Lian Li A10 - fan configuration and temps...

Legend · 19 Jan 2007 at 03:17

Anyone got this case? How have you got your fans set up? And what kind of temps are you getting? Just moved rig from a V1000 to the A10 and temps are noticeably higher by atleast 5 degrees. System is an E6600, Tuniq 120, Bad Axe 2, 8800GTX, 2GB RAM, x2 SATA drives in 3.5" bays, and a Raptor in a Silentmaxx enclosure in the 5.25" bay. I've got x3 Scythe S-Flex 1200 fans and x1 Noctua S12 1200. Any thoughts or advice on the best setup here? At the moment it's front and rear intake, top and side fan exhaust.

:rolleyes:

**This is a simply stunning case by the way! Build quality is second to none and better than the V1000 IMO, although the looks are subjective of course. I love it though. Reminds of the black monolith from Space Odyssey for some reason! The door on it is just pure sex - can't stop opening and closing it!

Now if I can only get those temps down...

WJA96 · 19 Jan 2007 at 09:22

Legend said:
Any thoughts or advice on the best setup here? At the moment it's front and rear intake, top and side fan exhaust.

Ok - I've not got one of these, but if you think about it it's very unlikely you're going to get good airflow with your current setup.

It sounds decidely over-fanned and/or you have the wrong CPU cooler for the case.

Lets start off with the CPU cooler - what's the orientation of the fan on that? You say you are blowing cool air in the back of the case, but extracting hot air from the top of the case. From the Lian Li catalogue on the desk in front of me it looks like the Tuniq will have to sit pointing towards the front or back of the case That means you have three roughly equally powerful 120mm fans all blowing air in different directions within 9" of each other. So that's probably a bad thing.

My suggestion would be (and it relies on the PSU fan being 120mm);

Turn off the top fan completely (or make it an inlet fan)
Make the rear fan an exhaust
Orient the CPU cooler so it blows towards the rear exhaust fan
Make the side blower an exhaust
Leave the front fan as an intake

This will give a decent high speed air jet across the bottom of the case from the front inlet fan to the PSU fan and the 120mm blower exhaust fan.

The top of the case will then be in negative pressure because you have the 120mm exhaust, the 120mm side exhaust both pulling air out and the CPU cooler will be pushing hot air in the direction of the rear fan.

The air entering the CPU cooler will be the air from the main body of the case, mixed with a little of the cold air seeping in from the top vent. You don't want to disrupt that airflow, hence I would recommend turning off the top fan completely.

Ideally I would duct the air from the 120mm top hole to the CPU cooler and then duct it again straight out the back of the case but leave the back of the CPU cooler open to remove the hot air from the main body of the case, but I think that's probably impractical.

Have a look at the Thermalright HR-01 with the rear fan duct. Then, if you set the top fan to be an inlet you would have a near perfect cooling flow and you would drop a fan from the equation too.

Legend · 19 Jan 2007 at 11:29

Thanks for that. Useful advice.

The Tuniq, being the beast that it is, will only fit so that the fan blows up or down - it can't be configured so that it blows to the front or rear - atleast I'm pretty positive it won't. I'll double check that measurement.

But if you're suggesting a fanless Thermalright HR-01, would that be enough cooling? Even with the rear fan in action, surely 2 fans would be more effective than one, or is it more complex than that?

My temps aren't exactly bad (just over 50 under Orthos test), so my system is hardly on the verge of meltdown. Just looking to get best possible performance.

WJA96 · 19 Jan 2007 at 11:55

Legend said:
Thanks for that. Useful advice.

The Tuniq, being the beast that it is, will only fit so that the fan blows up or down - it can't be configured so that it blows to the front or rear - atleast I'm pretty positive it won't. I'll double check that measurement.

That's a bit pants. I'll have to think it through again - probably with *** help of a few doodles on the back of a menu at lunchtime

Legend said:
But if you're suggesting a fanless Thermalright HR-01, would that be enough cooling? Even with the rear fan in action, surely 2 fans would be more effective than one, or is it more complex than that?

I can see what you are saying. It is a common misconception that the HR-01 is fanless. It's not, it just so happens that the fan is about 10cm away at the end of a duct. The only place that fan can draw air from is through the HR-01 so it's not fanless by any means. It is less efficient than having the fan hard-up against the cooling fins, but not significantly so.

Two fans fighting each other can be disastrous.

Legend said:
My temps aren't exactly bad (just over 50 under Orthos test), so my system is hardly on the verge of meltdown. Just looking to get best possible performance.

As indeed we all are.

cuke2u · 19 Jan 2007 at 15:43

Hi, by default Lian-Li setup the fans this way; top -in, rear - out, front -in, side -out, and this is the way I've got mine. I've also got my top fan connected to the front fan controller in case I need more cooling, but I've never had to.
There is a long thread here somewhere on this case, if you'd care to search for....
ChrisC

Legend · 23 Jan 2007 at 14:42

To resurrect this one, I'm in the process of tinkering with a few things and have noticed the following;

1.) The Tuniq, as mentioned above, can only be positioned so that it's fan is facing up or down in the case, not to the front or back. Having it facing up puts it right under the top fan. Now, I would think I would therefore want the Tuniq fan blowing up and out of this vent at the top? Correct? Should the top fan therefore be active and as an exhaust, or should it just be off altogether? Having it pulling air in would surely be counterproductive?

2.) The rear case fan is in line with the Tuniq, so is that ok to have as an exhaust still - i.e with the Tuniq blowing air up and out on it's top side, and then having the case fan pulling air out from the rear side? Is that optimum?

:confused:

Legend · 23 Jan 2007 at 23:34

Mmmm... despite being so positive beforehand, I've discovered the Tuniq WILL fit the other way round, so I can have the fan facing to the rear or the front! Looks like it may be at the expense of the top fan, but I won't know that till I slide the motherboard tray back in. Anyway, given this new discovery, I will have the fan blowing to the rear out the back exhaust. We shall see how my temps improve with my newly lapped CPU...

humax · 23 Jan 2007 at 23:37

will the motherboard go back in with a Tuniq fitted to it

Legend · 24 Jan 2007 at 10:03

You raise a good point. And 'no' is the answer. But I found a way round it, just had to slide the motherboard tray in a bit before fitting the motherboard to it, as the top corner of the Tuniq catches on a small section of the case when it's oriented this way. Bit annoying, but once in there it's fine. Still room for the top fan as well, although I'll just turn that off I think. Can't see a reason for it to be on. Will see what temps I get...

humax · 24 Jan 2007 at 19:10

nice one . think i might get this cooler also

Flanno · 24 Jan 2007 at 23:50

My girlfriend bought me this case for my birthday last week and have not got around to transferring my rig yet, but you have answered a lot of questions.

Unforturnately for me though, because I am using a 680i mobo and the cpu socket is positioned so high (unlike the bad ass mobo I had before) there is no way to mount my tuniq blowing towards the rear of the case as intended. I would have to remove the top 120mm fan which I do not want to do.

So I am thinking of going with your suggestion you made a few posts ago.

Mount the tuniq blowing upwards and reverse the top fan so instead of being an intake it's an outtake. And also leave the rear fan as an outtake. So that's 2 fans exhausting hot air from the cpu area with the tuniq fan blowing upwards. Seems to be the setup on the TJ09 and P180 and works. What you think ?

However that brings me to the question of air intakes. The GPU fan extracts hot air over the gpu using that duct thing. And the front fan at the bottom is really there to cool the HD. There is really no fresh air getting into the main part of the case. Bearing that in mind, I was thinking of positioning a quiet 120mm fan in 3 of 5.25" bays to blow cold air accross the NB. I have one of these Scythe Kama Bays (like a CM 4in3 module) which would do the job.

Other alternative is to leave the stock setup the way lian li intended and get a cooler which will fit without fowling the top fan and still blow towards back of case. That rules out the Tuniq, and pretty much the Scythe Ninja as it is so close to the top fan, the fan does almost no good. Maybe a Freezer 7 Pro. Any idea if the Zalman CNPS9700 fits without overhanging the top of the 680i mobo ?

Legend · 25 Jan 2007 at 01:34

Flanno said:
Mount the tuniq blowing upwards and reverse the top fan so instead of being in intake it's an outtake. And also leave the rear fan as an outtake. So that's 2 fans exhausting hot air from the cpu area with the tuniq fan blowing upwards. Seems to be the setup on the TJ09 and P180 and works. What you think ?

I think this would work well. Was what I was going to do before I realised I could mount Tuniq the other way round. I think either way is going to give similar results really, give or take a degree.

Flanno said:
There is really no fresh air getting into the main part of the case. Bearing that in mind, I was thinking of positioning a quiet 120mm fan in 3 of 5.25" bays to blow cold air accross the NB. I have one of these Scythe Kama Bays (like a CM 4in3 module) which would do the job.

True, there is not much air getting into main part of case, but I don't think this is big negative. All my temps are WELL within normal range, so I think another fan may be unnecessary. Don't see a need really, and would just add more noise. But if you have a bay, it's worth trying. See what difference it makes.

Flanno said:
Other alternative is to leave the stock setup the way lian li intended and get a cooler which will fit without fowling the top fan and still blow towards back of case. That rules out the Tuniq, and pretty much the Scythe Ninja as it is so close to the top fan, the fan does almost no good. Maybe a Freezer 7 Pro. Any idea if the Zalman CNPS9700 fits without overhanging the top of the 680i mobo ?

I think the Zalman would fit, although it does depend on the socket position on your mobo. I know it would fit on my Bad Axe 2. I don't think a Freezer Pro would compare with the Tuniq or Ninja when it comes to performance. The Zalman would not be a bad choice, although I hear it's noisy when it runs fast.

What is your spec? Woud like to know what temps you get when you have it all in there...

Flanno · 25 Jan 2007 at 01:46

Cheers mate.
Spec as in sig.
No 40mm fan yet for North Bridge so temps pretty high in the Mirage.
Abit uGuru says my Quad is running at 36 idle (as high as 40 depending on ambient temp in room). Add another 10 degrees if you use Core Temp to measure. To be expected though. These 680i boards use a lot of power and quads run hot on them. At least it does not go much higher then 50 in gaming. It does go over 70 in Orthos but you can't play that

Quads are good for up to 100 apparently (according to Orthos Tjunct measurement) :eek:

Anyway, will transfer innards this weekend.
Also waiting on new bios for Abit mobo, as multipliers are locked on extreme cpu's :mad:

WJA96 · 25 Jan 2007 at 08:29

Flanno said:
Other alternative is to leave the stock setup the way lian li intended and get a cooler which will fit without fowling the top fan and still blow towards back of case. That rules out the Tuniq, and pretty much the Scythe Ninja as it is so close to the top fan, the fan does almost no good.

I think you are correct as Tuniq will almost certainly be starved of cool air one way or another.

I have no idea if the fans line up correctly but have a look at the Thermalright Ultra 120 (with your favourite flavour of 120mm quiet fan) or the Thermalright HR-01-775 with the cooling duct. If you can get the cooling duct to line up (the Akasa Zen is perfect) this cooler works extremely well in passive mode.