Need Ducting advice as well as a warm welcome :)

[injunfeller]

Hi gents, ive been lurking for a while, and I mostly read but this time I need some help. Nothing too serious just need some advice with ducting.

Before I get into it this a bit of history.

My pc was originally a Northwood 2.8c however I got a good deal on a Prescott 3.2E so I took it. I must admit that I was a bit ignorant of the Prescott line about 3 weeks ago when I got my new CPU, so when MBM told me the temp was 62C I went nuts. I thought I seriously screwed something up in the install. Checked and rechecked everything was fine. As I was seriously agitated with heat I did what any sane computer enthusiast would do and I got out the AS5, put that in, but it barely dropped the temps. I thought i was doing it incorrectly so I wasted about 5 grains of rice worth of AS5 before I decided to read up on presscots.

Ofcourse my dumb a$$ finally reads here that prescotts run a lot hotter than your run of the mill Northwood so i let my last and most meticulously installed load of AS5 sit. Feel free to barrage me with insults, I guess I deserve it for my ignorance. Anways, im one of the tinkering guys so I decided to see what else I could do because under load my cpu would hit over 70C and I would pull hair out over that. So i decided to go ahead and go the ducting route per intels ducting method and Bill Leggets article.

I cut 2 holes in the side of my box with my dremel. Everything went pretty smooth. First time I have ever done this and the side of my box is see through plexiglass with an indention so it was kind of a pain to get some of the edges straight. Plus, this stuff will melt so I had to keep water running over it to keep it cool. The first hole for the 120mm fan was for my CPU and that was the 2nd one I drilled so it came out looking ok. The second hole is a smaller 80mm i believe which I decided to use for my GPU and since it was my first cut the hole isnt exactly too appealing. Luckily after I put the fan cover over the hole it covered of the gory pre-school hacking that I did to my case. All in all it looks quite smashing at the moment with everything in place.

WHOA! The temps dropped a whopping 14C from that alone and I idle at about 48C sometimes 49C. My ambient is 32C and my mobo is 35C so it's not too bad to have a Prescott 3.2E idling at 48C, atleast that's what I think mind you that is coming from an ignorant prescott guy that wasted 5 grains of AS5. Good news is, I have never seen the temps rise above 62C since and I'm a hardcore gamer mind you. This is all without the ducting installed yet, just two fans blowing in.

Regardless and to the main point, I want the temp even lower than this so that I can ofcourse OC this mofo . So the question remains, what is a good duct that will fit over my 120mm fan?!? I found this aluminum ducting at home depot that would be perfect for my 80mm fan but the 120 is just too big. Not to mention I would need it to scale down a little bit so it would cover the HSF on the CPU. The aluminum ducting is about $7 and I can buy that but I cant use it for both and it seems kind of expensive. If i was to find say 120mm ducting I could atleast bend the crap out of it so it would fit over the 80mm fan.

Anyways, all you guruji's out there that live an breath this stuff feel free to help out a novice pup who would like to get an ideal duct that can be retrofitted to work for both fans rather than buy one for each. I know I can upgradge the HSF but I'm putting off upgrading the HSF till I know how low the temps will go with this setup.

Thanks for your reading, your time, and attention, have a wonderful day

-Injun

 

[injunfeller]

hope this works, just 2 pics of the system, big for CPU, small for GPU

 

[injunfeller]

by the way, my A400 had a mem failure so it's sitting at the Leadtek shop, supposed to get it back next week. I put my old 5600 back in so the temps might be cooler because of that.

 

[speed bump]

First Off WELCOME TO THE FORUMS

First thing is plexi is best cut with something like a saber saw with a fine blade as a dremel melts the plastic and sometimes leaves burn marks. If you do this make sure you put a layer of something like newsprint over the side of the plexi you are working on so as to not scratch it up.

Then one way to make a duct is using aluminum sheet and rivets as its easy to work with and is very durable. Also if you just wan't to find out how a duct would do you can fabricate on out of thin cardboard to test

Hope this helped alittle.

Oh yes allitle bit of cable management might help your temps as well as look alot better

 

[orion456]

Anyways, all you guruji's out there that live an breath this stuff feel free to help out a novice pup who would like to get an ideal duct that can be retrofitted to work for both fans rather than buy one for each. I know I can upgradge the HSF but I'm putting off upgrading the HSF till I know how low the temps will go with this setup.

You can get 5" and 6" aluminum/plastic ducting from HomeHardware that is pretty cheap.

But first I would make the duct out of some cardboard and experiement a bit. Not all systems behave in the same way so by experiment you can see right away what is going on. Ideally you should have an intake duct with a filter (and a 2nd fan mounted just behind the filter to overcome the filter air resistance). The duct will supply cool air to the HSF. A 2nd duct with a fan mounted on its end should act to draw the hot HS air and exhaust it out the back of your case.

Alternatively you can put the HSF on exhaust and use the duct to channel hot air out of the case. All other fans (except the PSU) will then be on intake to supply air to the HS. Again filters are a good idea or else you will be dusting out your case every month or more.

 

[Brad84cnc]

i wouldnt recommend using metal ducts. i used one and if your not carefull it could touch a component and short out your computer. I had this happen to me but luckily it didnt hurt anything

 

[orion456]

i wouldnt recommend using metal ducts. i used one and if your not carefull it could touch a component and short out your computer. I had this happen to me but luckily it didnt hurt anything

Yep got to be careful with metal in a puter case, but then lots of things that are in there are metal, like drives, bays, cable ends and PCI slot connectors. The trick is to seat things properly before you turn the power on. If you attach your duct to the side panel or the HSF case you shouldn't have any problems. If you use flexible metal ducting you need to either put a plastic sleeve over it or put some stiff wire inside to support it and help it to maintain its shape.

Metal ducts have the advantage of very smooth slippery sides so the air flows much more freely than with corregated or plastic sides.

Ideally a duct flares outwards from the HS to the sidepanel to allow the air to more smoothly match the air speed outside the case (about 50% more surface area, a 92mm fan should have a 115mm intake hole). This also allows the filter to be bigger and thus offer less resist to air movement.

 

[archilochus]

I see from your pics, you still have the fan grids installed..For better air flow and reduced noise removal is needed...
A wire finger gaurd can be installed on the rear for safety ...