The ins and outs of airflow

[1sikbITCH]

Can someone please point me to an informative article or guide on proper airflow for a case?

Or, I'm sure there are plenty of good theories right here.

Here is my case.

2 fans in the rear, one on top and one on the side. In addition, there is one that can be mounted in the front, but there is no hole there. It would just be circulating air across the harddrives.

Currently, the one on the top is intake, and I will be getting a filter ASAP. We have dogs and cats and dust everywhere no matter how much we clean.

The two in the rear are blowing out, as is the fan on the side. The CPU fan is the Thermaltake Volcano 11, and the CPU is a 1700+, not OC'd until I work out the cooling and buy one of those SLK800's I keep reading about here. I should have read a few posts before I ordered the Volcano 11.

Suggestions?

 

[boyRacer]

You need airflow going across your motherboard from the bottom to the top if possible... You should mount a fan in the front too... it doubles as an intake fan and a cooler for your hard drives...

 

[BG4533]

Remove the intake and exhaust grills and replace them with wire grills. No matter how many fans you have in your case those will only be causing more noise and adding restriction. You seem to know most of what is important about cooling already. Also, make sure to try and keep cables and everything else out of the way of your fans, they will block airflow.

Brian

 

[deerslayer]

My suggestion:

Cut out the fan grilles.
Intake in the front.
Intake on the side.
Exhaust in the rear.
Exhaust at the top.

Feel under the edge of your front bezel, there is probably some sort of opening there to allow the front fan to suck air in. If not, I would consider trying to make somewhere for air to get in, depending on how comfortable you are hacking away at your case.

The side intake will pull cool air onto the HSF, and the rear fans will pull the hot air from the HSF out.

With an exhaust over your HSF, assuming your HSF is pulling air down onto the heatsink, you're trying to pull air away while it's trying to pull air in.

Heat rises, so an exhaust fan at the top of the case would make more sense IMHO.

 

[1sikbITCH]

Thx guys.

LyNx01, indeed when you lift the front of the case up you find a space underneath for intake.

Now it makes sense that you can put either a 120 mm or 80mm there.

 

[deerslayer]

Glad to have been of assistance

 

[1sikbITCH]

Very nice!!!

By switching the fans and adding the intake in the front, my CPU temp is now only 1 degree celcius higher than the case temp, and is at 32 celcius idling, and 38 celcius after 15 minutes of UT2003.

Before, idle was 40 and with UT was 50 and that was 8 degrees higher than the case temp.

Now I can start to think about OC'ing a little.

 

[0roo0roo]

side intake, front intake, rears out flow. cut out holes, those will destroy airflow. cheap cases require cutting its that simple. positive air pressure is best if you want dust filters to work. fold ide/floppy cables, zip tie everytthing else.

 

[Derick]

Overclokers- Cooling-The Definitive Guide

 

[Crucial]

hearing stories like this make me wonder how many stability problems could be cleared up with a little research.