Adding a fan

Rob van Berkel · Post by **Rob van Berkel** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 4:44 am

Concerning the cooling-problem I would like to share a recent experience with you.

I recently experienced the necessity of good airflow myself... I had one of those huge SuperMicro towers, with an extra outletfan in the top-back, an extra inlet-fan (12cm, 7V, silent) in the side-panel. Yep, I just drilled a hole in the panel, it kept my CPU and boards cool. What I completely forgot about whas the airflow around my 4 disks (2xATA, 2xSATA, all at 7200rpm). So, while running my last defrag, things heated up in the disk-area, and one of them got damaged and so did my data

(RAID-0 is great for performance but you'd better pray nothing goes wrong..)

So, I looked around for a better solution. It needed a 12cm intake and outlet, both on speed-control to adjust the flow and the noise, and it had to have a solution for the disk-airflow-problem that had just became fatal for one of my disks. If possible it would allow me to monitor the temps inside. My quest resulted in the P160 by Antec.
This case has it all... even two temp-thingies that are read from the front-panel! The only drawback is, it only has room for one full-length (Scope) board, in one of the higher PCI slots (I believe it is slot 5), but that matched my current config, so no problems there for me.
The case is not cheap (160 euro) and you'll have to add your own PSU - which you probably already have. But compared to the price of my hardware (4 disks, P4 3.2, Asus board, scope, pulsar2, 1Gb memory) it's just a small percentage.
As for the low temps I wanted: well I got them. Disks run at 32C, CPU runs at 30C/40C (idle/load), Pulsar and Scope run at 43C, case temp is 27C. That should be cool enough. I would very much like to cool my Scope and Pulsar some more, but that will only be possible by mounting small heatsinks on the SPARCs. Space will be an issue there.

Hope my experience helps you just a little bit.
Cheers,
Rob

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Rob van Berkel on 2004-10-31 18:02 ]</font>

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 5:41 am

indeed, a good basic design

Note the space between the drive bays, so air can flow over both sides of the drive.

The optional front fan allows an even further improvement for cooling PCI cards.

With an airguide below the back fan to separate cpu from drive/card space and the backplates right above the critical cards open, the front fan will move a significant amount of fresh air over the cards.

The amount depends on how 'closed' the 2 interior areas are kept from each other.
Leaving an air entry above the CD rom open, will improve the effectivity of the back fan.

cheers, Tom

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 1:19 am

On 2004-06-23 19:52, valis wrote:
Almost every case is designed for at least 1 inlet and 1 outlet fan

Valis: you're right, I have 2 fans at the back (in addition to the PSU fan). Also the metal casing seems to have spaces for 2 fans at the front, though they're covered by the plastic of the front of the case.

I ran a test after running a mammoth SFP project (all DSPs just about maxed out continuously for several hours). The side of the computer case was open during the test session and a desk-mount fan was blowing air through from one side to a big box fan on the other. I shut down Windoze and rebooted the computer and the BIOS configuration screens reported:

CPU - 40 C
motherboard - 38 C

So a couple of questions:

How do I measure CPU / motherboard temperature in Windoze XP?!? Call me dumb, but I can't figure it out. I can only do it from the BIOS Setup screen at reboot.
Are these temperatures excessive? Room temperature was mentioned as an ideal. 50-60 C was mentioned as a sort of melting point. But am I shortening the lifespan of my components at 38C? I really am concerned about this!

(EDIT: Rob van Berkel already answered my question... low-40 C temperatures should be OK. Thanks!)
Is there any reason (other than noise) I shouldn't leave the side of my case open, with external fans blowing air, while the machine is turned on?

Thanks for your help all!

Johann

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: blazesboylan on 2004-07-16 02:21 ]</font>

Counterparts · Post by **Counterparts** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 4:19 am

blazesboylan wrote:
So a couple of questions:

How do I measure CPU / motherboard temperature in Windoze XP?!? Call me dumb, but I can't figure it out. I can only do it from the BIOS Setup screen at reboot.

AFAIK, It's up to the mobo manufacturer to supply suitable utilities (that run under windows) - e.g. ASUS provide such utilities for my mobo. Was there nothing liek this supplied with yours?

Are these temperatures excessive? Room temperature was mentioned as an ideal. 50-60 C was mentioned as a sort of melting point. But am I shortening the lifespan of my components at 38C? I really am concerned about this!

They sound a little hot, but not excessive. Again, the mobo manual should provide safe operating ranges. In the monitoring utility I mention above (for my mobo), one can set-up alarms which go off if temperatures or fan speeds go above/below user-defined limits.

Is there any reason (other than noise) I shouldn't leave the side of my case open, with external fans blowing air, while the machine is turned on?

As long as you're cooling it sufficiently with external fans, I can't see a problem. Obviously, using the cases' fans like this is a bad idea as the air flow is badly compromised.

I'm surprised that your motherboard manufacturer haven't supplied some more useful information/utilities with the board itself. Might be worth checking their website perhaps?

Regards,

Rosyton

BingoTheClowno · Post by **BingoTheClowno** » Fri Jul 16, 2004 10:21 am

On my dual Xeon system, 1st CPU, the most active reaches 51-53C with normal use (56 with heavy use), the second CPU is much cooler (48-50), and the case is around 43-48C.

What temps are you guys seeing in your PCs?