Seeking airflow advice from those more knowledgeable/experienced than I.

[chadomaly]

I am puzzled as to how I should arrange fans inside this case. I have a radiator mounted to the bottom of the case, with fans mounted on the inside, preferably pulling outside air through the radiator and into the case (outside air should be cooler than inside, thus pulling in rather than blowing out through radiator). However, with the other fans, I am not sure how to arrange them as far as intake or exhaust. The two fans pulling through the radiator are relatively high flow 120mm fans, so I'd want to suck enough exhaust out to even out the pressure inside the case. Exhausting the front fans would be a pain because it would require cutting 4 blowholes in the front plastic bezel, and I'm not completely confident in my ability to cut plastic and leave the resultant hole in a presentable state. The following diagram shows roughly what I am looking at.

Case Diagram (63kb)

If I could get suggestions regarding airflow, I'd appreciate it, because I don't want a bunch of hot air swirling around in the case and not getting sufficiently exhausted. Please justify your reasoning so I can understand your suggestion, instead of just listing #s and exhause/intake flagging.

Thanks in advance

 

[boyRacer]

Why do you have a radiator?... watercooling? ...anyway with two 120mm fans down there... it would be best that you have more fans uptop so you have airlfow going through the whole motherboard... having exhaust fans right next to the intake fans is somewhat ineffective.

<--- not an expert on airlfow

 

[amcdonald]

In your situation I would simply make room for more fans up top. In order to get to where your fans are working efficiently you'll have to cut down on the intakes and/or add a lot more exhaust fans. Adding several fans (like 3 high output 120mms or something equvilent to help balance airflow) would let you keep all the lower fans as intake to make sure your cpu, radiator, and drive bay all get a ton of fresh air.
If you aren't into cutting, I'd remove the drive bay fans altogether, and maybe leave 1 as an intake depending how hot the drives get in a test, undervolt the back intake near the cpu, and leave the 2 up top exhausting.
Important question - are you highly concerned with noise?

 

[OulOat]

Originally posted by: crleap
I am puzzled as to how I should arrange fans inside this case. I have a radiator mounted to the bottom of the case, with fans mounted on the inside, preferably pulling outside air through the radiator and into the case (outside air should be cooler than inside, thus pulling in rather than blowing out through radiator).

If you have good circulation, it shouldn't matter where you place the radiator. In fact, I would place the radiator as the exhaust because I would rather have slightly (+1 or 2 C) warmer air cooling my radiator than have hot air cooling the rest of my components.

The two fans pulling through the radiator are relatively high flow 120mm fans, so I'd want to suck enough exhaust out to even out the pressure inside the case.

Positive pressure is good. It keeps the dust out. Sure, it would reduce the efficiency of the intake fans, but overall its a good thing. You probably only need two 80mm exhaust fans, with the positive pressure they should work better.

Exhausting the front fans would be a pain because it would require cutting 4 blowholes in the front plastic bezel, and I'm not completely confident in my ability to cut plastic and leave the resultant hole in a presentable state.

I don't get what you are trying to say here. You need bigger and more powerful intake fans because most bezels are teribbly designed for airflow (only good ones are Lian Li and Chenming cases). Thus, most cases' standard exhaust fan holes should do the trick.

The following diagram shows roughly what I am looking at.

Case Diagram (63kb)

You mean the big picture of FortuneCity web hosting?

 

[Davegod]

maybe being picky about the piccy but your mobo appears to be upside down

er intakes go in front-bottom corner, outtakes up high towards the back, roughly try and have equal air going in as out. stick to the 2 rules and cant go far wrong, although i'd add to try and put things spitting out lots of heat towards the rear of case... to get that hot air out as quickly as possible (even keep the radiator seperate from case completely).

 

[chadomaly]

yeah, the mobo mounts upside down because it's a WTX server case.

 

[Jhhnn]

With the whopper intakes on the radiator, you may not need any fans, other than the one in the psu. I'd try that first, then add rear exhaust if required. You want all the incoming air to come thru the radiator, for obvious reasons, so don't overdo it on exhaust. Shrouding the radiator fans will help achieve this, even if you use cardboard.

 

[Ketchup]

So, is this a water-cooling setup? I am guessing by the use of a radiator that it is, in which case, I don't understand why you need so many fans. I can understand the 120's to keep the radiator cool, but why do you need so many fans for the rest of the system? Usually, quietness is one of the advantages of a water-cooled setup. And if you are water-cooling your CPU (and possibly other components) you will gain nothing but a headache by having all those fans!

Again, I don't really know what you are trying to do here. Please explain to us what you are trying to accomplish here (water cooling, air cooling, or both) and I think you will get more helpful replies.

 

[chadomaly]

It is a watercool setup, yes. At this time I only have the 120mm for the radiator, the other fan places I indicated are just possible places (i.e. there are blowholes in those locations). I have all the front ones covered at this point in time and not using them with fans... I just wondered if you guys would suggest using any of them. I don't really care about noise, as the computer is in another room.

 

[kparis]

hmmm.....

i may not be that versed on water cooling, but since all/mot of the heat is going to be sent to the radiator, why in gods name would you want it to be intake fans??, ideally a setup like the geforce FX would be great (ie air warmed by radiator goes back out of the case) it should be easy enough to build an enclosure out of perspex. i've built one before but not for a radiator...... now since the bulk of your heat (CPU etc) is going to be dissipated by your radiator, essentially there should be very limited requirements for the other fans so i think that all you have to do is to balance out between exhaust and intake (ideally some extra intake in my humble opinion) i'd also invest in a fan conroller setup to be able to reduce fan speed, since unless you plan to SERIOUSLY overclock this machine, i think you've gone overboard on the fans.

if you DO plan to seriously overclock:
1) build the enclosure as discussed. a good 'trick' is to buy copper piping, fill it with metal shavings and seal at both ends. buy some copper plating (easy to cut with dremel or fret saw), and use it to 'augment' heat transfer between hot items (eg any 10/15k RPM HDD's you might have)
2) set all fans at the front of the case as intakes ( 1 -5)
3) for fan 8 instead of buying a 12V fan, take a look at the heavy duty 240V fans (we use them in big powerware UPSs) metal blades, insane CFM and set it as exhaust.
4) for PSU, just leave this as exhaust.