Case cooling, educate me....

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So I need a new case. I cant afford to spend much so was thinking of buying a cheap case but then installing 2 good quality, near silent fans, one front and one rear.

A couple of questions.
Is the 2 fan set up OK?
Is a base mount PSU case better for cooloing than a standard top mount?
Finally, have been looking at cases with lower front mesh portions for the front fan, solid sides rear vents and possible top vents. Any thing I should look for, pros/cons? Was told side fans can cause poor air flow?

TIA.
 
A 2 fan set up has a limit of how much air it can move, obviously, but 2 fans should do a reasonable amount.

Some things to bear in mind:
1) You have an extrator fan on the power supply, so if you put the cases 1-in-1-out then you actually have 1-in-2-out, giving negative air pressure
2) Negative air pressure isn't as good as positive air pressure... it sucks dust in through various vents etc and makes your case dirtier
3) Air flow (the path the air takes) is as important as the amount of air you're pushing into and out of the case. If you're pushing cold air in, then it goes out again without going near your components, you're not going to cool them as well. Try to funnel your air from intake, past the hot components and out again.
4) Side fans can be bad, disrupting the airflow, although they can also help depending on setup. If you have 2 fans, don't add a third side fan as it will disrupt the airflow. if you have 4 intakes and a couple of exhausts, though, then you're pushing air round the case fast enough that things will get cooled anyway. KEEP CABLES OUT OF THE WAY
5) Top mounted CPU is better for cooling if your only exhaust is on the back. If you've got a dedicated exhaust fan on the top, however, then I'd rather have the CPU at the bottom where it's got cooler air itself. Top exhaust fans can get rid of the hot air for you.
6) More fans isn't necessarily better cooling. Too many exhausts can mean you divert the air so that it bypasses the components. Too many intakes can end up countering each other's pushing effect so that your air inside stagnates etc.

The best thing to do, in my opinion, is to take air in at the front and exhaust it at the back and/or top, taking in more air than you exhaust so that your fans push the cold air at the components, where it heats up and rises/is pushed to the top by the new air coming in, and is exhausted by those fans.

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Here's my setup, if it helps.

I've got my case set up so that I have 3 fans plus the PSU. Two intakes on the front, one exhaust on the top and the PSU exhaust. The two intakes are filtered to remove dust, and are set quite fast (my rule with intakes is to speed them up until they get annoying, then reduce them back to low). The PSU fan is quite slow anyway, and the exhaust on the roof is set to about half the speed of the two intake fans. The side vents are sealed up with tape, although there are still a few small gaps between the DVD drive and blanking plates etc.

Inside my case the CPU (tower) cooler is set up to draw air from above the GPU and push it toward the top of the case. The end result is that cold air is pulled in the front, where the two intakes push it over the hard drives (cooling them) and toward the GPU. The air from the top fan passes above the GPU (cooling the top a little) and is pulled upward by the CPU fan, cooling the CPU/memory and motherboard heatsinks. The air from the lower fan heads straight toward the GPU, passes through the GPU cooling and then is either pulled out by the PSU fan at the bottom or rises (being warmer now) with the other cool air from the top fan, via the CPU etc.

This gives reasonable cooling to all the main components and because the two intake fans are faster than the two exhausts, they push more air in than the exhausts pull out. As such, there is a little more air in the case than outside (positive pressure) which pushes a little of the air out through any gaps in the case etc and keeps the dust out while providing a little cooling to those components on the peripheries (which don't need as much cooling anyway.

My temperatures are normally
CPU (idle): ambient plus a couple of degrees
CPU (load): 40*C (winter), 45*C (summer)
GPU: 70-80*C
Nice and cool :-) and I'm only using 3x 120mm fans.
 
I was looking at cases around the £25 mark and then adding 2 120mm PWM fans at around £10 each. If I could get a half decent case already set up then so much the better.

Im not bothered about looks, just quiet functionality. My son spent over £100 on his case and whilst its very good quality and looks good, its excessive for my needs. A simple case with fans is good enough for me!

I built a PC for my youngest son for Christmas and he got a few bits from my old system. Well, 8Gb of ram and my Asus GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II TOP. All in a £12 Casecom case. Plain and simple, does the job. Its hidden under a desk and is quiet.

The case fans will be PWM controlled so I guess I could set the front one at a higher speed.

With all our pets arounds...dust and hair invariably finds its way in to the filters on the case!
 
What cooler and GPU fan cfm do you plan to use?e... Because you need more airflow through case than cooler and GPU flow to even stand a chance of removing heat as fast as it builds. I use 3x TY-140 series fans for intake, no vent grill on exhaust and control all with cpu fan PWM control. Idle is 650-700rpm @ 2-5c over ambient and 950-1050rpm @ 23-28c above ambient 100% load all cores. Case temps are never more than 2-4c above ambient.

Best bet would be to find a good used case.
 
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To be honest with you mate if your after a case for good airflow and cooling i think you would be lucky to find anything for 25 quid. Your better looking at starting at the £40 + range to get anything half decent

Here's the one i use on this pc but i paid 40 quid for it if you can find it anywhere
the case comes with fitted a 120mm intake at the front and a 120mm at the top rear as an exhaust the case can be fitted with another two 140 / 120 mm on the top of the case and two on the side
http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=6640
 
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Okay you need an equivalent fan to TY-140 series the HR-02 uses to match it plus whatever GPU flows.. probably about the same as a TY-140 does. That's 2x TY-140 intake fans. Open all unused PCI slots, cut out the rear vent grill and build a duct from back of cooler to vent so none of the heated air from cooler recirculates inside of case. I would suggest a 3rd TY-140 series fan to help move more air out because your GPU is dumping it's heated exhaust everywhere in case with no way to try and get it out without it mixing with air coming in. A case with 2x 140mm front intakes and 1x bottom intake.

Wouldn't hurt to have one of the front intakes in 5.25" bays directly in front of HR-02 so you have cool air in > HR-02 intake > HR-02 exhuast > duct > back vent.

2nd front and bottom intakes > GPU > blowing everywhere but front/bottom flowing back/up so fresh cool air can reach GPU intake/fans.

I don't like that case.
 
The corsair case looks ok but have a good look round, thats the kind of case and quality i would be looking at . With having a gpu like the twin frozr or pretty much any none reference card whilst it keeps the gpu cooler it dumps the heat into the inside of the case putting more importance of having a good airflow through the inside of the case.

Any particular reason your going with the Thermalright cooler ?
 
I'd agree with Danny77. I don't think I could consider a case under £50 these days.

I've got a Phantom 410 and it's great.

Currently my fan setup is 2 x 120mm intake > 1 x 120 deflector on the back of the HDD cage, angled about 25° upwards towards the the GPU/CPU > On my CPU cooler I've got 2 x 120mm fans in push/pull > 120mm rear exhaust & 140mm roof exhaust.

My PSU intakes from under the case and out the back.

Current figures at the time of posting:

Ambient: 22.8°c
CPU (WMP, firefox open case fans @800rpm): 29°c
CPU (loaded earlier during 3Dmark test): 50°c
GPU (idle): 37.5°c
GPU (loaded earlier during 3dmark test): 51.5°c

All fans except CPU cooler on fan controller on manual, each at 800rpm. CPU fans on PWM. ~650rpm (idle), ~1800rpm (load)
 
The corsair case looks ok but have a good look round, thats the kind of case and quality i would be looking at . With having a gpu like the twin frozr or pretty much any none reference card whilst it keeps the gpu cooler it dumps the heat into the inside of the case putting more importance of having a good airflow through the inside of the case.

Any particular reason your going with the Thermalright cooler ?

The 660 is a fairly low powered card and temps seem to be quite low compared to others.

Ive been reading reviews and looking at videos etc for days looking for a cpu cooler. Im on a budget here so Im just trying to get the best I can at a price I can justify. Im running a stock cooler at the mo and its quiet. My main issue is noise. It has to be quiet.
I picked the Macho as some use it as a passive cooler so my take on it is I can use it with the fan on low speeds and get the cooling I need. Its already more than I wanted to spend, was originally looking at £25-£30. Same as the case, you get what you pay for I guess.
 
So many choices.....if my cpu doesnt fry, my brain might!!!

Will read up and will place an order tomorrow. Thanks for the pointers so far!
 
Just out of curiosity as i dont think i've seen it anywhere, is this a full build your doing or is it just a new case and cooler your looking to order for an existing set up
 
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