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radiator mounting idea

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Posidon42

Member
Joined
Jun 4, 2003
I am still pondering on whether I want to get into water cooling and I am trying to figure out how and where to mount all of this stuff in my case. Right now I have a Chenming tower case that is pretty common in the mod community.

What I was thinking about was removing the lower hard drive cage and installing my radiator, fans, pump and water block in the vertical space under the top hard drive cage. But in order to keep temps nice and low, my idea was to blow the air through the case from the side.

The air flow would be like this:

Side of the case - fan - radiator - fan - other side of the case.

Has anyone ever tried this? I know I saw something about this in another forum but I have no idea what to look for or if it is even worth all the effort.
 
I would put the radiator right below the hdd/floppy you might need to move some things to fit it there but that is the best place in my opinion. Good luck if you do watercooling.
 
That is pretty much what I had in mind. I was going to squeeze the rad and fans inbetween the fdd and hdd cage and the custom reservoir/pump assembly. It should be very cool if I get around to building it :)

Trying to decide on fabricating my own case as well. I just don't like what is available right now.
 
the rad right in the bottom, near the front intake fan is the most popular spot to put a rad.

A. you are bringing fresh air in from the front of the case then that passes through the rad to the case.

Also, just a word of advice If you are going to watercool your rig, this doesn't mean you don't need any case ventillation :D

that is still required due to the other components inside of the case.

*OMG OMG OMG....I'm in here, I can't get out....Someone get shadow :eek: *

scoobie
 
Side to side is actually one of the most effective configurations possible :)
Room air into the rad and then back out to the room- no "used" warm air going back into the case.

Admittedly it is a VERY slight difference but if going for the highest performance possible....thats the way to go.

Most of us also use the radiator/fan assembly as a case intake because the difference in air temp IS so small and it cuts down on the total number of fans needed: as stated above, water cooling doesn't get rid of the need to keep your case cool.
 
I was planning on using some other fans for the case cooling, but I was really just looking to see what people's opinion on this mod would be. I know that it is the optimal solution, but since I don't see it done that much, I was curious if I would see any better performance.

To test my theory, I just made a ducting mod (ghetto cardboard power!) and it lowered my cpu temps by about 3C, and my case temps by 5C. Not too bad eh? Now all I have to do is figure out how to mod my case door to fit the duct...
 
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