• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Cheap+silent case cooling ideas?

Demon-Xanth

Demon-Xanth

Lifer
I got a system with an el cheapo mid tower case that has an 80mm fan on the back. The CPU temp isn't a problem, it's in the low 120F range, it's the case temp. It's around 110F. The case is populated by a 10GB WD Protoge drive, 2 Seagate Barracuda 9, and 2 Seagate Barracuda 9LP drives. All 7200RPM and they get hot when thier all alone. The drives are klooged in there by mounting the WD, and having a quartet of strips come down that have holes every 2cm to mount the SCSI drives to. The bottom two HDs are 1.6" high so the bottom 3 have no air gaps. There's no real easy odvious way to mount a fan in front (since I had to take out the card end brackets that'd hold the fan to mount the drives). The system being a media player system doesn't allow for the mass quantity of fans methodology.

What are some ways that I could effectively get some of the heat out?
 
Yup: top blowhole. If you really want to be cool, I've seen intake fans mounted on the bottom of the case blowing up. Of course the case would have to be put up on "stilts" of about an inch, but a pair of low-noise 80's (one each in/out) could really help vent that oven.
 
You seperate those hard drives that are touching one another. You dont want 7200 drives that close. Maybe make your own place to mount one at the bottom of the case and then put a HD cooler on one of them.
 
I there a way to set your bottom HDD rack farther toward the back of your case? Lizardman speaks correctly in saying that you don't want those drives overheating our you may lose data or kill the drives. Perhaps you could move back the HDD rack and still put an intake fan blowing over the HDDs? You'll still need to exhaust the hot air which is where the blowhole would come in handy. Another option for exhaust would be a faster fan on the back, but the noise might be a very bad thing for an e-box. How about a series of cut vents in front of the drives with an increased exhaust?
 
Well, lets see how this goes. I scrounged up a 92mm fan and using some more of those straps in the picture, mounted it on the other side where there's a hole in the MB tray to screw the floppy and HD in at. Hopefully that'll be able to pull some air in from the side vents and the cavity behind the MB. At the very least it'll get more air moving.
 
Report: case temp down 9F to 102F, CPU temp down 7F as well. Three of the 5 HDs are no longer hot, the other two are a touch cooler, but are also unlikely to have any important data (they're the oldest and slowest). The one with the OS is all around cool.

I actually recommend doing this, I've done this with my main system (2 IDE+1 SCSI), and had good results, and this one was better than expected (I wasn't expecting too much). Though a right side blowhole opening would probably help out quite a bit more.
 
Well, that wasn't enough. While copying files over from a network, I would run into lockups that got progressively more frequent the longer it was running, opening the side and placing a fan (large and noisy, 120VAC) fixed it, but it's unacceptable. Looks like I gotta do another mod case.
 
After moving the HDs back so the bars only screw into one place on the IDE drive, I was able to shove a 120mm panaflow infront of them. Seems to have improved it alot, the CPU is at 111F (instead of the case being there) and the case is at 91F.

A GF4-TI4600 is now out of the question, the SCSI card almost hits the drives.
 
swap your ribbon cables for rounded ones. Wont make a huge difference in temps but will help some airflow, is pretty cheap, has no drawbacks (noise etc), and will probably reduce hotspots (esp airflow around the drives) which is perhaps more important than simple "case temp". Also tidyup the power cables with rip-ties or those spiral wraps. Hard to tell from the fuzzy pic but ATM it looks like you have almost a wall of cables sitting behind the HDD's.

Not sure from the pic, but if you have a empty 5 1/4" bay consider one of those adapter/holders to put a HDD in there, make some space below. ALternatively possibly a bay fan thing but I suspect that'd pull air straight onto HSF and out the exhaust, not helping (and possibly making worse) the airflow around the lower end of the case / those HDD.

As for modding, imho a top blowhole and possibly cut a intake into the door, usually lower-left corner is done but maybe lower-right corner is better suited to you - might make turbulence with airflow with the fromnt intake fan though.
 
Turns out that number I stated was a bit premature, the 120mm fan wasn't turning (it was pinched). I added a fan grill and am trying again. With the drives a bit further back it just took longer to heat up.

The problem with relocating one of the drives is the length of the SCSI cable, it's not very long and has to hit all 4 drives. A top blowhole would be worthless as the air need to go across that lump of metal at the bottom.

Of course, the easy way would be to ditch the two oldest drives and I'd have pleanty of room for the other three to air out :/
 
regarding the top blowhole - all air that goes out has to first come in. Top blow hole just spits out the hottest ait that's risen to the top of the case, which continually will be replaced by hot air which keeps rising etc... Cooler air will be drawn into the case to replace whats being exhausted. you dont just put exhaust fans where most of the heat is being produced, you have to have a good flow throughout the case, something all your cabling in there isnbt helping. Normal airflow pattern in cases is to have intakes in the bottom-front of the case, and exhausts around the top-back of the case. Those exhausts dont just cool the "top-back" corner of the case but draw airflow from all over the case, mostly feeding from the intakes in the front-bottom.

 
You could remove the panels from the side of your case and stick a box fan next to it. Nothing cools down a system like a fan the szie of the entire case.
 
Originally posted by: Bovinicus
You could remove the panels from the side of your case and stick a box fan next to it. Nothing cools down a system like a fan the szie of the entire case.
Click to expand...

True, very true. Or you can try a windtunnel, I wanna see how cool your CPU is when the HSF is getting hit by 100 MPH winds.
 
All the fans I was adding WERE blowing in, some directly on the HDs. I removed two HDs and I was still having the problem, but the drives were cool. The air coming from the rear case fan wasn't really hot, but the air coming from the PSU was oddly enough. Having the side off still had the instability, however having the side propped open WITH a large+noisy fan, a 120mm metal pabst that ran off of 120VAC, the stability problem went away. I replaced the PSU with a different one, and the air seems to be coming out (at the same volume, if not less) cooler. Indicating that the problem may lie in the PSU over heating or being a bad quality ($32 for a case+300W PSU and you want quality?). The system WAS stable provided I wasn't moving data to it over the network. Could just be the OS sucks (Win95B).

Being a media box, I'm trying to keep the outside appearance rather clean. The only mod I'm really considering is a 2x24 character LCD.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top