you could cut a hole on the side panel over the expansion cards and add either an 80mm or 120mm fan there.

 

[beatle]

I don't see how drilling holes in my cdrom cover could help, as the door that covers it would block any potential airflow. I've thought about adding an intake over the cards, but when I upgrade I may be moving my setup back to my server (80mm intakes over the cpu and cards) and I'll just flip the fan on the cpu to blow. Maybe I should go with a 92mm fan... hmmm. The main goal of my case was silence. I originally had an L1a as my exhaust, but the case temps were way too high. My TruePower 330 does a lousy job of exhausting air in comparison to my generic panaflo modded psu that it replaced.

 

[Jhhnn]

If you have any unused slots on the mobo, remove the case slot covers, allow air to enter there....