I think Bartons are rated to about 90 C, not that I would want to get anywhere near that. To damage it, it would be still higher.
> a properly setup case cools better when closed.
If this happens often, I would be surprised. Whenever I open a case, a blast of hot air hits me. No way it's as cool as it could be inside. The air circulation might be poorer past the CPU without the case side channeling the air, but the air that gets there is so much cooler that the net effect is a cooler CPU . IAC you could fix the air flow pretty easy and do even better with an open case.
People have unrealistic ideas about air flow. First of all they believe the fan rating. They believe that a fan with the same rating but from a different manufacturer is moving the same amount of air. They think a 40cfm fan is moving 40cfm of air in/out of their case. That 40 cfm is with no restriction, no back pressure. The slightest restriction will cut the movement drastically. They think a front fan will move about as much air with an array of little holes as an inlet and a plastic bezel in front of it is as if nothing were in the way. From the looks of it, the holes amount to maybe 1/4 the area, and the front bezel could not be over 1/20th. They think an air filter maintains about the same air flow. They should figure it is maybe 1/5 or 1/10. So they've got a 40cfm fan or two howling away and air barely drifting into the case. But all the things in the way do block the noise quite a bit.
Next, they think this air flow, whatever the amount, is getting to their CPU. A strong CPU fan sets up a recirculating current of hot air through itself blocking and diverting the general air flow around the area it dominates. A small amount of the general flow is caught in the CPU circulation to supply cooler air. What the case fans really do is reduce the temperature of the air that mixes into the CPU circulation. Almost all of the air entering and exiting the case is diverted around the CPU. What would be most effective is a strong current to inject a volume of cool air into the CPU pattern, and at the same time set up a flow exiting from the CPU. A high volume fan, with nothing in the way, directed at the CPU at a 45 degee angle inclined toward the rear case fan does this pretty well.
The engineers tell us that the main function of the CPU fan is to supply air turbulance to the HS fins. It scrubs away hot air sticking to the fins similar to the way the agitator in a washing machine scrubs away dirt sticking to clothes. I have noticed that very powerful CPU fans in addition cause a huge blast of air to exit near the base of the HS. Depending on what is in the way to block it, this blast is strong enough to enlarge the circulation pattern, so that it picks up more cool air. The style of HSs with lots of close-spaced fins does this less.
To enlarge a little on the illusory cfm rating of fans; fans without a baffle surrounding them have a large "short circuit" current going directly from the front to the back. That is counted in the cfm of the fan, inflating the number. More often than not, that short circuit flow is not useful. If you block that flow with a baffle, you immediately reduce the cfm, athough you probably get get more air where it is needed. Depending on the manufacturers design, there may be more or less short circuit flow. Deep fans should have a little less (38mm vs 25mm.) Centrifugal fans (blowers) do have baffles. So their cfm rating is way below a similar size axial fan even though they might move about the same amount of air in a real-life situation.
especially using stock cooling
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