Alternative Fan Setup for Antec 900 Side Door

[velozzity]

Has anyone here successfully pulled off any mods on the original antec 900 door to allow them to use a large heatpipe cooler and still retain the side fan. A few weeks ago I bought a Coolermaster V8 cooler and now my side door will not fit back on with the fan installed. I tried cutting the top corner off the fan but It still got in the way. Just wondering If anyone had mounted the fan on the outside somehow without making it look like a p.o.s. I really miss the cooling that it gave my northbridge and feel that I could get a better overclock possibly if I could lower temps on the NB...Any suggestions please?

 

[Rich'[ard]]

maybe you cuold swap out the 120mm fan to a 92mm or 80mm fan. it could work...i dunno.
i had to cut the corner of my fan to fit my TRUE installed with a fan on teh bottom.

i also found an idea a while ago. i had some screws lying around, and i stuck one (by accident) through the side panel mesh thingo. it woudln't come out after i put it in (had to get it out with screwdriver), so i'm thinking...

if you get 4 screws and put the 120mm fan a bit lower, it shuold work. your fan won't come out as my screws didn't pop out.

jst an idea lol

 

[cyclometric]

Mounting Side Fan with an Inner Tube

I was browsing this forum looking for front bezel ideas for my Antec 900 when I came across your thread. As it happens, tonight I did a bit more in my slowly evolving mod, and realized that my 80mm Green & Orange Blackfire4 fan, brand new from Performance PC's, has to be RMA'd, but long story short, I was going to move it into the side position today anyway, and came up with a unique and silent idea that I think I am also going to incorporate into my front bezel to surround the fans.

I had an old bike inner tube I had been saving for just such a project. I cut a length of it, about 3 feet long, give or take, and kept it in a tube shape, sort of folded it in half lenghtwise and tied it neatly around the fan, giving it enough of a buffer zone that I could squeeze it into the frame of the acrylic window, and it totally clears my Xigmatek HDT-S1283 (I already have two 120mm fans that I have carefully cut a corner from to make them fit in that spot...). It looks cool, is a completely silent mounting (rubber? fuhgeddaboudit!), and I like that it reuses what some might consider garbage. Before I cranked up the rig, I decided to sort of twisty-braid the tube around the fan, instead of having it lie flat on itself. I think it looks great (at least I think it does, it's like urban post-modern waste chic, lol).

(I'll wrap a Blackfire4 in the tubing as soon as I can get a replacement).

Here are a few pix, let me know if you think it's a good idea (or for that matter, a lame/nasty/dumb one) -- I'm a complete noob to modding, but have been a software engineer for years, so tinkering comes naturally.

This first picture is what the fan looked like before it went into the case, just with the inner tube wrapped around (in the twisted/braided way):


Here it is wedged easily between the brackets and with plenty of space from the CPU-HSF:








For the front, that's another story... I'll leave that to a new thread.

Good luck!

 

[Tsnowflake]

very resourceful of you cyclometric, i like it!

 

[Twigglish]

What in the world did you cut the hole with?

 

[cyclometric]

The Antec 900 comes like that, with a hole in the acrylic window for a side fan, and two mounting brackets. It also has a wire mesh panel cut to fit that triangle-sized area for the fan, but I removed it.

 

[Rich'[ard]]

What in the world did you cut the hole with?

i'm wondering too.

The Antec 900 comes like that, with a hole in the acrylic window for a side fan, and two mounting brackets. It also has a wire mesh panel cut to fit that triangle-sized area for the fan, but I removed it.

you mean the hole came like that?
my side door doesn't have a hole through it. i just have that mesh crap over it.
never seen your method/idea before. interesting.

 

[Brando]

I'm considering cutting out most of the side door where the mesh and plexi glass are now and making a big plexi glass window so I can put fans wherever i want. I'll most likely put 2 92mm fans right about in the lower middle part so they both hit the video card section dead on (both card slots). Looks like they'll just barely clear the power supply, heatsink, and lower hard drives and have total airflow coverage on a 2 video card setup.