No intakes, need help!

Ok, so I have one of those cooler masters that looks great, but apparantly don't have any intakes due to the glass door out infront of the case. Here's a link to some pics of my case and the specs.

There is no where to mount a fan for intake. There's only 2 exhausts, 1 top and 1 back. And I can't cut a hole into the side of my case cuz I've got a really nice looking window on the side that I don't want to mess up...

So I was thinking if I could get a metal shop to cut a hole in the bottom of the case (yes the bottom, not the bottom of a side), near the front portion of the case, I could mount one there, since I keep my computer on my desk and it's got case-feet which lifts the case about a 1/4 of an inch off the ground, so it'd get adequate space to pull in air.

Does that sound like a good idea? Also, a buddy of mine has a dremel tool, so maybe I could do it myself, but I was wondering if anyone who has had experience cutting through a cooler master case's material could tell me how difficult it'd be to cut a circle (or maybe even a square out since no one'll see the opening (with it being on the bottom of the case).

Any comments of suggestions are welcome .

Thanks guys!

your idea sounds good and you have no other choice

make sure to get a nice 120mm hole though

Also, 1/4inch isn't a whole lot, but I think it should be enough.

Well, I don't think I'll be able to fit a 120mm fan in there. if you can take a look at the pics from that link in my initial post, you'll see that the drive rails are attached to the bottom of the case.

I'm actually out of town right now so I don't have my computer infront of me, but I'm pretty sure a 120mm wouldn't fit between the drive rail-to-bottom junctions, which is where I'd be putting the fan(s). I was planning on possibly one or two 80mm's if I can get two in there without it looking ugly. Then again, I don't even know if an 80mm will go in there. The maximum width the fan can be is as wide as a hard drive.

EDIT: Oh wait, I guess the link doesn't show the inside of the case. Ok, well, if you've ever seen the inside of most cooler master cases, you'll know what I'm talking about. If not, here's a link to something similar to my case. If you look at the bottom picture, you'll see what I'm talking about.

That appears to have room for two 80mm fans at the bottom front. Are there any fan ports drilled in the front at all? If not, it looks as if you could place a couple of 80mms between the drive cage sides without any trouble. Also, you'd get the benefit of drive cooling by doing so. Actually, you could probably cut for a 120mm in the front without disturbing the drive cage too much.

I would stick a 92mm fan in there as the drive cage is ~4" or ~10cm.

There is no elegant solution to a problem that doesn't exist. It appears your case is sealed except for the fan openings, and hopefully an intake hole or holes in the lower front. What this means is any air leaving the case does so by the exhaust fans. If you put intake fans in the case, their airflow must also leave via the exhaust fans. You won't force appreciably more air through the exhaust fans.

Intake fans are only useful in cases littered with holes that band-aid for a lack of an adequate and engineered airflow scheme. In a correctly designed case, there are no holes other than the ones occupied by the exhaust fans and a matching area of inlet holes in the lower front. In such a case, the air the exhaust fans expel must enter the holes in the lower front, whether you place fans in thiose holes or not. Most cases lack adequate exhaust fan area and are shot-gunned with holes all over the sides and backs, and as such improve with intake fans.

If you want to truly improve the case's ventilation, upsize the exhaust fans to 92mm units, and make sure the inlet in the lower front is large enough to feed them. Simply tacking more fans on as intakes is a more-is-better approach rather than a planned solution to any particular problem. Simply creating a hole in the lower front as you have proposed may indeed help, but it is not contingent on placing a fan in that hole.

I was thinking of doing similar for a radiator mounting I was going to do. The problem I found is as an intake fan it sucks up everything that gets near it off the floor, granted a filter would help a little but not too much. Also if your like me and have cats or dogs then the fur goes right through the filters. I would say mount the fan on your side panel. You could put one next to your hard drives and/or one blowing right on the AGP/PCI slots. I mounted a 92mm there on my last case and it worked great. Just my thoughts.

No cats, no dogs, and no intakes here. The link I put up above was something SIMILAR to mine. It's just the drive cage (I guess is what it's called ) is the same. It doesn't have the front fan mounts. Sorry for not being clear there.

Larva - in a case you described, yes, that would be the ideal solution for a non-OC'd computer that has been built by a precision company, and has been sealed and will never be opened again. However, in the real world, air will move in and out of all holes in the case, not just the ones made by the company (ie. the edges where the case door meets the chassis, cracks between the drives, power supply and screw holes, etc). Anything "ideal" does not exist.

KillorBE - I'm pretty sure the drive cage is 3.5", not 4", making it roughly 89mm...

But thanks for all the suggstions guys. I've pretty much decided what's gonna happen. I'm gonna have , one at the bottom/back of the case under my video card fanning that with cool air, one fan on the bottom/front of the case between the drive cage rails to bring in cool air over the HDDs, and then one more fan infront of that one to push air toward the back of the case.

Sound good to anyone?

Amino said:

I'm pretty sure the drive cage is 3.5", not 4", making it roughly 89mm...

Click to expand...

Most people (stores, manuf....) make that mistake as they've learned to think about 3.5" floppy's....well the floppy itself is 3.5" but the drive is ~4".

Same goes for the 5.25" drives, they're actually 5.75"