Fan Control and Case cooling

[Howland]

I have a generic Ninja 2 case that has room for 2 80mm fans in the lower front and one 80mm fan in the upper back. It also has a grill on the side that air can come or go through that is roughly over the CPU heat sink (xp-90) and fan.

My cpu idles around 30 and loads at about 40. It is an Opteron 144 that hasn't really been overclocked yet (Its running at 2.25ghz atm)

The case/chipset/GPU all seem to be close to 48-50 degrees though. I currently have 1 intake fan in the front. 1 exhaust fan in the back.

1st question - should my case be cooler and if so, how? I have room for one fan in the front, but with the front of the case I'm not sure that it would be effective.

2nd question. I have Speedfan installed, but I also have Smartguardin installed and when I opened it, the fans went full blast. Which program controls the fans? Do they conflict? and what should be controllling the fans?

 

[zagood]

1. Your case seems a little warm. Some ideas for you...
- First try increasing your fan speed. Sometimes just running your fans a little higher can do the trick.
- Check to make sure you don't have a bunch of wires jumbled throughout the case restricting airflow.
- Install another 80mm intake fan to the front. Effective, yes.
- Mount a 92mm exhaust fan to the back instead of the 80mm. You can either a) drill new mounting holes, b) get a 80mm to 92mm adapter, or c) mount with dots of silicon glue.

2. Speedfan sometimes "argues" with SmartGuardian and other motherboard monitoring software, and also the BIOS. When this happens usually the fans ramp up to full speed. Both SpeedFan and SmartGuardian can control fan speed. In SpeedFan, go to the Info tab, and hit "Get Config." This will give you a ticket number, then go to the website and download a preset config for your motherboard. These are mostly user created, so go through the settings and change any limits that you think are off.

-z

 

[Howland]

Thanks Z, that was actually very helpful. I think I will just uninstall smart guardian and go with speen fan. I was unaware of the presets too, I 'll check that out.

I had one more thought. I have a circular side panel grill that is maybe 150mm across.

I am wondering if I can turn the front and back fans to exhaust and put in a big 120mm fan with a high CFM for intake on the side. Or have the front and back intake and have the side panel exhaust.

That would have the fresh air going on to the CPU and GPU. Not sure if anybody has tried a setup like that or not.

 

[zagood]

No problem.

Here are the best suggestions I can come up with for the case, they all involve getting your hands dirty, but overall fairly easy.

- Instead of dual 80mm intakes, install a larger (92mm or 120mm) fan in front for intake. See directions in previous post for 92mm, 120mm would probably take some serious cutting and might interfere with the HD mounts. In general there's no way a 80mm fan can match a larger one in the quietness vs. effectiveness battle.

- Cut out all fan grilles. The ones behind the bezel can just be cut out without any additonal action taken, but any in the back need to be covered by a fan guard. This will both make the fans quieter and more effective.

- Best fan setup with easiest amount of work for you would be two 80mm intake in front, mod 92mm exhaust to back.

- Most effective would probably be one 92mm intake front, mod 120mm intake to side undervolted to 7v, and mod 92mm exhaust to back. Could be a little on the loud side because of the side fan, but if you keep it around 7v it'll keep the vibration and exposed noise down.

So, just my 2c. Have fun with it, and remember...measure twice, drink once. You can always drink more, but you can't drink any less than you already have.

Wait...I meant "cut" once.

-z