Intake Fans...

[Mitzi]

Hi,

I have an 80mm Sunon intake fan at the front of my case. The fan itself is powerful but when installed it seems to push very little air. I put this down to metal grill of the front of the case, the fan 'cage' restricting airflow to and from the fan.

Would it be a good idea to simply cut the metal grill off the casing?

What about dumping the fan caging and fixing the fan with screws?

Would it be wise to cut a hole in the plastic on the case, where the fan is positioned behind? I guess I could always stick a fan grill there?

 

[Quad]

haeohoehaohea
NEVER USE THAT PLASTIC CAGE!!! 😛

those things suck, and restrict airflow a lot.
secondly, cut off the metal grill (the one with all those holes) from your case. they're also another airflow opposer. if u replace the case grill with your own fan grill, your airflow should improve.

cutting the plastic of your front bezel would require some work. but in the end, it's a really cool mod.

Here's a link that shows how you can use a regular funnel to make a cool intake vent from your front bezel

good luck 🙂

 

[Sorgon2]

Another good suggestion is to use rubber gromets on the fan mount. This would be for the 4 screws that attach your fan(s) to the chassis. This will help cut down on noise/vibration. I believe 5/16" is the proper size, but take a screw with you to your local hardware store just to be sure. Gromets can be tough to find and in some stores pricey. Good Luck! 😀

 

[Mitzi]

Cheers for the advice, going to a local computer fair tomorrow so I'll see what I can get hold of.

Have'nt decided about cutting the front facia yet, gonna try just removing the cage and the metal grill and see what improvement I get before I take a dremel to the case!

 

[Dan]

Last week I snipped away enough of the inside front of my Enlight 7237 to accomodate a 92mm Sanyo Denki fan, getting rid of the plastic cage in the process. (In a previous mod I'd cut out the metal grill and enlarged the holes in front bezel. Not content to leave well enough alone I then proceed to cut a 92mm blowhole in the plastic bezel.

That proved to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. I traced an outline for my cut, using a chrome finger guard for a tempate. I then made the cut with a jig saw. Although the cut was easily made, like a hot knife through butter, the plastic merely bubbled up and fused behind the blade. I had to make the cut several times, and work away at the weakened plastic with an extremely sharp knife to get the hole completely finished.

The final results look "ragged" even though I scraped and filed away a lot of the rough edges. However, a black plastic fan filter covers the hole nicely and it looks very professional. I even have a couple of small red neon lights positioned behind the filter. The red glow coming through the filter looks really sharp. (Or as the wife put it, "it looks like Satan is coming out of there any minute." 😀

As soon as my 60mm to 92mm fan adaptor gets here from CPUFX for my SK6 I'll post some updated pics.