Antec 300 problem

fish99 · 30 Jul 2008 at 03:30

Hi,

Just put my old system together in my new case, an Antec 300. It's a great case and the build went smoothly, but some fan in my system is spinning up a lot, which never happened at all in the old case.

It can't be chipset since that's passively cooled, it can't be my VF900 since that's on a fanmate, it can't be the case fans since they're all either on a fan controller or have 3 way switches. So that leaves CPU and PSU. CPU temps look exceedingly good (with AC Freezer Pro), like 19/23 at idle (reported by coretemp) and nothing worrying under load, so I'm thinking it's my Corsair HX520.

With the bottom mounted PSU there's very little space under the PSU for air to get into it's intake, less than a centimetre. Anyone else had similar problems with the PSU location in this case? I suppose I could mount the PSU upside down maybe, but that might not be good for it, and my soundcard will block the air nearly as badly.

Btw the bottom fan cage on the front is currently empty, as is the side panel fan mounting. So I currently have 12cm exhaust, 14cm exhaust and single 12cm intake, which could be sucking air away from the PSU intake. I will be fitting another 12cm intake on the front in the future.

Cheers for any guidance,
Simon.

fish99 · 30 Jul 2008 at 13:29

Right, PSU upside down, soundcard moved up one slot, extra 12cm fan in the front, and ...... there's still some fan in there spinning up when I start up a game or use the CPU.

The air from the rear exhaust doubles when this fan spins up, but it can't be the exhaust itself cause it's a tri-cool on low, so it must be the CPU fan, yet temps look completely OK. I've just got it to spin-up using Super-PI and it's even doing it sat at the desktop with nothing running - this is with coretemps of 17 and 21.

I'm tempted to reverse the top fan and make to blow down rather than out, since maybe there's no air round the CPU fan - I mean there's two exhausts right next to it, one a 14 cm (above), one 12 cm, and yet the intakes are much further down in the case (because of the stupid bottom PSU idea).

It's not the PSU, I can see the fan and it's constant speed.

I'm gonna disable the case fans just to rule those out.

fish99 · 30 Jul 2008 at 15:05

Well having spent money getting my PC quiet I don't now want some fan spinning up all the time and trippling the noise, especially when just sat at the desktop running nothing. I want to understand why it's hapenning, especially when I've just gone to a better case with double the cooling, and I also want to be sure it's not a symptom of something that could do damage (like something overheating, or overloaded PSU etc).

fish99 · 30 Jul 2008 at 16:20

All sorted, thanks.

fish99 · 30 Jul 2008 at 16:42

Cheers, funnily enough it was just the tricool switch acting up on one of the new fans, must have a dodgy connection inside it . Last thing I expected.

fish99 · 31 Jul 2008 at 01:30

Ah, now that explains a lot

Top fan is an exhaust btw so shouldn't cause much dust to get in. The side openning is more of a problem though, whether you have a fan on it or not there's still dust going in there. I might try to rig up my own filter for it.

It's a smart looking case btw, I just need a black DVD and fan controller now since silver ones don't go