cooling: optimal airflow ?

[VJ]

Paddy:

Thanks! Guess I'll just have to seen how good it will be at keeping my (future) system cool.
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There seems to be a pocket of hot air at the bottom/back of the case and at the very top. I quite often see internal temps exceeding 40’c! Although some of this is due to the mass of SCSI cables.

Looking at the structure of the case, I would recommend having an exhaust fan at the top of the case. Unfortunately, as the both side panels can be removed, the top is part of the structural integrity… and it’s an expensive case to mess us!
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Aren't the two top-back exhaust fans sufficiant ? (I would think that if there is hot air at the top back, these fans would be perfectly located). I certainly don't intend to "hack" the case (knowing my DIY-skills ).

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The stock fans at the font do a great job at cooling my hot drives, but they just move the hot air back into the depths of the case. The exhaust fans are placed halfway up the case and so there is always warm air above them.
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As you say, the sucked in air from the front first passes the harddrives, so it isn't "cool" anymore when it reaches the mainboard. But above the back fans, there is the PSU (mounted on a plate). So is there still room for warm air above them ?

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I have minimised obstruction where possible, except for a few cables. The problem i have is there is no airflow between the PCI cards. Those Adaptec SCSI cards generate a lot of heat.
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Yes, I currently have only one 2940UW, but I will need to purchase a 39160 in order to fully benefit of the speed of my drives (esp. when I intend to add one more). Aren't the 40mm fans located near the PCI-cards usable for cooling PCI-cards ? Perhaps with a fanduct ?
Most of my other PCI-cards aren't that hot though. As my system has fewer drives than yours, cable obstruction currently doesn't really seem a problem for me (I still manage to tuck away the cables nicely )


Jörg

[Paddy]

hehe! I'll look out for that fan ducting! I would be interested in using those 40mm fans to exhaust some of the hot air from the PCI cards...

[VJ]

I don't know if it exists with 40mm fans (if you find anything, could you post it here ?). But those blowholes just seem to be in the right spot...


Jörg

[SCompRacer]

Originally posted by Paddy [MU]

Looking at the structure of the case, I would recommend having an exhaust fan at the top of the case. Unfortunately, as the both side panels can be removed, the top is part of the structural integrity… and it’s an expensive case to mess us!

The PC70/75 has two channels under the top panel that stiffen the case so a 120mm blowhole doesn't cause a problem.

[Paddy]

cool! I would want to mount a radiator there!
Where did you put your rad?

[Paddy]

Where did you put your rad?

Cool pics!!!! Just saw your sig. Is that a BlackIce rad???

What other kit did you use?

[SCompRacer]

Hi Paddy,

It's a Black Ice Extreme ducted to ambient air with a 85CFM 120mm Panaflo fan. The Extreme is slightly larger than the Ice. I had to cut a hole in the power supply support and make a new rear mount plate to flip the PS right side up in order to put it there. I had tried a 6" x 6" core up at the top under the blowhole but the results were not too good. Then I decided the water should do more than cool so I made the lit reservoir and put that beneath the blowhole. Kind of entertaining watching the water flow with the lights under the reservoir.

I am using two Maze3 water blocks from Danger Den and an Eheim 1250 pump.

[Paddy]

Does the whole rig make much noise??? What sort of temps are you getting? (sorry VJ! for hijacking yourr thread)

[VJ]

Paddy:
Hey, no problem, the thread is about cooling and I am also interested in watercooling as means of silencing the case. (but I would love to be able to do it without much hassle. ) So I'm just following along now.

Jörg

[SCompRacer]

Thanks for the pass VJ!

I call the noise moderate Paddy. I have two 80mm Panaflo L1A's for exhaust, two Panaflo M1A's stacked at edge of MB ducted to the front intake and an 80mm L1A to cool the pump. The M1A's are connected to the 3 speed LianLi switch which is set on medium. The Eheim 1250 pump is sitting on some strips of closed cell foam and it is very quiet.

The 85CFM 120mm Panaflo on the radiator is the noise I hear, and it's mostly due to how close the fan is mounted to the BIX radiator core. The BIX is convenient to attach a fan too, but there is not much of a shroud. There is maybe 3/16"/4.7mm between the fan blades and the core so you get more of like a light howling noise. When I get a dead or cheap 120mm fan, I may cut the fan out and use it as a spacer. Then I'll mount the exhaust fan on the outside of case to give the blades some clearance.

Temps are as reported by Digital Doc5 flat sensors taped to the CPU's touching the core. There is no motherboard monitor for the Epox dually at present. CPU's are two MP1800's with no overclock. (The Epox M762A has no voltage adjustments for vcore or memory, just FSB up to 166. And your not going to get too high without extra voltage). Right now in an upper room which we use as an office, the ambient temp is 25.8C/78F. Loaded temp for CPU1 is 35.8C/96.6F. CPU2 is only .4C warmer. Load is two Genome applications.

The PC70 is a deep case. I have a tall but shallow full tower that I modded with a 120mm Panaflo L1A for the case intake. It worked great. Even with two 80mm high CFM fans at the front of the PC70, not much airflow makes it to the MB and cards. And all those little holes in the front cover don't flow much air anyway. Rather than enlarge the holes or slot them, I milled some rows of holes out and used black filter material behind the opening. I know side fans help but I don't care for doing it that way.

I was considering putting a 120mm fan at the front of my PC70 but decided to duct instead and stack the 80mm fans at the edge of the MB tray. That meant removing the drive carriage and mount bracket. Of course that mod depends on how many hard drives you have. I only have two X-15's to worry about and they are in the upper bays. I had left the drive carriage in place and mounted the water pump in the lower 5.25 bays but didn't care for it. With that variation I used part of the drive carriage for the duct to the fans at the edge of MB tray, so you couldn't fill the carriage with drives anyway.

[VJ]

I notice you have 2 5.25" drive bay coolers, did you ever consider watercooling the drives as well ?

I was considering watercooling as well, here is an interesting read: http://www.procooling.com/articles/h...xplained.shtml


Jörg

[SCompRacer]

Hi VJ. Thats a great place to pick up info, started there myself. They have a decent forum too. Everything from basic info to complex engineering discussions.

I considered water cooling drives, chipsets and video card but it adds complexity and reduces overall system flow. I am sure it could be done without CPU temps going too high but just decided to air cool those components for now. Some have posted that video and chipset blocks have raised CPU temps from 5-10C depending on block design and fittings used. I see higher capacity pumps and splitting the flow with multiple radiators for systems like that, especially if one overclocks to the max. They make a small 80mm size radiator for cooling chipsets and video cards. Some folks have used them for the CPU but report high temps. The small core area can't reject enough heat.

[VJ]

Do you know of any good kits for cooling (or links)? I'm not that much of a DIY-type (when it comes to drilling holes and such, installing stuff is no problem ), but I still might consider watercooling for my next system (most likely a dual AMD) mostly to silence it.

Jörg

[Greebe]

Innovatec makes good stuff as does Dangerden

[VJ]

Perhaps a strange question: in a dual CPU system, how do you arrange the waterflow ?

reservoir -> pump -> cpu1 -> cpu2
or
reservoir -> pump -> split to cpu1/2 -> recombine
or
reservoir -> split -> pump1/cpu1 + pump2/cpu2 -> recombine (or perhaps there are pumps with 2 outputs ?)
...


Jörg