Where to put extra 120mm fan?

[Goi]

Hi guyz, I have an Addtronics 6896A full tower case, and a lot of fans within it. These include:
1) 3 80mm intake fans in front
2) 2 80mm exhaust fans on opposite sides
3) 3-4 50mm exhaust fans at the back vents
4) 1 60mm exhaust fans at the back
5) 1 80mm fan blowing down on AGP/PCI cards
6) And of course my CPU/PS fan

I also have an unused 120mm fan that I would like to use. My question is where should I put it? I thought of drilling a hole on the side and mounting the fan so that it becomes an intake fan, blowing towards the motherboard where the AGP card and CPU lies, but would that be intefering with my fan #5? Also would that be too much intake, seeing as I already have 3 80mm intake fans?

 

[mechBgon]

How about using it to circulate air at your drives? It sounds like you have tons of intake/exhaust already.

 

[Goi]

Actually my drives are pretty cool, since the 2 80mm exhaust fans at the sides(fan #2) are right at my 5.25" bays cooling the drives.
What I'm concerned is that despite so many fans, my case temp is often 5-10C above ambient room temperature, so I'm thinking of using it to direct air towards my CPU, or around that region. However, in doing so, I'm worried that I might have too much intake. and not enough exhaust.

 

[helloedchen]

How about a 120mm at the top for a blowhole?

btw, ever have noise complaints?

 

[potac]

Yeah, how is the noise? Blowholes are good. How big of a power supply do you have?

 

[Chooie]

Forget the noise complaints, does your low flying computer ever show up on air traffic radar?

 

[kursplat]

i had a lot of space above my power supply so i cut a 120mm hole in the top, removed the wimpy 80mm fan and installed the 120mm on top blowing down through the power supply. i also put a filter on top of the fan so i wouldn't drop anything in it, what a mess that would be.
air out of the ps is now only 2-3c above case temp.

 

[Goi]

I'm not bothered by the noise at all, since my sound system is pretty powerful

Also, I'm using a 250W power supply on my 6896A, and its so far, so good. No problem with all my stuff connected, even with the 120mm fan that I'm gonna use.

The blowhole is an idea, but the trouble with the 6896A/7896A is that there isn't really much space for air to flow from the main motherboard area to the external drive bay area. The partition only has quite a small cutout, that I've already pretty much filled out when running wires and cables between the 2 sections. So, I'm concerned that even with a blowhole air might not have much space to flow up? Would that be a problem?

BTW, my PS is right at the top of the case, so there's no exhaust on top of the PS, the 7896A does though.

 

[cautery]

When I built Nomad (the server for the WarpCore Project), I used 2 x 120mm fans in it... One top, rear... above the power supply blowing out and the other one in the bottom of the case blowing in.

I would suggest that you cut a blow hole in the bottom of your case and put the 120mm fan there blowing in (mounted below the case) (you'll need to install casters or 1.5" minimum tall stick-on rubber legs). This will ensure that you intake the coolest air available. I put a filter on the intake side of the fan (which can be removed and cleaned without cracking the case).

Then try to balance the intake/exhaust CFM by reversing fan directions if necessary (with an eye towards exhausting mostly towards the top).

I have a 6896a as well, and with the drive bays fully populated, the two side fans do not really do all that much cooling/circulation..... I removed mine to reduce noise.... In my situation, the case was actually cooler up top since the vents were unobstructed and allowed more hot air to escape (I have a fairly large positive pressure on that case to keep the dust down, and I also spent about 4 hours painstakingly sealing every crack and crevice in the case... to include ducting the front vent/filter to the inner case so that there would be less dust blow-by if the filter was neglected too long....

Hope this helps...

 

[Goi]

Hmmn, the problem is that I didn't get the casters coz I didn't need them...and even if I did, my room is carpetted so if I were to put an intake fan at the bottom I think it'd be really dusty? Besides, is there even enough clearance at the bottom even with casters?

 

[Goi]

Hmmn...you know what? I think I'll go crazy and put 2 120mm fans, 1 at the side and 1 on the top
Or perhaps a smaller(92mm?) fan on the top...
Fans are cheap here anyway, and the drilling's free