Improving case cooling

[gangster]

I personally only draw air out of the case, I don't "push" any in from the front. Over pressurizing the case can cause hot pockets in the lower part of the case from turbulence around the cards.

On the other hand, a side mounted fan over the cpu is good because this is adjacent the exhaust fan near the cpu and is like cross-flow ventilation. I wish I had a case with this option.

I use all the rear fans possible and because the fans are on the back and not the front, things are quieter.

This also seems to reduce dust in the case as there are no fans near the floor.

[GNEP]

I've gone watercooled. No problems and there really is no danger unless you are really silly and do something like pour water directly onto the mobo.

Net result: low case temps (radiator is remote from the case), v. quiet operation (1x slow 120mm on the rad, 1 x 80mm in the case - that is all apart from the PSU which is now the noisiest bit in that particular system). Oh and a Barton 2500+ at 3200+ speeds at stock voltages. Which is nice.

[Liquid Snake]

Yeah I know watercooling is good for temps, but I'm not willing to try it on my system. At this point, I'm thinking about a new case. I'm looking for a large case similar to my current one but with 120mm fans. Do you guys have any suggestions?

[MultimediaMan]

Things to Try...

Codegen's Monster S-101 comes to mind...nice big rear 120MM fan. Lots of room for more fans. LOTS of room period. It's little brother, the 9001, is also a decently easy-to-cool case.

I just moved my fileserver into my 9001; SuperMicro P370DLE, Dual P3, a decent supply of RAM, 4 Channel IDE RAID, 4 HDDs, CD-ROM, Floppy, etc...it has the potential to generate a lot of heat.

I went on a serious noise control program on that machine, as well as one other (my Smoothwall) as they run 24/7/365.25,

The intake fans consist of 2x 80x25mm Vantec Stealths,



Blowing cool air over the HDDs:



the exhaust fans are 2x 80x25mm Vantec ThermalFlows, the 60MMx25mm CPU fans are Panaflo Medium Speed (~4,500 RPM) Models. The PSU is an Antec True 430Watt PSU, the Exhaust fans on the Antec are thermally controlled as well...



The SmoothWall is built on a very compact AT Form Factor case, but the motherboard is a Tyan Slot-1 440BX-Based model, and supports ATX PSUs. I put a single 80mm Stealth at the intake of the case, and modded an Inwin 300 Watt ATX PSU with a Vantec Thermalflow Exhaust Fan. Both of these cases rarely go above 1-3 degrees above room temperature.

The SmoothWall is hard to hear at any distance at all, while the duallie's CPU Fans are definitely audible, they are not offensively so. I may try and go with Vantech Stealth 60x25MM Fans for the CPUs, or set a pair of 60mm ThermalFlows to pull air through the Heatsinks to see If I can get the duallie a little quieter without raising CPU Temps too much.

I REALLY like the Thermalflows: Self-governing for minimal noise, yet they have the capability to increase their speed and flow if the situation warrants it, They have 2 to four pin power leads with a single speed sensor, so you automatically have a motherboard header saver.

[Liquid Snake]

The S-101 looks like a decent case, but according to <A HREF="http://www.codegengroup.com/proddetail.asp?id=142">this Codegen page</A>, it only has 80mm fans. Is the site wrong or outdated?

The other cases I've been considering are the <A HREF="http://www.addtronics.com/7896A.htm">Addtronics 7896A</A> and the <A HREF="http://www.coolcases.com/cases/sr104_s_p1.html">Chenbro SR-104</A>. The 7896A has a 92mm exhaust where my current case has a 60mm exhaust. It also has a 120mm and 80mm intake in front of the case. The SR-104 has an intake and an exhaust that both take either 92mm or 120mm fans. It also has a 92mm exhaust up top where the HD cage is.

What do you guys think about these cases?

[NuGGeTTi]

Go watercooling! its not that expensive and it cools good and is quiet!