Cheap, Clean, Cool and Quiet Case Cooling

[jcw122]

http://overclockers.com/tips1193/
by Trung Nguy(not me)

check this new frontpage article out....As the article title states...i cant get much better than this baby! wow i love this guys design its amazing! i actually might use it myself! the only thing i would fix is the hot air going into my PSU...id make it go up the top...there for not having to use a rear external duct and also id get cool air for the PSU from somewhere else...a second thing i would do is add a fan at the bottom back...to provide some extra video card cooling so it doesnt get "poluted" by warm air from the HDDs...still its a VERY INGENIUS design! GREAT JOB Nguy!

EDIT: i ESPESSIALLY love the results he got! cut sound down by 39% and his CPU temps were 41 and they are now down to 32c! and not to mention it looks VERY clean....its cheap ducts too....man i just love it!

 

[Voodoo Rufus]

Good article. Obviously a lot of work went into the modifications.

 

[Captain Slug]

I found this out a long time ago. Ducting helps muffle sound and helps to prevent restriction and back pressure. Implimenting it effective takes alot of planning and work, especially if you want to do it in an aesthetically interesting way. My first ducted setup used vinyl dryer hose with moderate success.


The setup doesn't always require a large number of fans if you're very specific and calculating about how and where you deliver the aiflow. The above setup ran at only 18dBa, but my CPU temp never went above 110f.

 

[jcw122]

thats awesome but its not internally contained...which was a major factor of the ducting job this dude did....but still thats nice noise level and temp!

 

[Radical]

That would definitely work well, but it uses too many fans. A more specialized ducting solution would look like the following:

Non of these ducts have case fans attached to them. The bottom duct goes the the video card which uses a VGA Silencer. The Silencer takes cool aire from the duct and exhausts it to the back of the case. The CPU duct would come from the back of the case and use the 120mm CPU fan to suck cool, outside air over the CPU heatsink. The CPU heatsink won't have a fan on it, so the only fans in this system would be the 120mm PSU fan (5 volted) and the VGA Silencer (low speed). This setup combined with a quiet HDD like a Seagate would be very quiet.

 

[Ascii2]

Power supply would operate way less effiecient with the high amount of hot air it retains.

The article write's system may easilly be killed by pushing it a bit farther back on what seems to be a filing cabinet (air intake would be cut off and system would cook quickly).

 

[jcw122]

agreed ascii...id rather have the intake fan be from the front of the case....thad be ALOT more efficient and safe

 

[Captain Slug]

thats awesome but its not internally contained...which was a major factor of the ducting job this dude did....but still thats nice noise level and temp!

It is. The fans are mounted to the inner frame rail and pull air outside air from the front filtered intake through the duct.

 

[Geetarman]

Thank you for reading my article. There are some errors in my percent difference calculation. I used that linear percentage difference (or percentage error) calculation in the electrical engineering labs at my university so frequently that it became a routine, and it slipped my mind when I mistakenly applied it to the logarithmic SPL and temperature. I later realized the mistakes but the article had been long submitted. I recalculated to 96.8% for the SPL change and 64.3% for the temp.

Your fellow overclocker,
Trung

 

[rebelwarlock]

I'm going to try duct modding on my box too. by the way nice graphic Radical

 

[Radical]

by the way nice graphic Radical

I hope that wasn't sarcasm because I spent my entire day drawing that in Paint. If it wasn't sarcasm then I believe the compliments go to Trung, not me.

 

[spookeboom]

Thats cool
I just started to mod my case with a blow hole and a side intake
dropped my temps by 6deg at full load
maby the next thing i will try is using ducts on what i have modded

 

[Fr3ak]

I am thinking about doint something like this to cool my mosfets in my Shuttle SN45G with 2 40x40mm fans..
I am still planning stuff, so I dont know yet Whats the melting temp of plastic? ;D And how do you mount it?
oh well, I should read the article first, I just had a look at the pics ;P