Carbide 500R top fan mounts

Essence_of_War

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Feb 21, 2013
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Anyone else have a Carbide 500R and mounted 2x120mm fans in the top mount?

I was thinking about it, and then I saw in Dustin's Review that the top fan mounts are just open cut outs which are terrible for noise.

Can anyone confirm this is true in practice? Or have any recommendations for reducing noise if I do decide to go this route and mount the fans anyway?
 

lehtv

Elite Member
Dec 8, 2010
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If you don't want them to make a too much noise, run them at 5V.

I would also point out that having two 120mm fans won't improve your temperatures versus having just one 120mm fan on the top, in fact you may be better off with one fan because the second one (closer to the front) will just suck out the cool air before it reaches the CPU.
 

dma0991

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Mar 17, 2011
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Open cut out has less noise compared to ones with grill. Its common to see fan grills removed to reduce noise.
 

Essence_of_War

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Feb 21, 2013
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Fair enough.

My initial thought had been to run them both as intakes to help build up positive pressure, I hadn't been planning on using either of them as exhausts.
 

lehtv

Elite Member
Dec 8, 2010
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Don't you already have a side 200mm fan and two front 120mm fans as intakes? Even if you had three 120mm exhausts, you'd have positive pressure
 

Essence_of_War

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Feb 21, 2013
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I do.

I'm currently running with a carefully cut piece of cardboard over the top vents because even with those intakes and 1x 120mm exhaust, I could feel air being pulled in through the open top vents, which would indicate negative pressure in the case, or at least negative pressure in the neighborhood of the top vents.

The cardboard sort of solves the problem (I think) but I don't like the look of it anymore, and I figured that if I replaced it with fans + a dust filter, that might give me positive pressure in the case.

Or I could be completely overthinking it. Maybe it would make more sense to just replace the ugly cardboard with a painted piece of cut sheet metal, or something like that?
 

lehtv

Elite Member
Dec 8, 2010
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I would just leave it as is (i.e. stock configuration) and not worry about it