Wicked air cooling with a Ninja

Well, I just put together this system the other night:




This is an Abit IC7Max3 with a 3.2ghz Prescott. The Scythe Ninja is installed straightforward, but as owners know, the original fan clips won't accomodate a 38mm fan, and I really like my Panaflo. So killing 2 ducks with one stone (don't worry no real animals were hurt in the building of this system), I mounted an empty fan as a duct. This accomodates the clips (with some wrangling) and reduces the fan dead spot.

The duct will fall thru onto the heatsink fins, however, so I cut out a small plastic spacer which you can see.


We can't forget about cooling the power mosfets and RAM tho, so here are the rest of my fans mounted:




For some style points, this is what it looks like in the dark:




And here are some results (also recall this is an Abit i875 board, which means all temps are approximately +10c above reality):

Idle, all fans at 12V:
CPU: 37
PWM: 31
Case: 25
Screencap


Idle, all fans at whisper quiet approx 5V (loudest component = hard drive)
CPU: 37
PWM: 32
Case: 25
Screencap


Dual Prime95 load, all fans at 12V
CPU: 45
PWM: 35
Case: 25
Screencap


Dual Prime95, all fans at min
CPU: 46
PWM: 36
Case: 25
Screencap


+8C under full load, is pretty nice. +9 for pretty quiet.
+4C for the PWM for one of the most power hungry cpus.

I'm pretty happy, time to clock the chip up!

navig

nice, congrats

what fans are you using?

Wouldn't it be better having all the fans create a wind tunnel across the motherboard?

Yeah, I think you should try a direct wind tunnel crossing the Scythe with a push-pull fan configuration.

Care to show more close-up pictures of that duct thing on the Ninja?

I'm not sure what you mean by wind tunnel. I think that it is.

The left most fan feeds air to the 120x38mm panaflow, which pushes air thru the heatsink. The rightmost fan exhausts (this may be a little confusing because there is a fan grill on both sides of the fan--the reason for the extra grill is because this is where my cermet pots are and I don't like catching my screwdriver in the fan blades while adjusting my vcore!). This creates a solid flow of air from left to right.

In testing with only the panaflow around, air actually gets pushed out in exiting all direction from the Ninja, altho predominantly opposite from the fan.

The 2 foreground fans stuck together, are pulling air away from the motherboard. This sucks a portion of exhaust from the Ninja, but also pulls air from the mosfets and even the RAM slots.


The duct is very simple. It's an evercool aluminum 120x25 fan, with the fan and motor removed. Its stuck to the Panaflow black 120x38mm fan with double stick tape. There is a plastic crossbar (also mounted with double stick tape) that braces it agains the heatsink fins.

navig

Here's the airflow labeled:

i think those two side fans are actually working against the fans which are pushing to the right. I would try and see how the system works without those fans running.

squads said:

i think those two side fans are actually working against the fans which are pushing to the right. I would try and see how the system works without those fans running.

Click to expand...

I agree. I would also try turning those two side fans in and see how that works. They would also be providing nice airflow for the RAM sticks.

I also have a scythe w/ a panaflo on it, can u show or tell me how u did ur setup. I am adding a second panaflo to the other side of the hs for the push pull config. here is a pic of my set up right now, everything looks cluttered till i get my new psu

how did you get that panaflo attached? I have a scythe and panaflo coming this week and I'm not sure how to get the 38mm fan on there (I dont have a 25mm fan to gut)

Some good points. I'll definitely get around to different push/pull configs. That's the beauty of my system, the fans mounts are mounted by thumbscrews! My feeling tho, is this is the best configuration given the open natiure of the system. I think pulling hot air away is more effective than trying to push against back pressure.

I've seen folks mount a 38mm fan by looping zipties from the far mount holes, then hanging the clips to the ziptie loops.

Sorry for not reading through, but have you tried turning the fan around? I get better results on my freezer with the fan sucking.

Hey Yuriman, I'm not certain, but I'm fairly certain it won't make much of a difference. Along the long axis across the Ninja, the fans are placed so close that they are practically in a push/pull configuration already. I may get around to testing it.

Okay, here are some very interesting results on whether the twin top fans should be set to exhaust (as pictured above) or intake.

Load was generated by dual Prime95 (100% cpu usage). I checked the temps at about the 3rd pass, about 10 minutes. The system is a P4 3.2ghz Prescott at FSB 240 (3.84ghz), cpu core set to 1.49V, 1.48V under 100% load. Load for the gpu was done by ATitool beta 10 artifact scanning at 2 minutes.

Fans set to Exhaust
Fans set 7V
Temps are (Case/CPU/PWM)
Idle--23/38/29
Load--24/54/41
GPU load--49

Fans set to Exhaust
Fans set 12V
Idle--23/38/29
Load--23/51/39
GPU load--44

Fans set to Intake
Fans set to 7V
Idle--27/40/29
Load--28/55/42
GPU load--51

Fans set to Intake
Fans set to 12V
Idle--25/37/27
Load--25/51/37
GPU load--45


Therfore, if I were to run my fans at full all the time, Intake would probably be the better choice, being equal in cpu temps, but better with PWM temps, at a slight 1 degree cost to the graphics card (in its current setup).

However, I wouldn't typically run the fans at 12V, its louder than I like. I run very closer to the 7V, altho the panaflo is so quiet, I probably run that on at 9V. The same goes for the graphics cards fans.

Therefore, I should probably go with Exhaust, at reduced speeds this setup gets better temps across the board.

navig

also, do you have enough space between your Ninja fan and your case? Gotta draw the air somewhere, and if it is blocked by your HDDs or optical drives, this can reduces efficiency...

I'm not worried! That IS my case:




Here are my components:




It's a workbench system I'm working on. My next step is to fabricate a case shell, but its just going to be handled lid that comes right off.

Log is here.

navig

You should paint the aluminum bars red as well, or rather a "apple red". Put a clear acrlyic cover over the top to cover it up.

Its me. I like black! I'm going to paint the corner tabs and handles metallic red.

I'm working on the lid. I may limo tint it.

navig

Ugh, these night pictures and the acrylic holders are just amazing

Mine little testing bench is looking like ghetto crap compared to that...
Damn, gotta work on it more, lol.

Thanks a lot, Navig, for sharing these pics Simply great!

Navig said:

Here's the airflow labeled:

Click to expand...

where did you get this tray ?

that thing is sweet, I want a couple.

nice setup mate

I was thinking of doing this later on if I ever got another pc or something. For now...nothing can beat the style of my vento