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My low-profile lan party gaming system: Heat issues, suggestions welcome.

C

Cheetah8799

Diamond Member
Hi everyone, I normally don't ask dumb questions like this, but I was just hoping for some suggestions from people with a little more experience cooling computers than me. I am currently building a low-profile lan party gaming system. I know, that's not the brightest idea, but hey, I hate carrying my big mid-tower to all over the place!

Specs:
A-Open low-profile desktop case w/ 200w PSU Case Pic 1 Case Pic 2 Case Pic 3 Case Pic 4
ASUS A7N266-VM/AA micro-atx NForce motherboard Mobo Pic
AMD Athlon XP 2200+ 1.8ghz - NOT overclocked w/ low-noise CoolerMaster HSF @ 3000rpm
WD12000BB 120gb 7200rpm hard drive.
LiteOn 32x CDRW overclocked to 40x
GeForce4 MX440se AGP video card w/ 40mm fan added to heatsink.

Here's the deal, the system works fine, but there are general heat issues that I want to try to take care of. I am upgrading the video card to a Radeon 9100 64m AGP low-profile video card, which as far as I can tell it's the best low-profile card on the market. I'm expecting this card to put off more heat than the GeForce4 card, but I can cut more holes later if I need to....

My heatsink/fan on the CPU is so tall that it comes almost flush to the top of the case, so obviously that was a big problem at first. I have since chopped an 80mm hole directly above the HSF and put a grill on it, now the CPU gets nice cool air, but still runs a bit warm even with Arctic Silver thermal compound. The HSF also blocks the 80mm fan which blows air into the power supply unit. The air goes into the PSU, then is supposed to naturally blow back out the back of the PSU, but in reality hardly any air at all goes through it. Since chopping the hole over the CPU there is more air going out the back, but not very much at all.

The big problem now is that there is basically a wall between where the hard drive sits in the front, directly under the CDROM, and the back area where the CPU, PSU, and Video are located. The wall is caused by the IDE cables, power wires, and internal audio wires that pile up right there. The back area isn't very hot at all, but the front area is where the motheboard temp sensor is located, and the temperatures there are over 45C!!!! CRAZY HOT!!! So what I did is I took out the 3.5" floppy, since I really don't need it. I grabbed an 80mm fan and set it in place of the floppy facing down onto the visible half of the hard drive. With the top of the case off this caused the motherboard temp to drop to 30C. Much better. I decided to try facing it up and the temp started to rise.

Here's what I am thinking. I'll chop another 80mm hole directly above where the floppy drive goes, then stick the 80mm fan right there to blow MORE cold air inside the case. That way some of the cold air will go down into where the hard drive is located and then push that hot air out of the area. I might even build some walls around the fan so that it will direct the air down into the hard drive area. I'm also going to be down-grading the hard drive to a WD400BB 40Gig 7200rpm model, which will probably be just as hot, but it's not as big and expensive...

The issue now is that there will be LOTS of air coming into the system, but not very much going out where it needs to go out. The case is cramped, so I'm not sure where to put an exhaust fan. If I block off the new fan over the floppy bay so it's air directs onto the hard drive I should be able to put a smaller 40mm exhaust fan either between the Video card and CPU, or maybe further over on the opposite side of the video card. Or maybe put in 2 40mm fans, one on each side. I tried to fit an 80mm fan between the CPU and the AGP, but it just won't make it in there, maybe a 60mm fan will fit, but the hole and grill around it won't look right.

I know this case is becoming swiss-cheese, but it actually looks kinda cool with all the silver grills on the black case. Noise may become a problem, but I am going to experiment with setting the fan voltages down to 7v or 5v each. 12v on the current video card fan makes it more noisy than the CPU fan......


So, does anyone have any further suggestions that might help me? I've done a little overclocking in the past, but never had heat problems to this extent. The main issue here is getting the hot air out of the case and getting cool air in. The CPU is fine, but I'm afraid the hot air around everything else might take its toll.

Thanks in advance.
-Josh
 
Well you know what they say: There's no such thing as a dumb question. But dumb people seem to ask a lot of questions...
. What about mounting an 80mm fan to the outside rear of the case over the PSU exhaust holes to pull hot air out of the case? May need to graunch out some metal there for better flow or rig a duct, etc.
. And with that blow hole over the CPU, how about taking the CPU fan off of the heatsink and mounting another 80mm fan to the roof of the case right over the HS? It is likely you would get better cpu cooling along with added case cooling (there is a hot spot right below the hub of fans mounted right to the top of the HS). I don't know what size fan is on your HS, but usually 60mm. You could also get a 60-80mm adapter, mount an 80mm fan to your HS and have it seal right to the lid of your case with a ring of sticky back foam weatherstrip material.
Then there are flexible ducts, what about the bottom of the case (I see that there might be room on the bottom right front, in front of the PSU to put one of those axial slot cooler type fans with the intake side mounted to the bottom), etc. etc. Perhaps that'll get your mind cranking on all 8 cyl...
.bh.
Where's the :sun: ?
 
having that much cooling probably doesnt matter that much. the system will still run.


i've got an inwin l545 (very cramped case). with a barton 2500+, and a dynatron copperbase heatsink (same as retail 3200+'s come with). that fan is 5 volted with a zalman fanmate 1 to like 3400rpm so its whisper quiet, and partially obstructed by the cdrom.



i have one exhaust fan , which is a 60mm top motor also with a zalman fanmate running at 3100rpm. also quiet.

at load right now prime95 inch, my core is 64C and my case temp is 48C. yes that is hot, but the system is stable.
 
Zepper, the PSU output holes are only big enough for a 40mm fan. When I first got the system I did stick one there, but it has to sit at an angle for the power cord to plug in... I wanted to take apart the PSU and try to mount it internally, but for some reason it won't come apart! I pulled all the screws, but it seems like on side is glued to the internal pcb. Very strang.

As for the side intake right behind the PSU, I was thinking of that this weekend. There is in fact enough space, and I might just try it. I was also thinking that I could make the holes bigger near there on the bottom-side and mount a 40mm fan at an angle so that it sits lower.

That's a good idea though about mounting an 80mm fan directly to the top of the case. The fan on the heatsink is only like 65mm or some strange size, but I have others I can use instead to attach to the case. I think I'll try it tonight!

I removed the floppy drive and mounted a nice 80mm fan to the case where the floppy would sit. The floppy hole is open, but it's hard to tell that there isn't anything inside... The fan is 80mm, and I was able to cut 3 notches in the metal to screw the fan into. I am not sure if much air is coming in the floppy drive slot, but the motherboard temp near the hard drive is a lot cooler now!



hans007, I'm a little suprised your computer runs at 64C. Aren't you worried about things like your hard drive burning up quicker? I would imagine running a hard drive at that temperature would not be good for it. I took a look at a review for the case, and it is even bigger than mine! I was thinking of getting one that size so I could use full-size cards, but decided smaller was better... You should be able to lower those temps pretty easily with an intake fan. Unless if you are against cutting a hole in the case, I can understand that. It's kind of a pain in the ass to be cutting up a case.

 
Would you be willing to do a little surgery on the PSU case? You could put a hole and grille on the side of the PSU case, where the top of the PC case would be, and install an external fan to blow cool air in or help suck hot air out.
 
agreed, mobo sensors aren't always that accurate, but I thought maybe with newer motherboards they would have fixed that problem by now.

As for modding the PSU, yes, I would do that, but I have to figure out how to get the damn thing apart... Somehow it is stuck together internally, I don't know if there is some pressure point that causes it to un-clip something or what. It's very strange....
 
Looks like the PSU is screwed to the back. Once you unscrew it you should be able to lift it out, unless it's also screwed in from the bottom of the case. Perhaps there are some screws on the side of the PSU opposite the intake fan?
 
I've pulled the PSU from the case, and removed every screw I can possibly find. It starts to come apart, but one side sticks inside. I'm not sure why. It seems like maybe the board inside is stuck to the metal with glue or someting, not sure why they would consider that though.

I've pulled psu's apart before, this one is just weird...

-Josh
 
my sensor is based on the barton on core diode.


i actually changed some of the fans (the old 70x70x10 fan on my dynatron spun at 5600 rpm and made a lot of noise, replaced with a 70x70x15 generic i had that runs at 4200).



its down to 59C at load. before at load prime95 with the old fan at full 12V it'd run at 58C but was very noisy. i'm still tweaking it for the best balance of noise and cooling. yesterday was a hot day and it actually ran with the cpu at 66C for a while when i was testing it with the 70x70x10 cpu fan at 3400rpm

idle i get like 44C on the cpu which isnt terrible. ambient is like 40C though, but thats ok considering the cooling on this case.

and cheetah8799 i've had that same aopen case as you before, ... just couldnt get used to no ability to add cards.
 
ya, it's hard to get around the low-profile restrictions. ATI makes the Radeon 8500le and 9100 in low-profile versions with 64m ram. I just ordered one and am going to test it out. If that is not good enough, then I'll switch to a larger case.

This afternoon I swapped the heatsink on the CPU to an Alpha PAL 8045 that I had lying around. I then used a faster 80mm fan and mounted it directly to the opening in the top of the case as was suggested. The CPU temp has dropped 5C!! It only hit 51C max during gameplay, and the room temperatures in my office were over 91F I think... It was hot today in Minnesota...

 
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