Easy mod suggestions for HP Pavillion a230n

[zagood]

My wife's got an HP Pavillion a230n, one of the standard HP cases from a few years ago with a 92mm exhaust fan but no intake fan.

Just replaced the power supply and put a 6600gt in there so she can play The Movies, and now the case temps are obviously higher, and since the exhaust fan is the only thing cooling it it's running at at least 50% when the machines idling, it used to run at about 25% and ramp up when it needed to. This is going to make her machine even more of a dust trap than it's been with huge negative pressure.

Normal place where I would put an intake is covered by the hard drive (mounted vertical, blocking the grill). There's enough room there to put a fan but the airflow would be immediately blocked.

There are no other "stock" places to put the fan.

Already come up with the following, prefer the first, but open to suggestions.

1) Suspend the drive with elastic
2) Cut a side intake
3) Mod a 3.5 rack from another case

Thoughts?

-z

 

[GalvanizedYankee]

Will you link some pics of the internals? How bout one with the front panel off?

Could the HD cage be moved to the left and toward the rear a bit?


...Galvanized

 

[Zepper]

How about the floor of the case near the front? But if the case is on the floor, you will have to raise it off the floor somehow or your filter will fill up too fast. I use a pair of cheap Rubbermaid step-stools to raise mine off the floor.

.bh.