Case temperature Define R4

heighnub · 11 Jul 2014 at 11:03

Hello all,

I'm a bit worried about the temps of components inside my case.

I'm running a Fractal Define R4 with the two fans it came with, one front intake, one rear exhaust. PSU airflow is isolated due to case design.

HWMonitor shows SYSTIN going up to 56 degrees when in a long gaming session and about 35 degrees when at idle.
The rear case metal and side window are warm to touch.
The room is fairly warm, my cheapo wall temperature sensor shows 26 degrees but it could be faulty O.o

Is it possible that the fans aren't exhausting enough of the hot air? Or should I be looking at another intake?

Cheers

William-Mathew · 11 Jul 2014 at 11:05

What are your specs? 56 degrees sounds about right, after about 1-2 hours of battlefield my system is about 60

heighnub · 11 Jul 2014 at 11:21

i7 4770 (idles at 31 degrees) and R9 290 non-reference (idles at 40 degrees).

The R9 290 goes up to 86 degrees when gaming which seems a bit high for this card (MSI gaming edition) and is the whole reason I am investigating my case temperatures.

William-Mathew · 11 Jul 2014 at 11:34

Are the fans on 20% in the CCC? If so turn them up a little. CPU seems fine

heighnub · 11 Jul 2014 at 11:43

The GPU fans are idling at 18% which is silent.
At 86 degrees the GPU fans go up to ~70%, which is a bit louder than I'd like but which I could learn to live with (it is still quieter than my last card!).
The thing is - I see people with the same card having 10 degrees lower temps at full load, so am wondering if it is my cooling set up rather than the card itself.

William-Mathew · 11 Jul 2014 at 13:10

Its probably because you only have 1 input and output fan, see if you can get hold of some more fans and hopefully that will make a difference.

Mal X · 11 Jul 2014 at 14:07

yours comes with only one input fan, the lower fan you have to buy, but that lower fan is blocked by the Hard drive tray, so you might have to remove it.

i would deffo fit a lower fan and remove that stupid tray, find somewhere else to put your drives.....DONT BLOCK the lower fan..any fan

you might also need to get one of the roof fans working as well, choose the fan closest to the rear face.

ttaskmaster · 11 Jul 2014 at 14:51

Silly question, but... Have you dusted the PC out, lately?

I recently switched my rad fans back from push to pull and there was a *thick* carpet of dust between the two, with a solid coating on the inner surface of the fans... and I obsessively dust my rig out at least every two weeks, with a full strip-down dust once a month!!

If you haven't done this, grab a small paintbrush (I use a ½" one) and an air duster, then give it a good scrub out. Hold the fan blades still and be gentle when you do those, else you may damage them with the bristles/air.

Something else you can do is to add more fans in the top, to exhaust the hot air. I find my GPU generates a fair bit of heat, so shifting it out is always a good thing.

heighnub · 11 Jul 2014 at 15:41

Thanks for all the advice so far.

I did do a good clean of the fans + filters when I installed the 290. TBH, the inside of the case doesn't get that dusty (thanks to the filters). I haven't done the CPU heatsink but not too worried about that at the moment.

I think I will buy another case fan and experiment with an additional input fan. Looking at the Phantek 140mm ones, seem to push more air than the ones that came with the case!