weird observation regarding cooling and airflow

[flexy]

hi,

i thought this might be interesting. I did some testing running motherboard monitor showing me my case/cpu temps.
I have an enlight 7237 case, XP1800@XP2000....alpha8045 hsf, sunon 80mm fans.

I mounted one sucking fan in the front of the case, and i have one fan in the back, blowing out, in addition to the fan on the cpu/hsf sucking air from the cpu

I opened the case and leaned the case side-part tilted on the side of the case - with huge gaps open, because i thought i might get better cooling this way than with the case side shut tight. (I had some problems with my gfx card overheating)

The funny thing is that i get considerable (3 or 4 degrees) higher temps on case and cpu now with the huge gaps *open* - as soon as i CLOSE the side part of the case i can see the temps dropping like crazy again to normal levels. (I have never seen cpu temps as high as 49/50 before as i did with my case *open*).

It seems as if a closed case provides *considerably* better airflow...the warm cpu air blowing to the side of the case and this heat directly getting sucked out by the fan in the back - and when the case is slightly open this warm air rather seems to be trapped/stuck around the mobo instead of being blown out.

I wonder if i would get even better temps if i close the ventilation grids on the side of the case.....so that there's a straight/undisturbed flow thru the case...hmmm

 

[sohcrates]

yep, airflow needs basically a sealed environment to "flow" through

i've found that with my case open, the air just "sits" there as you described....really, the only advantage to taking the sides off would be if you put a big house fan blowing into it (which many people do)