getting rid of a heatspot: help

[Mirage_03]

ok this picture shows my pc setup. i'm running an NF7, 2400+, radeon 9800pro all on stock cooling. the picture below shows the entire setup but i had no way of showing i had a side intake (an SFII at about 3/4ths power (like 60 CFM). the top exhaust and one of the back exhausts are both SFII's at 3/4ths power as well and the rest of the fans are about 35 cfm so i'm getting good airflow in the case and i have pretty good temps (35 idle in summer). problem is i have these 2 heatspots that drive me crazy. maily around my hot, oc'd to hell, 9800pro on stock cooling. i could oc it a lot more if i could get rid of these hot spots. does anyone know how i could get rid of them? what i'm thinking right now is putting in a 120mm fan i have laying around in there and somehow taping it to my round IDE cables and blowing all that air towards the back of my case (towards my slot fan and back exhausts). this would blow in the path of the air from my side intake though, too, and might not help much. what do you guys think? thanks in advance

oh yea, in this picture, the red X's are the heatspots and the blue arrows show the flow of air inside my case.

 

[Quigsby]

side intake blowing on video card?

 

[Mirage_03]

its seated right over the CPU but since fans blow at outward angles instead of straight forward, some of the air i presume blows on the vid card

 

[Quigsby]

might have to do just a straight up graphics card mod to get rid of the deadspots there.

you could do a larger/better HS and put a stronger fan (80mm or so). That way hot air would spread a bit more and get picked up by air currently running through your system.

Would suggest a better side fine, but a SFII is a solid fan already.

 

[Mirage_03]

what about a VGA silencer would that do the job? the heatspot above the HS on the 9800pro is much hotter then the one on top of the card. both places build up heat though.

 

[Prisoner1138]

hmmm, i've always thought those littel slotfans were garbage, but lookin at that picture for a minute gave me an idea.

all of those pci sltos are empty, right? move that slot fan 2 spaces down and see what happens. it might do a better job of pulling more air from the bottom front intake across the deadspot in front of the hs on that card. because now all it's doing is moving a little air that's already gone past the heatsink, while not actually helping to circulate the air coming into the hs.

it's just a thought, and it wouldn't hurt ya to try it.

 

[mantrogo]

If you want to oc the card, then get rid of the stock cooling. In my case with low airflow (quiet PC freak) I got 20% oc rock solid on my 9800 with the old (gold coloured) Zalman passive together with a case fan situated at the bottom of the drive cage facing the card and blowing front to back.

The VGA Silencer gave me a 30% rock solid oc, and I suspect would be even better if I could be bothered to lap the appallingly rough and grooved surface of the HS base. Note to Artic Cooling - sort out those bases!!

Note that this is with one SilenX 80mm case fan intake at the rear, and forced exhaust only via PSU and VGA Silencer.

 

[clocker2]

To deal with a similar situation in my case, I cut away the PCI slots altogether, made an aluminum panel to cover the (now) open space and trimmed it to mount a 92mm fan which blows IN.

Still playing with the heatsink on the card itself (9600XT)...I've had a Zalman blue NB sink on there and now I have the stock ATI sink with a 60mm fan...both versions give me card temps in the low 30's ( reported by Overdrive...not sure how accurate that is) which rise to the high 30's after running Aquamark2003.

With the stock heatsink/fan and no helper fan, the temps were in the 40's at idle and near 50 under load.

Your case would appear to have plenty of exhaust so a fan blowing in under the card should not be a problem.

 

[Mirage_03]

i've actually considered that. how could i get the aluminum plate and could i just trim the plate with tin snips? thanks.

 

[clocker2]

I got the plate from a local hobby store ( 6x12" x .o64 thick...$ 5) and used my nibblers to shape it.

 

[Mirage_03]

ok i've gotten 2 alu. plates only .016 thick. i've temporarily got it rigged with a 120mm fan (which easily fits) to the back pci slots but i havn't cut out the metal bar things between each slot for a pci component. I wanted to make sure it would work before i did anything permanent like that. well, once i cut the bar things out, how will i rig it to stay in position? right now its just taped to the pci bar things. thanks!

oh and by the way, my 9800p is MUCH cooler now.

 

[clocker2]

I drilled 3 holes in the corners ( due to my case's odd back plate I had to skip the upper RH corner- no room) and just screwed it to the back casewall ( from the outside).