Fan Ques

[santaclaus]

Is 1 exhaust fan enough air circulation for a 3.06? And i mean that is the only fan in the whole case, besides the vid card and ps. Also, i have 4 hard drives

 

[0roo0roo]

probably not. those harddrives get hot?

 

[santaclaus]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
probably not. those harddrives get hot?

Does it matter if they do?

 

[santaclaus]

There wasn't enough room in the case when I went to dual Raptors, so I tore out the front intake fan, which did absolutely nothing, and made a harddrive cage thingy there. The mobo temps never get above 35, and the processor temp never reached 50, even while running Prime95. If you ask me, i almost have room to overclock a little.

It's weird how everyone else, and i mean about 95% of you, think you need like 4 or 5 case fans. I have a pretty much dead silent case because I only put one fan in it (started with 2, but went to just 1).

What are everyone else's opinion on this?

 

[santaclaus]

On a side note, front intake fans don't do crap unless you have 2 and want a really loud computer.

 

[0roo0roo]

heat increases chance of failure, esp for harddrives.

you can install several more fans, just control their speed with a controller and you can have better directed air flow with equal or less noise then a single fan at full speed.

and front intake fans only do squat if your case is poorly designed. little tiny holes with a big plastic bezel and a tiny slit at the bottom to breath through.. if thats the case, its the time slice and dice.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: santaclaus

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
probably not. those harddrives get hot?

Does it matter if they do?

Yes, heat can and will make them die eventually.
However, a single 80mm fan should be plenty, if you have room for the air to move properly.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: santaclaus
There wasn't enough room in the case when I went to dual Raptors, so I tore out the front intake fan, which did absolutely nothing, and made a harddrive cage thingy there. The mobo temps never get above 35, and the processor temp never reached 50, even while running Prime95. If you ask me, i almost have room to overclock a little.

It's weird how everyone else, and i mean about 95% of you, think you need like 4 or 5 case fans. I have a pretty much dead silent case because I only put one fan in it (started with 2, but went to just 1).

What are everyone else's opinion on this?

1 good case. A case like the Evercase E4252, Antec SLK3700AMB, or any other that is similarly difficult to screw up the air flow in. The better the case, the less fans needed.
1 rear exhaust, as low as you can go w/o overheating. Adjustable fans are the greatest.
1 PSU exhaust.
1 intake fan if you have hard drives 2 years old or newer. 5v if possible, otherwise 7v.

 

[santaclaus]

1 intake fan if you have hard drives 2 years old or newer. 5v if possible, otherwise 7v.

What's the significance of that?

 

[MDE]

Noise reduction

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: santaclaus

1 intake fan if you have hard drives 2 years old or newer. 5v if possible, otherwise 7v.

What's the significance of that?

Lower the fan voltage and you lower the speed of the fan, hence lowering noise. For hard drive and video card cooling this is a great option, because it allows you to have near any fan in use and quiet, because in those cases, having air moving over the devices is important, but having more than a few CFM is overkill.
Newer hard drives tend to get pretty hot. My 20GB is nothing, but even the 5400 RPM 40GB WD drives can get too hot to touch if not given some cooling.

However, some cases, such as the SLK3700AMB and Evercase E4252 work just fine without such a fan (run it for an hour or so, take the side panel off, and check).

 

[huesmann]

I think you need a bigger case...

 

[0roo0roo]

also depends where you mount the fan. if its just blowing hot case air over the drive, thats rather pointless.