Coolermaster Elite mods - worth it?

Adrianr

Adrianr

Adrianr

Soldato
Joined
3 Feb 2008
Posts
5,566
Hi all,

Currently have a Coolermaster Elite 330, was pretty much the only thing i could spec within budget. Obviously a good case is a main factor in decent cooling, and i'de like to bring all my temps down with a better airflow.

The elite 330 has one front 120mm intake, one 120mm exhuast, and thats your lot. The psu sucks some air out aswell obviously.

Currently the front Sharkoon 2000 makes a racket at full whack, and its at the bottom going over a hardrive and subsequently under the GPU, so i was thinking of mounting another in the optical drive bays and running both at a slower speed. The optical drive bay fan could then better feed the CPU cooler, and the lower can concentrate on the hardrive and GPU. Possibly even tempted to put a smaller exhuast fan under the GPU as it doesn't have dual slot cooling (8800GT).

I've also considered a TRUE 120 with 120mm fan to aid in my CPU cooling. This Freezer 7 is very loud at full chat and im still quite sure the fan doesn't have the oomf to properly push air through the fins. Never feels like it anyway! That would mean a straight-ish line of three 120mm fans to cool and exhuast the cpu heat. Would also of course go over the ram.

Essentially, is it worth it? Putting another 120mm fan in wont take a lot of work, neither will a smaller one near the gpu, but will i just be fighting a loosing battle with airflow? Or should i just stump up for a p182? (I'm a student, so just 'stumping up' isn't always an option!)

Many thanks! :)
 
I have the same case as you mate and i find it to be excellent, virtually silent, quite attractive and cool as hell.

Can you list the other components that you have, it may help people in coming up with a solution to your dilemma.

My specs can be seen in my signature below, both front and rear case fans are very quiet, i placed my HDD in the second to bottom slot, i know this impedes the front intake fan by a few mill but this does have the added bonus of cooling the HDD nicely.

My front intake fan is spinning at about 800-900 RPM, the rear fan is spinning at about 1100 RPM, CPU Cooler hardley ever comes on (CPU idles at 19 degrees on both cores, 38-40 degrees under full load)

The Graphics card i have is the noisiest component in the case and that is very quiet aswell, and a nice healthy 31 degrees off load and about 40 degrees when playing games etc.

I should state that my CPU or RAM is not overclocked, but the GPU is slightly overclocked.
 
Last edited:
I'd go for the extra fan (maybe replace the other front one aswell for sharkoon 1000?), and possibly put them on a fan controller. That's what I plan on doing, along with adding a fan to the side panel to blow some more air over my passively cooled graphics card.
 
Yeah no worries :)

Asus P5k-E
Q6600 @ 3.4ghz (Hits 70C under Prime small fft's, so i stopped there)
4GB Geil Black Dragon 1063 5-5-5-15
8800GT 700/1750/1900
250GB WD Hardrive

Rear exhaust fan is the standard one that comes with the case. Probabaly not the best for airflow but i can't really hear it.
Front fan is a Sharkoon silent eagle 2000, which you definately can hear!
CPU cooler is an AC7 pro. Which when you reduce to say 60% in speedfan, there is a noticable difference in noise. I didn't quite realise how loud it was untill one day i was walking up the stairs into my room and i could just hear this bloomin fan noise!

I like yourself have my hardrive in the second from bottom bay. Front fan blows air over it nicely and towards the GPU so that can suck up some fresh air. Problem is i don't see how it could really help up-top with the CPU and Ram with the GPU being so long. Also the GPU has the meshed side to blow air out of (kinda) but nothing to forceably exhaust it as such. So i bet it gets pretty hot in that little area.

Am i asking to cool too much in this case? Or would my planned mods be worthwhile?

Edit: A fan controller is also something i've been looking into. In this case would it be better to get another SE 2000 and slow it down? Or a 1000?
 
Last edited:
I quickly became out of my depth when i saw your spec mate...obviously its more power hungry than my lowly system :-)

what speeds are your case fans running at as a matter of interest, and if they are running at full RPM how much does it affect temps when you reduce their speeds.

Have you checked the GPU temps using GPU-z or similar software?
 
Haha, doesn't make your advice any less worthy mate! :) It's the reason for the case, spent all the money on the guts!

Speedfan only reports 2 fan speeds. Aux0 @ 1110rpm, CPU fan @ 1786rpm (set to 60%). Doesn't see anything else. Any ideas?

RivaTuner puts the GPU temp under 3Dmark06 @ 80C tops. Usually hovers lower. Idle is 55.
 
The Aux01 fan will be the rear fan, mine is also the standard CM one, running at 1150rpm, and I also can hardly hear it. What I can hear over everything is the 80mm amber fan currently sitting at the front.

The silent eagle 1000's run at half the speed of the 2000, and at only 19db instead of 36db, so swapping to them should really help with the noise, though they give away 40cfm to the faster ones.

It should be pretty easy to add a fan to blow out of the expansion slots under the GPU if you don't have any extra cards.
 
-Exodus- said:
do your temps drop if the side panel of the case is off? and by how much
Click to expand...

Yeah but only a little. Coretemp reports CPU at 33C with side panel, 30C without (Not including core discrepencies, but all drop by the same). RivaTuner reports a GPU core 7C drop from 55 to 48. Hardrive according to Speedfan drops from 34C to 29C.

Slowrunner: Would i not be better off getting another 2000 and a fan controller and dropping them to 1000 that way? So if for any reason i need it to really hoon out some air with no noise worries i can just throw them all back up again?

No extra cards and Crossfire is a long way off yet, so maybe the lower mesh part of the side panel would be ideal to tab another exhaust fan onto.
 
Ahh yeah it might be wise to get just the extra 2000 and stick them both on a controller then.

Think I'd rather have a fan on the lower side vent blowing onto the GPU then sucking away from it though.
 
With side panel fans the best way to go is to try it yourself both as an intake and exhaust, it depends on fan strengths and set ups as to which works better to drop temps

Naud
 
Yeah i'l have to give both methods a try. I'm pretty sure the front lower 120mm fan provides the GPU with enough air so im guessing an exhuast on the side panel will be the better option.

Only problem now is, adding all this extra kit up price wise, im pretty much half way to an Antec 900!
 
Hi Adrianr,

Im very interested in the mods that you are about to carry out, especially the mounting of the fan in the drive bay, any chance that you could post a few pictures after or even during the mods?

Good luck
 
Certainly can mate. I'l try and note down as best i can before and after temps aswell :) Unfortunately i dont have anything to measure noise so i'l just have to give a verdict on that as and when!

Edit: TBH fella this isn't going to be needing anything more than 4 zipties. Took the front end of the case off and removed the blanking plates underneath the optical drive,

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2083/2350996808_1334d0bea1_o.jpg (Excuse the bad photo)

Whack a 120mm fan in that with zipties at the corners, job done i reckon! Doubt you'll get any rattle if you do them up well enough. Won't look pretty, but then you won't be able to see it, So who cares!
 
Last edited:
Yeah zip-ties or even bungees will suffice seeing as the fan will be hidden.

Adrianr said:
Only problem now is, adding all this extra kit up price wise, im pretty much half way to an Antec 900!
Click to expand...

Eh? £8 for an extra fan and £10 for an Akasa 3.5" bay fan controller?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom