Case Air Flow, best cooling solution

Devil_Spawn

Devil_Spawn

Devil_Spawn

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Currently i am building a budget gaming pc, and to increase the amount of money spent on components, i am going to stick with my current case.
The case is an atx case, and all it has as far as cooling goes is two (i think 80mm) fan grills on the back.

Unfortunately unless i have a real overheating problem the case will need to be enclosed in a small space, there is a small amount of room at the sides,top, and the front and back will be left clear.

the system will be somewhere on the lines of a q6600,8800gt. with an ak-965 cooler.

What alterations to the case would you advise?
From speaking to a few friends, they say that one of the best methods is to add an exhaust in the top of the case is this a good idea?
Should it be near the front or the back?
should i make some big holes in the side of the case to add fans?
Which should be exhaust and intake? what size fans should i use?
and should i remove the fan grills at the back to improve the air flow? (they are quite bulky)

thanks for any help!
 
Firstly, have you made sure a decent heatsink and graphics card will fit in it ? a lot of basic cases cant fit them.

Regarding modifications, id say its pretty hard to tell without seeing some pictures of the case insides/ outsides.

Personally id be doing as much as i could to replace the (noisy) 80mm fans with 120mm fans.
 
PICS!
(ignore the rest of the room ;p)
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Well looks like you got room for an 80mm fan on the front and room for 2 on the back, I'd have the front as intake, and the 2 at the back as exhaust, however I'm not too up to date on 80mm fans so someone else will have to advise you on which to get

Naud
 
I had one of those awesome car mats when i was little, hours of good clean fun to be had in your bedroom.

I say throw the Rig outta the window and get the matchbox and corgi cars out again, no need to worry about noise and temperatures that way.
 
naudiz said:
Well looks like you got room for an 80mm fan on the front and room for 2 on the back, I'd have the front as intake, and the 2 at the back as exhaust, however I'm not too up to date on 80mm fans so someone else will have to advise you on which to get

Naud
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although there is a fan space at the front it is almost impossible to get any air going through without removing the from panel. would it be a good idea to cut a hole in the front or something? if i remove the panel completely i lose some of the front usb ports, and it looks a little ugly)

does the case look like it can fit a desent heatsink + graphics card?
 
Biggest problem that I can see is your airflow is seriously restricted by the fan grill patterns on the case. Barely any air will be able to get through those. If I were you I would get a couple of standard fan grills and remove the built in ones with a Dremel or similar. This will really improve the airflow.

Also, do yourself a favour and get a can of compressed air and dust the fans that you have in there. There's nothing like dust build up to hamper cooling.
 
Diggsy said:
If I were you I would get a couple of standard fan grills and remove the built in ones with a Dremel or similar. This will really improve the airflow.

Also, do yourself a favour and get a can of compressed air and dust the fans that you have in there. There's nothing like dust build up to hamper cooling.
Click to expand...

yeah, i mentioned that in my first post :p... i will definitely give it a go.

and as far as dust in this current pc goes, i really dont care. im sick of this pc and cant wait to get rid of it!

(although until i took the picture i didnt reallise there even was a dust buildup.. must have only cleaned it out 2-3 months ago tops, and the pc was on when i took the photos, so i couldnt see it until i saw the pic)
 
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:p that'll teach me to read the whole thread first!!

Yeah, get shot of that dust, especially in the CPU heatsink, will make quite a difference.

As for the layout, 1 fan at the front drawing in, then 2 at the rear exhausting. If you can lose one of your optical drives you could even slap something like a Kama Bay in three of your 5.25 slots. This has a 120mm fan installed and will really help cooling.
 
Diggsy said:
:p that'll teach me to read the whole thread first!!

Yeah, get shot of that dust, especially in the CPU heatsink, will make quite a difference.

As for the layout, 1 fan at the front drawing in, then 2 at the rear exhausting. If you can lose one of your optical drives you could even slap something like a Kama Bay in three of your 5.25 slots. This has a 120mm fan installed and will really help cooling.
Click to expand...

Hadn't thought of that, a Kama bay or similar might really help

Naud
 
if you look at the front of the case you can see there isnt exactly much space for air to come in at the front (5 puny holes), what would you suggest i do about that?

also, i like the look of those kama bays, very tempting.

edit: what would you call a generic kama bay? (not scythe brand or w/e)

also, wouldnt having the intake higher up spoil the air flow? or would it be good?
 
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Having the airflow higher up like that will not spoil anything. It took quite a bit off my temps adding one.

What you will find is that you will effectively have a nice flow of cool air if you install a fan at the bottom, the Kama Bay and 2 fans at the rear. The rear fans will drag the fresh air from the front over all of the components.

If you don't want to spend the money on the Kama Bay, I guess you could remove the bay covers and bungee mount a 120mm fan in there. It would look very unfinished though.
 
you are missing my point about the front fan slot...


i overlayed a couple of identical pictures of the front of the case one with the front case panel on, the other off
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the red circle is the only holes for air to get to a fan placed in the front slot. I cannot just cut a hole in the front of the case because some of the power buttons are in the way

err... what should i do?
 
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If there is not already one there, you could cut a rectangular section off the bottom of that front panel - the bit that sits on your floor, and make sure you have feet on the case, or failing that, use something else to raise it a little.

You would be surprised how much air a fan can draw in through a reasonably small opening.
 
From what I can see there are 3 onboard fan headers. If you need any more, then I would get a fan controller.

The Akasa Jnr would be perfect, it takes 3 fans and costs less than a tenner!

EDIT - you could also buy a couple of 3 pin fan splitters. A couple of quid each, but if you do, be careful not to connect 2 high speed fans to one header on the board as you could potentially overload it and damage the header.
 
would that akasa controller connect to a molex connector or something on the power supply then?

how does the sythe kama-bay connect to the power?

thanks for all the help!
 
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