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P180 intake dust cover raises intake fan's RPMs

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Mak3

Registered
Joined
Jan 16, 2008
Good morning everyone.

I have an Antec P180 that I purchased about 2.5 years ago with a new rig. I have left all of the stock fans (1 rear exhaust, 1 top exaust, 1 HDD intake) and have added two more (1 CPU fan and 1 upper front intake). All are 120mm fans.

Now for those who are familiar with the P180, the case comes with two intake dust covers to keep dust out of the case - It does a very good job indeed. However, for the longest time I have taken them off as I thought it would provide more airflow for into the case, rather than risking a low pressure system and pulling air from other orifices throughout the casing, possibly creating hot spots.

I noticed that when I put my outer dust cover on, the one with slats and no mesh, then my upper front intake fan's (120mm Silverstone, not controllable, only readable) RPMs jump up. SpeedFan clocks it as 1250rpm without the dust cover, and 1380rpm with the dust cover.

Am I losing any airflow? I'd rather have better airflow and compromise a clean rig than only adequate airflow with a clean case.

I would greatly appreciate it if someone could clear this up for me.
 
Any dust filter will reduce airflow. But Im sure you are fine with the amount after its filtered.

100RPM though is within the +/- margin of error on those anyway.
 
Any dust filter will reduce airflow. But Im sure you are fine with the amount after its filtered.

100RPM though is within the +/- margin of error on those anyway.

Wow! Thanks EarthDog for the quick reply and thank you for your insight. I'd like to hear more about this phenomenon, but I'll also do some monitoring of my own. I'll be watching my core temperatures on the CPU and my GPU temperatures.
 
As long as they are within spec (temps) I would prefer a clean case. But maybe thats just me.
 
Yup, the intake filter reduces the amount of air the fan is receiving, causing it to operate in a very slight partial vacuum. That means there is less air for the fan to push on, which means it doesn't have to work as hard to spin a given rpm, which in turn means that it will rotate faster.
If you put the filter on the downstream side the fan operates in a slightly higher pressure environment, and will spin more slowly.

Anyway, like earthdog said, it's no big deal.
 
well, as for dust...does it really hurt to clean your rig? it really does hurt to let it get warmer over extended periods of time...but your looking in the 5+ year range for any noticeable effect, and if your system is high end enough, that effect is negligible. i dont keep my puter on the floor, it sits at about 2.5 feet high, and it has no dust problems, you could also look into the air ionizers, i have friend who use them to keep cleaner computers.
 
well, as for dust...does it really hurt to clean your rig? it really does hurt to let it get warmer over extended periods of time...but your looking in the 5+ year range for any noticeable effect, and if your system is high end enough, that effect is negligible. i dont keep my puter on the floor, it sits at about 2.5 feet high, and it has no dust problems, you could also look into the air ionizers, i have friend who use them to keep cleaner computers.

AE,

How are those ionizers? I live in an older home (1928) and dust is a constant battle year round even with central air, clean filters, ducts and a Honeywell electric air cleaner on the heater/airconditioning. I've used the filters that come with the computer cases and then tried it with them out. The computers get dusty either way no matter what so obviously I'm cleaning them every two-three months.
 
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