Advice on case fan scheme

What do you think I can do to improve my airflow design?
Here are some specs of the pic shown:
Fans 1,2,3,4,5,6 are all 80mm 2300RPM fans
Fans 7 & 8 are dual 30mm's on two hd coolers
Arrows indicate current flow direction of fans.

Here are a few of my ideas:
1) Change some combination of 4,5,6 fans to higher RPM models
2) Leave as is and turn fan 3 around.

Negative case presure is good right? I don't think I have that now.
Any advice or theories welcome, thanks.

I thought a slightly positive pressure was best. Either way I think having it close to balanced is best.

1 & 2 should be more toward the pci slots, you could have a fan and duct it righ to the cpu fan so it would get the coldest air possible.

1 & 2 are already there so I can't move them.
Fan 1 is slightly lower than cpu but centered horizontally.
Fan 2 is directly across the center of the AGP slot.

I think your setup is optimal right now. The critical issue is to have unimpeded airflow inside. Get round cables and tuck them away out of the airstream.

Right behind the psu there is an opening for wires and airflow in the divider shelf in the case. I have three ide flat cables and power supply wires going through there now. I also have wires from a FrontX control panel which is located in the bottom drive bay. This is a lot of wiring and that is the only path to put them through. I think this could be an area of improvement somehow. So $30 on round cables or a faster psu fan(actually 2 fans in psu)?

I agree that you should try to get a balanced pressure rather than negative or positive.

I experimented a little while ago with different fans setup and the effect on system tempareture. What I found is the obvious setup (bottom front all in, and top back all out) works the best. Granted I did not have as many fan as you (2 front + 2 back + PSU) but the principle should be the same.

Here is how I would try to improve your case cooling:

1. Don't change the PSU fan unless you really know what you are doing. It's a dangerous job as there is lot of current left in even when unplugged.

2. Your current setup is well balanced with the 80mm fans, and the airflow follows a good path. Don't change those fans; except for quieter ones if you want ;-)

3. The only thing I would experiment with your current fans is reversing fan 7 to try to balance the air pressure; but I would not expect any significant change

4. If you can, I would think that the combination of adding another fan above number 3 and reversing 7 and 8 would have a beneficial impact on case cooling. Your HD might run slightly warmer though. If you don't have any space for another fan you can always replace 3 with a more powerful one.

Let us know how it goes.

.aR

I forgot to say:

Don't bother with round cables: I have replaced mine with flat ribbon cables!

It's much easier to tuck flat cables out of the way and orientate the few bits left to make sure they don't obstruct the airflow. Plus I don't trust round cables to provide good performance free of interference.

.aR

well positve airflow is THE best way to go. But it is hard to do becuase of the different fan sizes needed. So if u use 80mmfans all the same. 2 intake in lower front, 2 intakes for side panel. And 2 exhaust in upper back, use the PS as exhaust also. That iwll be 4 intake adn 3 exhaust. BUT the PS is alot weaker than most 80mm fans you use, so your are 1 fan short on exhaust and also less cfm due to he weaker PS fan, so id add a blowhole in the top of 92-120mm. That way you have 4 intake and 4 exhaust and the extra cfm or the 92-120mm blowhole will make up for the lacking cfm of the PS fan getting you as equal as you can get.

This is what i mean


Hope that helped, you really do not need intake fans at teh front top of a case.

you don't have to BUY round cables. I made an awesome set of them. Get yourself some cheap tubing (like for water cooling) and some electrical tape, and a knife. Cut the ribbons (er....so they look like spaghetti). Test it before you waste your time rounding them. THen cut the tubing so you can open them. Just shove yoru spaghetti cables into the tubing and tape it with electrical tape a bit to keep the tubing from opening