Too many case fans?

[JulesMaximus]

Last night I decided to tear apart my case and see if I could:

a) tidy it up a bit more
b) lower the fan noise a bit (not that it was really loud to begin with)

So, I took it all apart and proceded to put it back together again.

One thing I noticed is that the fan I have in my side window was running full speed and making most of the noise. I also noticed that the chipset fan was not turning (I think this was due to the window fan blowing almost directly on it-it is mounted over the video card). I had a Zalman fan controller lying around so I put it on the window fan and turned it down to about 1/2 speed. My temps now are lower, the noise is much lower and the chipset fan is now turning again!

I also decided to axe the floppy drive and possibly the zip drive (I almost never use these devices so they are just using resources unecessarily).

Anyway, I learned that you can have too much cooling and it can have an adverse affect on performance. More is not always better. Cheers :beer:

 

[Blooz1]

I had a similar experience with a case I won in a contest. I spent the winter modding this case to include a top 120MM blowhole exhaust and a 120MM side intake (stock setup was 1-80MM intake, 1-80MM exhaust). All fans were rheobus controlled.

Yes, it was cool, but also noisy! Most of the time the blowhole fan was set on 5V. I wasn't really that happy with the overall look of the case, and replaced it with a case which used 2-120MM fans.(Compucase LX6-A19)

Surprise! Temps were the same, but with 1/3 the noise! And, as I again had the fans controlled by a rheobus, I could turn them down for acceptable temps and virtual silence when I wanted!

 

[0roo0roo]

must be a badly setup/ventilated case. only way a side fan would inhibit cooling is if it were fighitng another case fan. its also good to have potential cooling reserve, unless you live with ac. i use a fan controller my side fan allows me to turn off my vid card fan.

dust doesn't help either.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
must be a badly setup/ventilated case. only way a side fan would inhibit cooling is if it were fighitng another case fan. its also good to have potential cooling reserve, unless you live with ac. i use a fan controller my side fan allows me to turn off my vid card fan.

dust doesn't help either.

Nope, no dust in my case and it was/is not setup badly as you put it. The case is a Lian-Li PC-60 with two intake fans, one exhaust and decent cable management. I think the side window was simply causing too much turbulence and disrupting the airflow through the case. It is improved now with the fan controller and the side window fan turned down. I've never had unusually high temps in the case-just saying that it is cooler now. See the link below if you want to check out the layout for yourself.

I don't agree that 'potential cooling reserve' is something you should strive for. Adequate/near silent cooling is my goal or I would put a 20" window fan on the side of my case.

 

[0roo0roo]

..

 

[JulesMaximus]

In my example higher fan speed did not help cooling performance. In fact, it hindered it. Lowering the fan speed helped cooling. I seriously doubt that more fans would improve cooling any more than what I have now. My case temps are around 28-29C.

It never gets hotter than mid 70s F in my house even during the summer (I live near the coast in Southern California). Better cooling was not one of my goals when I started this project...it was just an added bonus.

 

[0roo0roo]

more fans lets you run em even slower = silent

 

[JulesMaximus]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
more fans lets you run em even slower = silent

You can only fit so many fans in a case.

:beer:

 

[0roo0roo]

depends on the case. chieftec/antec towers generally have atleast 5. 3 intake 2 exhaust. thats not bad already. and on other cases you might have to do a little modding to fit some more fans

both my cases have 5 case fans. some 92mm. in the winter i can basically crank them down to pretty much silence and thats including the psu fans which are also controlled.

if i do mass burning backup or harddrive trasnfers i have the option of cranking fans to compensate for extra heat