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rad exhaust inside case?

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pejsaboy

Member
Joined
May 1, 2005
Location
nor-cal
I'm planning my waterloop now so that i'm ready to go when i can afford to do it, and am trying to avoid mounting anything outside the case for cleanliness' sake :) i don't feel too comfortable modding the acrylic window to exhaust the rad, so I was wondering if the heat output would be too much for the normal case ventilation to handle. at this point i'm only planning on watering the cpu, but i don't want to add too much heat to the rest of my system. i've got pretty good case flow, but i don't know what a 2x120ish sized rad stuffed inside might do to temps :)
 
You either grab the coolest air for the rad or you cool from the air inside the case. You are much better off cooling from the outside air. If your CPU and GPU are water cooled, that alone will drop your case temps a few degrees.
 
If you mount the rad internally, you have it exhausting into the outside air. You wouldn't exhaust the air into the case.
 
voigts said:
If you mount the rad internally, you have it exhausting into the outside air. You wouldn't exhaust the air into the case.

i've done it with good results, as have others. Daddyjaxx is correct that you want the coolest air going through the radiator.
 
you both make good points. however, if i stick with an internal rad then there's a conflict: i can't cool it with outside air [as jaxx suggests] and still exhaust outside the case [as voigts suggests]. at least not without *heavy* case mods and shrouding. while intake and exhaust to the external would be ideal, it's not a feasible option for my case. in light of that, which would be a better option: cooling with case air, or exhausting into the case?
EDIT: crimedog answered this while i was posting it.
 
It makes more sense to me to run case air through the rad and exhaust out, otherwise you are going to have really good airflow to vent the warm air out of the case. One way to have the best of both worlds is to mount the rad in the bottom of the case so that it blows internal case air from the bottom of the case via a front intake fan into the rad out the bottom.
 
voigts said:
One way to have the best of both worlds is to mount the rad in the bottom of the case so that it blows internal case air from the bottom of the case via a front intake fan into the rad out the bottom.
do you mean out the bottom as in out the bottom of the case by cutting an exhaust for the rad?
 
I have my PA 120.3 mounted on the case floor with the fans pushing air from below the case, through the rad and into the case interior.
The air is only inperceptably warmer after flowing through the rad and provides some much needed airflow through the case.
 
first you want the coolest air possible going through the rad and that will be coming from outside the case going in. No buts the best results all around. clocker2 has the rite idea. ive been doing it over a year with a clean case look. ive watercooled the cpu,gpu and nb my system temps are fine as well as my power mossfets
 
I run my system this way. It works great as far as cooling the CPU goes. The northbridge gets a wee bit hot though.
 
for those that are intaking [or exhausting] through the case floor:
is your case elevated at all? i only have about 1/4" between the case and the desktop with the feet that are on the case. is that enough of an airway to supply or exhaust 2x120 fans? seems a bit small to me.
 
i only have about 1/4" between the case and the desktop with the feet that are on the case. is that enough of an airway to supply or exhaust 2x120 fans? seems a bit small to me.

You want more then 1/4". Replace the feet with casters and that will give you adequate clearance.
 
calvin said:
You want more then 1/4". Replace the feet with casters and that will give you adequate clearance.
i thought so. i'll probably find/make some taller feet since i don't need [or want] casters.
 
If you have the pump for it you can have the best of both worlds, to an extent.
Have one rad right after the blocks, exhausting air from the case, through the rad and out into ambient. And one on the other end of the loop sucking air in from ambient, through the rad and into the case. This will get rid of much of the heat in the first rad, and the second rad will not add as much heat into the case. This is one of the few exceptions to the "water temp doesn't vary in a loop" rules. It's not a massive difference still tho, but it's the best you can get with internal rads.

Does it make a difference in system temps? Yes. How much? Not much. Is it worth it? Not really.. But it DOES make a difference, and every 0.5 degrees count right? :D
 
pejsaboy said:
i thought so. i'll probably find/make some taller feet since i don't need [or want] casters.

see how four 20 oz. soda bottle caps work. if it makes a difference, then you can check out a more permanent solution. or just stick with the caps. that's what i did with a laptop of mine and it really helped the bottom mounted cpu fan.
 
bottlecaps are an excellent idea! i've got my laptop sitting on a couple small pc game boxes. the fan still runs like crazy, but it doesn't shut itself off due to overheating anymore :)
Bad Maniac said:
Does it make a difference in system temps? Yes. How much? Not much. Is it worth it? Not really.. But it DOES make a difference, and every 0.5 degrees count right?
well, i don't know that i personally am too worried about .5 a degree, but i know there are those who are :) i don't have the room for 2 rads since i'm planning on using a heatercore that i'll be getting free from my dad, but that IS a good idea to have one intake and one exhaust. i'll probably set it up to exhaust through the bottom of the case, and then toss another intake fan into my empty pci bays to help feed it with cooler air.
 
I have air pulled from outside the case, past the hard drive, and then through my rad and into my case (almost directly to the psu) and that is all pulled out through a 120mm fan and my computer stays pretty cool with only those two fans. Now that you are watercooling, the ambient case temp wont really matter so much for your cpu (and eventually gpu if you watercool that too) Your motherboard will work just fine if the air is a little warmer, its nothing to worry about and only the most picky of people will really care.
 
The rad is only gonna heat up the air by less than 1c. That rise in temps is going to be more than offset by the extra airflow you will get from the one or two 120mm fans blowing through the rad and case.
 
I agree with ls7corvete, often time we all get caught up on the theoretical part of the problem, when in reality things are as bad as they seem... If enough air is going through your case, the few degrees (at most) the rad will warm the air up isn't a huge deal.
 
Burdman27911 said:
I agree with ls7corvete, often time we all get caught up on the theoretical part of the problem, when in reality things are as bad as they seem...


eek :shrug:

you mean 'aren't as bad as they seem' right?

yeah, I was all caught up in the 'too much heat in the case' myth and made my external. but with my new case, I'm putting everything internal. the air coming from your rad shouldn't be really hot. if it is then you probably have a problem with your loop and/or your system isn't big(rad size) enough to cool your blocks.
 
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