Silent Cooling Tips for Small Form Factor Cases?

[RichC]

Are there any after market solutions to help quiet my FIC Cube? It's hideously noisy. There's not much clearance between the HD and the CPU for a big heat sink.

 

[wisdomtooth]

You can try the Zalman CNPS7000AlCu... It's under 3 inches tall and might fit under your HD cage.

You might also consider drilling some ventilation holes in the PSU casing so its 80mm fan can help vent your case a bit better.

HTH.

 

[Zepper]

Hey OP,
. How about some links of front/back/inside pix so we can see whatcher workin with?

.bh.

 

[RichC]

Here are some pics:

Pic 1
Pic 2

I have about 2.5 inches of clearance between the motherboard and the hd case. The Zalman may be the right size, but it's much too big in diameter.

 

[Zepper]

Try the Spire Cool Wave II .

. And I have attached a 60 to 80mm fan adapter (semi-transparent blue/green) to the back of an Athenatech A100 so I could have an 80mm exhaust fan (metallized plastic with laser cut finger guard). Sometimes you have to think outside the box... 😉 I fed the power lead for the fan down the throat of the adapter to the inside of the case. That might give you one idea. Is there room for a blow hole in the top?

.bh.

 

[Bluefront]

Here's one thing you can do......remove your 3.5" drive, and substitute a new 5400rpm laptop drive. You won't notice much of a performance hit, and it opens up the case for better airflow, lower temps, and more room for a bigger cpu heatsink.

Also tidy up the wiring.....anything that improves airflow will allow better temps at lower fan speeds.

There's plenty room for improvement without adding a "blow-hole"....which usually makes computers noisier.

 

[Operandi]

Check out Alpha?s heat sinks they use 80mm fans; so if there is 80mm in clearance around the socket you should have no problems fitting the heat sink in your SFF.

 

[RichC]

My FIC Cube uses a squirrel cage type fan that I don't use because it's just too friggin loud. Even without the squirrel cage, I'm probably pushing 40+db with the cpu fan and the power supply fan. I won't be able to do anything aobu the PS fan, but I just need some extra cooling in addition to a new cpu fan. There may be enough room to fabricate a blow hole of some sort.

 

[wisdomtooth]

If you can modify your case to have a blowhole, you can modify your PSU housing to have a blowhole too.

Remember the key to quietness is to make your existing fans as efficient at ventilating as possible-- Adding more fans will only make your system louder. That means you need to make that PSU fan work more efficiently for you, which means you need to make the PSU housing vent better.

And you can also give the Zalman CNPS7000 a try even if the diameter might be a bit big-- The fins on that heatsink are so thin and light, you might be able to get it to fit by snipping off a few fin tips with a pair of tinsnips.

HTH.

 

[ubercaffeinated]

How exactly would he go about modifying his case to have blow holes? What kind of tools would one need to excise holes that would allow one to put in fans?

 

[wisdomtooth]

All you need is a power drill, a hole saw (3" for 80mm fans), an attachment for the hole saw, and a drill bit to drill the screw holes.

HTH.