Rate my airflow!

khare

khare

khare

Associate
Joined
26 Aug 2010
Posts
186
Location
South UK
Hi guys, could you tell me whether you think the airflow is alright in my case? If you see ANYTHING that would improve it then tell me please!

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1 intake 120mm fan at the bottom on the front, getting slightly blocked by the HDD's (about half of the fan actually goes over the HDD's)

1 80mm exhaust fan at the back, it's directly in line with the CPU cooler, so the hot air the Akasa fan is blowing through the heatsink is then getting taken away by this 80mm fan.

1 80mm intake fan on the side panel. This is roughly around where the two PCI-e connectors for the graphics card is. It is the lowest and further to the right (front of the case) I can get it. I did think it may be creating a vortex with the graphics card's fan, and after reading some cooling tips on the GTX 470 it seems that attaching an 80mm HDD slim fan (which is what I have on the side panel) directly blowing air into the card's fan seems to knock quite a few degrees of the temp charts.

Temps are as follow

CPU - Idle - 30-31C
- Load - 55-60C

Graphics card - Idle 41C
- Load 91C

Mobo - Idle - 27C
- Load 30C

Hard drives - main drive 27C (top hard drive in the picture)
- storage drive 29C

Please, share your suggestions :)
 
As has been said, get rid of the 80mm fans and replace them with 120's, then tidy the cabling. Try to run as many as you can along one line, and employ as many cable ties as is necesarry to keep them together, or out of the centre of the case. Some cables can be routed behind the MB itself (if they are thin enough e.g. fan cables) and take up as much of the slack as you can between the MB tray and the case side. This can sometimes make it a sqeeze getting the case side back on! :D

I can't see exactly where your intake fan is, in relation to your HDD's, but if you have less air resistance by placing one HDD in the top rack and one in the bottom rack it might be worth looking at.

P.S. Where is your PSU fan? If it is on the bottom of the PSU dragging warm air from above the CPU cooler it might cause turbulence. You would reduce any chance of turbulence by putting another fan on your CPU cooler (in PushPull) to bring the airflow from the CPU cooler closer to your new 120mm exhaust fan, giving the hot air a straight shot out of the back of the case.
 
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shadesofgrey said:
+ 1 million.



You seriously need to sort out your cabling for way better airflow also! :)
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:eek:

Sorted my cabling yesterday :( That's the best I could do really, having an IDE HDD makes cable clutter.


Moving my hard drives up can't be done, the GTX 470 is in the way.

Will get 2 new 120mm fans, they're the biggest and max number I can fit back and side (bottom side, as top side would interfere with CPU cooler). Can anyone recommend a wiring adapter for a molex pin to wire up 2 fans? At the moment I've got 2 molex adapters with 1 fan extension each, it's cluttering the system a lot!

I ran most of my cabling down the back, except the main 12v plug as it can't fit through any of the holes + it is too thick).
 
Tbh Khare, you may well be better off investing in a better air cooling case, Apart from what has been said already, there is not much else you can do unless you have an option to fit 120/140mm fans in the top, which I doubt as you have a top fitted psu.

You could consider some cheap alternatives to what you have case wise and these cases would give you excellent cooling over your existing case and miles more better cable management. Have a look at these.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-037-ZA&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=736
By all accounts this is a great case for the money and gives you many options for cooling and cable routing.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-212-CM&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=29

The obligatory CM690 2, It`s reputation speaks for itself and just like the above Zalman case would give you much better cooling than the case you have now.

These are just two examples and I am sure there are other cases that will do a lot more justice to your components...Your gfx card is not noted for being a cool card, though would benefit from a better case.
 
Yeah a better case would be nice, but I've spent far far far too much on stuff I didn't really need to buy (GTX 470, OCZ ZS PSU, 120mm fans + £50+ on brake parts for my car).

This money should all be going towards my race kart, as I need a new engine, so it's set me back 1/4 of the budget! :(

When money allows though I will buy a decent case, as it's something I've had in mind for a while now.
 
khare said:
Yeah a better case would be nice, but I've spent far far far too much on stuff I didn't really need to buy (GTX 470, OCZ ZS PSU, 120mm fans + £50+ on brake parts for my car).

This money should all be going towards my race kart, as I need a new engine, so it's set me back 1/4 of the budget! :(

When money allows though I will buy a decent case, as it's something I've had in mind for a while now.
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I used to race Karts myself so I understand how much new engines cost!!:eek: What class do you run in btw? I used to race in club races some 25yrs ago, around the same sort of time as Button and Wheldon when they were in Cadets..Was a fair bit cheaper then as well. Off topic I know...sorry.

Hope all goes well with the case cooling....Btw you could hook up another 120mm fan in your drive bay as an intake, might need a little bit of modding with some zip ties.;)
 
There's a 120mm intake fan already on the front, by the HDD, came as standard with the case.

I'll be running Rotax Max next year, at Clay Pigeon (where Button and Wheldon raced). I've got everything apart from what makes it move! Need engine, exhaust, airbox, sprocket, lap timing gear and transponder. It's about £1300-£1500 I need.

Raced last year in Brazil alongside names like Rubens Barrichello, Nelsinho Piquet, Christian Fittipaldi, Tony Kanaan, Arnaud Kozlinski, Davide Foré, Danildo Dirani and a load more professional drivers. Was an 11 hour race, with 59 teams and between 4-8 drivers per team, Le Mans style. With the equipment we had (the HRT of karting) I managed to get within 1.1 seconds of the fastest lap of the 11 hour race, set by a Swedish team.
Going back again in 2 weeks to race, race due on the 10th of December.


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khare said:
There's a 120mm intake fan already on the front, by the HDD, came as standard with the case.

I'll be running Rotax Max next year, at Clay Pigeon (where Button and Wheldon raced). I've got everything apart from what makes it move! Need engine, exhaust, airbox, sprocket, lap timing gear and transponder. It's about £1300-£1500 I need.

Raced last year in Brazil alongside names like Rubens Barrichello, Nelsinho Piquet, Christian Fittipaldi, Tony Kanaan, Arnaud Kozlinski, Davide Foré, Danildo Dirani and a load more professional drivers. Was an 11 hour race, with 59 teams and between 4-8 drivers per team, Le Mans style. With the equipment we had (the HRT of karting) I managed to get within 1.1 seconds of the fastest lap of the 11 hour race, set by a Swedish team.
Going back again in 2 weeks to race, race due on the 10th of December
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Yes I understand what you mean in regards to the 120mm fan in the front of the hard drives, though you could add another in the drive bay above, thus giving you unrestricted airflow from the front, As all the 120mm fan is doing now is blowing air at your hard drives, this would create more positive flow in the case and might give you better cooling.

All though not upto speed in the karting world nowadays, I do know that Rotax max is not cheap to run in, what is the support like at clay for tkm extreme? I have heard that this is quite cheap compared to other classes and quite fancied dipping my toes in the water again and Tkm sounds pretty much up my street, depends what tracks support it though, I am close to bayford and buckmore and rye house as well.

Must have been nice racing in brazil with established stars, I must admit though, cant understand why Davide Foré never got into cars:confused:
 
Yeah Rotax is pretty expensive to compete in, but then again karting in general is expensive. The TKM are a lot cheaper to run and maintain, however chassis setup is very limited and engines are all sealed (as with a lot of classes), so if you're a large chap you'll struggle staying in front. I was thinking about TKM, but due to my size (6ft and 80kg, although I'm aiming for 72kg or so, was at 92kh about 6 months ago, so half way there) I chose Rotax, suits me much more as I find it a more competitive class.

Clay pigeon run all classes apart from shifter as their straight is not long enough. TKM is very popular there.
 
khare said:
Yeah Rotax is pretty expensive to compete in, but then again karting in general is expensive. The TKM are a lot cheaper to run and maintain, however chassis setup is very limited and engines are all sealed (as with a lot of classes), so if you're a large chap you'll struggle staying in front. I was thinking about TKM, but due to my size (6ft and 80kg, although I'm aiming for 72kg or so, was at 92kh about 6 months ago, so half way there) I chose Rotax, suits me much more as I find it a more competitive class.

Clay pigeon run all classes apart from shifter as their straight is not long enough. TKM is very popular there.
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I would have thought this would make the racing more close though and sort the men from the boys so to speak, The problem me and my father had when I was racing was that it was never ending trying to keep up with the jones`s and the cost`s soon spiralled out of control, I so badly wanted to race on a level playing field but it was impossible on our shoe-string budget!!
 
teejay73 said:
I would have thought this would make the racing more close though and sort the men from the boys so to speak, The problem me and my father had when I was racing was that it was never ending trying to keep up with the jones`s and the cost`s soon spiralled out of control, I so badly wanted to race on a level playing field but it was impossible on our shoe-string budget!!
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You'd think that, but because you can't adjust camber, caster and a few other bits and bobs you're stuck with a neutral handling chassis. Also in TKM is usually really lightweight people that race in it, so if you're 6ft and anything over 70kg you're going to be struggling to keep up with the lightweight drivers.
 
Just wondering for when the fans get here (tomorrow hopefully). The one at the back will obviously be exhaust to get rid of the hot CPU air, what about the side one? Shall I put it as exhaust or intake?
 
They arrived friday, installed, great success, although my storage HDD has stopped working? Don't think it's got anything to do with having 2 120mm fans running off the same molex rail, but removed this HDD anyway as I was going to make room inside the case.

Gotta say, system is much quieter now, runs a fair bit cooler and the fans look great. Thanks for the recommendations guys, will get a few pics of them when I'm home later this evening.
 
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