The stock HD 6950 reference fan is loud as hell, and especially so at anything above 40%, so I took my old Intel stock cooler and strapped it ontop of the GPU fan. Had to daisy chain small zipties around the card + fan and then tighten up with pliers to avoid any slip'n'slidin.
Results: It actually lowers it a few degrees so I'm able to turn down the stock GPU fan to its minimum (15-20%) and run the quieter Intel fan instead. I actually wanted to try mounting it onto the stock heatsink instead of ontop of the stock fan but I couldn't get the ****ing plastic shroud off.
Any help?
Next I took my unused fan controller that came with my Fractal R3 (it goes in a PCI slot and is a PITA to reach)
(not my pic)
Got this idea from browsing around the net. Drilled a hole in the front of the case near the headphone/mic ports and put the knob through after taking it apart, re gluing afterward and unscrewing the board from the metal slot bracket. A small bit of plastic on the inside of the case had to be removed, but it was no trouble.
(not my pics)
I put the wiring into the small space above the optical disk. Works perfect and now I can adjust the fans without having to leave my chair
It also cuts down on the amount of cords visible/obstructing fan flow.
The top of my Seasonic x650 gets pretty hot so I googled around and it seems like flipping them over (fan on top) ends up helping out the PSU heat as well as the PSU fan potentially acting a bit like an exhaust. I also took this opportunity to clean up my cable routing.
Last on the list I got jealous of the new R4 removable drive cages and drilled out the rivets holding the R3 cage and removed mine. It was sort of a ***** to get them out without damaging the cage or the case (if I ever want to reinstall the cage). I put the SSD in my empty drive bay under my optical disk, and laid the HDD down on the bottom of the case and ontop of foam I had laying around from some packaging to maybe absorb the vibrations and noise from it. The stuff is pretty stiff and seems sort of plastic-y so it might be amplifying more than its helping
Before:
After:
Fan controller knob is barely visible on top
All in all I'd say it was a successful day of cost-free ghetto modding (I'm broke atm if you can't tell!)
Thinking about adding some fan ducts on the case fans next? Maybe direct some of that flow better...
Results: It actually lowers it a few degrees so I'm able to turn down the stock GPU fan to its minimum (15-20%) and run the quieter Intel fan instead. I actually wanted to try mounting it onto the stock heatsink instead of ontop of the stock fan but I couldn't get the ****ing plastic shroud off.
Any help? Next I took my unused fan controller that came with my Fractal R3 (it goes in a PCI slot and is a PITA to reach)
(not my pic)
Got this idea from browsing around the net. Drilled a hole in the front of the case near the headphone/mic ports and put the knob through after taking it apart, re gluing afterward and unscrewing the board from the metal slot bracket. A small bit of plastic on the inside of the case had to be removed, but it was no trouble.
(not my pics)
I put the wiring into the small space above the optical disk. Works perfect and now I can adjust the fans without having to leave my chair
It also cuts down on the amount of cords visible/obstructing fan flow.The top of my Seasonic x650 gets pretty hot so I googled around and it seems like flipping them over (fan on top) ends up helping out the PSU heat as well as the PSU fan potentially acting a bit like an exhaust. I also took this opportunity to clean up my cable routing.
Last on the list I got jealous of the new R4 removable drive cages and drilled out the rivets holding the R3 cage and removed mine. It was sort of a ***** to get them out without damaging the cage or the case (if I ever want to reinstall the cage). I put the SSD in my empty drive bay under my optical disk, and laid the HDD down on the bottom of the case and ontop of foam I had laying around from some packaging to maybe absorb the vibrations and noise from it. The stuff is pretty stiff and seems sort of plastic-y so it might be amplifying more than its helping
Before:
After:
Fan controller knob is barely visible on top
All in all I'd say it was a successful day of cost-free ghetto modding (I'm broke atm if you can't tell!
)Thinking about adding some fan ducts on the case fans next? Maybe direct some of that flow better...
Last edited:
Can't believe I missed that! I just switched it around. 
The factory paste looked awful and it flaked off but I guess it was working fine.. Going to double check again tomorrow to possibly account for any curing or ambient temp changes, but overall pretty ****ty. 
