I need an opinion on this cooling equipment.

[dborden]

I currently have a Lian LI PC12 case with 2 80mm 32 CFM fans in the front and 1 80mm 32cfm fan in the rear doing exhaust. The HS/F is a Glaciator.

I am thinking of switching to 2 80mm 50cfm fans in the front, 1 80mm cfm fan in the back and a thermalright SK6 with a YS Tech 60x60x25mm fan 40CFM

Can anyone give me any idea on how loud this is going to be??? Also will this cool down my system much more than it is already. Reason I need to do something is becuase I am currently pulling 44/53C Load temps with my current setup on a 1.4 amd not overclocked at all. Yes I am using ASII and yes it is applied correctly. I am using PC health in bios and MBP in w2k for temp readings.

[Sonny]

Been doing a lot of reading on case fans & seems like the most common mistake is to put a ton of intake fans & just one exhaust fan. Why not try to have at least 15-20% increase in CFM at the exhuast side compared to the intake fans. You should get a drop in temps with this & keep things QUIET reason being that you don't need all those fans. Balance is the key not a leadfoot;)

[dborden]

All I did was increase the sizes of the fans all around. It is still the same percentage of CFM as it was before. It was 32 exhaust 64 front. Now its 50 exhaust 100 front....

[Sonny]

The exhaust should have MORE CFM than intake. If you can't take out the hot air inside you can't pump cool air in. If the exhaust CFM were greater that it would actually help to pull cold air in. Too much intake will cause negative pressure & you will not be able to really use all the fans at their best.

[SickBoy]

I've always been told that having a slight high pressure in the case was good - other than that you might want to check out your airflow and tweak it a little.

Ever look into a little light case modding? I added a 36 CFM sunon(in the side) ducted to my FOP32 and that helped my load temps a ton. I also added a small 60 MM Sunon as a blowhole which helps the case temps a bit but doesn't do much for the CPU temps. Taking a dremel to your case isn't too hard. The end result usually looks decent and if you add some sweet grills or filters it really adds to the visual appeal. (Functional and fashionable!!)

SickBoy

[chawken]

Actually, it is the other way around. Some will argue it - but positive air flow is better than negative. You should have more intake than output. In my main case, I have 590cfm inflow, and 500cfm outflow. The case stays at room temp. When my main case was at 450 inflow and 500 outflow, case temps would be about 4 - 5c above room temp. You should have about 10% more intake than output.

[dborden]

Does anyone know if this setup with the 50 cfm fans and the SK6 is annoyingly loud? Can anyone give me a comparison? Loud is fine as long as it isn't REALLY loud..

[chawken]

Originally posted by dborden
Does anyone know if this setup with the 50 cfm fans and the SK6 is annoyingly loud? Can anyone give me a comparison? Loud is fine as long as it isn't REALLY loud..

I have one rig with the SK-6 Delta 38cfm, 1 80mm Delta 68cfm intake, 1 80mm Panaflo 39.6cfm intake, 1 80mm Panaflo 39.6 output and replace the PSU fan with a Panaflo 39.6cfm blowing out. It was fairly load - a constant whine. What I did to eliminate about 50% of the noise was to line the case with egg crate foam. Still had good air flow, but a lot less noise.

Before the foam mod the noise level was less than that of an electric pencil sharpener, but more than one of those cheapy VCR tape rewinders.

[KaKa]

how strong is a 300 W PSU in outflow power??

[DaveB]

Fans, you don't need no more stinking fans. You simply need to duct some cool outside air directly to the CPU HS Fan. Here's how I got my temps down really easy and very inexpensively.

I recently put a Thermalright SK6 with a 40 cfm YS Tech fan on my 1.4 GHz Athly which is running at 1.612 GHz. Intially the temps, using regular white compound were:

Idle - 43C
Max Load - 48C

I noticed that even with the case open, there was a lot of hot air hanging around the CPU. I reasoned that the CPU HS Fan was therefore mostly sucking in heated air to cool the CPU. Not good I thought, so I went to Lowe's and a bought a $10 2-1/2" (64mm) hole saw. It's really a drill bit you just stick on any old drill you have laying around the house. Measured the point directly over the center of the YS Tech fan and drilled the hole. The drilling took less than a minute. Put the cover back on and took a 2-1/2" cardboard tube from some gift wrap and made a duct to bring fresh air right to the HS Fan. This took another minute or so (I just left it hanging out of the hole for test purposes). The results:

Idle - 38C
Max Load - 43C

Wow a 5C drop in idle and load temps for a two minute case mod. Then I thought, I wonder how much some really good thermal compound would help? So I borrowed some original Arctic Silver from a friend. I figured since I'm the one who told him about it he ought to at least let me use a drop or two. It's a little thicker than Arctic Silver II but works exactly the same. New results:

Idle - 35C
Max Load - 39C

When I say 39C, that's only a momentary peak. The max mostly stays exactly at 38C. Anyway, the moral of the story is, cut a blow hole in the side of the case and duct outside air directly to the CPU fan. Don't bother with another fan, you don't need it. The CPU HS Fan can suck in it's own nice cool outside air without any help. The next time I'm at Lowe's or Home Depot, I'll pick up some PVC tubing to finish the duct off a little nicer. Then put a nice 60mm fan grill on the outside to trim it off. Oh, BTW, the ambient case temp stays between 29C and 30C in case you're interested.

[AMDGuy]

I'd suggest dropping the fans altogether and running a water cooled setup. Fans are only gonna take you so far. I have the same chip (1.4gig T-bird) and to get to 1.6 I had to up the voltage to 2.0. My idle temps with my watercooling setup and WW bios on KT7AR is around 32C with a room temp of 27C. My full load temps are around 53C. My watercooling is just a basic setup with nothing fancy but seems to get the job done.

It's also quiet. I have three fans in the system. A 120mm drawing cool air from outside the case over the radiator and a 92mm fan exhausting hot air out over the PCI slots and CPU area. The PSU has a fan as well. I put a RHEO on my 120mm fan to control fan speed and the difference at max speed vs. about 30% speed is 2C. It's super quiet at 30%.

All this not to mention it was a blast to build.

[Silversinksam]

Originally posted by dborden
Does anyone know if this setup with the 50 cfm fans and the SK6 is annoyingly loud? Can anyone give me a comparison? Loud is fine as long as it isn't REALLY loud.. Sidewinder Computer Fan Noise simulation (http://store6.yimg.com/I/sidewindercomputers_1650_810382)