- Joined
- Jul 20, 2003
I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that, like me, don't want to drill a hole in their metal case or simply don't have the tools to do it properly.
I had one of those HD/Case fans in one of my 5.25" bays pulling cold air into my case. It's basically a plastic bay cover with slots cut into it and three small fans attached. It was ok, pulling a little air into the case and was definitely better than nothing.
I wasn't quite getting the intake that I wanted and of course considered drilling a hole into my side panel to blow air directly onto the CPU, but unfortunately I live in a city apartment and just don't have the kind of tools and workspace I need to pull off such a task. Then I noticed that if I pulled the 5.25" bay fan I'd have three free 5.25" bay slots. I remembered that I had a ton of plastic 5.25" bay covers laying around, looked at the 92mm fans I bought, and had an idea. Basically I wanted to stick three 5.25" bay covers together, cut a hole in the middle of them, and mount a 92mm fan on them to create an removable blowhole in the front of my case pulling a large amount of air into my case with low noise.
The only real tool I had was a soldering iron, no dremel or drills, so I took what I had and went to work. First I took three of the 5.25" bay covers, layed them down on a flat surface, and simply used the soldering iron to melt them together at the edges. This worked great and was very sturdy. If you're going to do this be sure to frequently clean the soldering iron with a damp sponge and try not to lean directly over the burning plastic. Good airflow in the room is a must as well.
Next I needed the hole in the middle, so I took the grill off the fan and used it as a guide to simply melt the hole in the plastic. This only took about 5 minutes and was much easier than I figured it would be. I cleaned the edges a little with a screwdriver, scraping away the melted plastic, and burned four holes for the mounting. To mount the fan I used all I did was take the plastic mounting screwed that held the grill on the fan. The grill is on the outside of the 3X 5.25" Bay Cover creation, the fan is on the inside, and the mounting screws keep it all together.
Plugged the fan into the PSU and kicked it on. Let me tell you, the airflow from this thing was at least 10X as much as I was getting from the other bay cooler and was MUCH quieter, I can't really hear this fan over my PSU and CPU fans. I then put the bay cover creation into the case and ran some load tests to see the change in temps from my old crappy one slot cooler. (Temps obtained using SpeedFan)
Before CPU@Load: 43-45C
Before Case@Load: 35-37C
After CPU@Load: 35-36C
After Case@Load: 29-31C
It's also worth noting that idle case temps are just a few degrees above ambient. Not a bad drop in temps for a 40 cent mod that took me in total about 15 minutes! What's really great about this is it's removable, and can be dropped into any new case I get that has at least 3 5.25" bays free.
This should work just the same with a 120mm fan, and I think that you could pull off the same thing with two bay covers and an 80mm fan.
For reference, my system:
MSI KT2-Combo-L Mobo
AMD AthlonXP 2400+
NVidia GeForce4 4200 with Thermaltake Geforce4 cooler
Soundblaster Live
TV WonderVE (this thing gets hotter than you might think)
3Com NIC
Trident PCI graphics card for 3rd monitor
Fans:
Thermaltake Volcano 9 with Smart Fan 2 run around 2500 RPM
80mm intake fan located at bottom of case
Slot Fan placed in PCI slot 2 under video card with PCI slot 1 free
80mm fan in PSU pumping hot air out
Now 92mm Bay Cover fan
All in all I'm quite pleased with how this idea turned out, it looks impressive, runs quieter than before, reduced temps quite a bit, and cost me next to nothing.
I had one of those HD/Case fans in one of my 5.25" bays pulling cold air into my case. It's basically a plastic bay cover with slots cut into it and three small fans attached. It was ok, pulling a little air into the case and was definitely better than nothing.
I wasn't quite getting the intake that I wanted and of course considered drilling a hole into my side panel to blow air directly onto the CPU, but unfortunately I live in a city apartment and just don't have the kind of tools and workspace I need to pull off such a task. Then I noticed that if I pulled the 5.25" bay fan I'd have three free 5.25" bay slots. I remembered that I had a ton of plastic 5.25" bay covers laying around, looked at the 92mm fans I bought, and had an idea. Basically I wanted to stick three 5.25" bay covers together, cut a hole in the middle of them, and mount a 92mm fan on them to create an removable blowhole in the front of my case pulling a large amount of air into my case with low noise.
The only real tool I had was a soldering iron, no dremel or drills, so I took what I had and went to work. First I took three of the 5.25" bay covers, layed them down on a flat surface, and simply used the soldering iron to melt them together at the edges. This worked great and was very sturdy. If you're going to do this be sure to frequently clean the soldering iron with a damp sponge and try not to lean directly over the burning plastic. Good airflow in the room is a must as well.
Next I needed the hole in the middle, so I took the grill off the fan and used it as a guide to simply melt the hole in the plastic. This only took about 5 minutes and was much easier than I figured it would be. I cleaned the edges a little with a screwdriver, scraping away the melted plastic, and burned four holes for the mounting. To mount the fan I used all I did was take the plastic mounting screwed that held the grill on the fan. The grill is on the outside of the 3X 5.25" Bay Cover creation, the fan is on the inside, and the mounting screws keep it all together.
Plugged the fan into the PSU and kicked it on. Let me tell you, the airflow from this thing was at least 10X as much as I was getting from the other bay cooler and was MUCH quieter, I can't really hear this fan over my PSU and CPU fans. I then put the bay cover creation into the case and ran some load tests to see the change in temps from my old crappy one slot cooler. (Temps obtained using SpeedFan)
Before CPU@Load: 43-45C
Before Case@Load: 35-37C
After CPU@Load: 35-36C
After Case@Load: 29-31C
It's also worth noting that idle case temps are just a few degrees above ambient. Not a bad drop in temps for a 40 cent mod that took me in total about 15 minutes! What's really great about this is it's removable, and can be dropped into any new case I get that has at least 3 5.25" bays free.
This should work just the same with a 120mm fan, and I think that you could pull off the same thing with two bay covers and an 80mm fan.
For reference, my system:
MSI KT2-Combo-L Mobo
AMD AthlonXP 2400+
NVidia GeForce4 4200 with Thermaltake Geforce4 cooler
Soundblaster Live
TV WonderVE (this thing gets hotter than you might think)
3Com NIC
Trident PCI graphics card for 3rd monitor
Fans:
Thermaltake Volcano 9 with Smart Fan 2 run around 2500 RPM
80mm intake fan located at bottom of case
Slot Fan placed in PCI slot 2 under video card with PCI slot 1 free
80mm fan in PSU pumping hot air out
Now 92mm Bay Cover fan
All in all I'm quite pleased with how this idea turned out, it looks impressive, runs quieter than before, reduced temps quite a bit, and cost me next to nothing.