Finding the best way to air cool my case

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Sun May 09, 2004 10:27 pm

Hey guys, need some help.
I am trying to decide the best waty to air cool my Wavemaster case.
It came with 2 80mm fans in the front and one in the back, I replaced the top panel with a blowhole and am thinking about cutting a hole in the case door and installing a ducting system with a 120mm fan.
I jjust put that swiftech chip cooler on and got a VGA heatpipe to cool the video card.
Give me some ideas as far as air in my case, my thought is it doesn't matter how big the fans are if they are just circulating warm air that is already in there. I have thought about changing out the case fans with Tornados, but that might be overdoing it.
Has anyone seen a link to those ducting kits? I have read that is a good way to go.
Anyway, thanks for the help.

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Mon May 10, 2004 12:52 am

skip the ducting kits and do it your self, go to home deopt or an art suply store and see if you can find materials. that way its all custom to your case and you can say "hay i built that" not i bought that.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Mon May 10, 2004 2:43 am

Do you think just cutting a hole in my case door and installing the 120mm fan will be enough? Or do you think I should replace the stock case fans ansd install a fan controller? I have a 80mm smart fan on the cpu, I thought about replacing the front panel fans with tornados and using those stock 80mm fans on the case door, one blowing cool air on the cpu, the other blowing cool air on the memory. I thought that with the tornados I could just passively cool the video card with the Zalman vga heatpipe.

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Mon May 10, 2004 6:06 pm

a good 120mm fan will push as much air as a tornado at half the noise. You may say noise is not an issue but when you have 2 or 3 tornado's in your case you WILL notice. As for cutting the hole in the door, well yes that will work it will provide cool fresh air where its needed, if you place it directly over the cpu fan then you will get the largest improvment but you will also get more nose as the turbulent air hits the second fan. The real reason to use a fan bus is to control both noise and preformance if your using 4 or more fans than a fan buss is a good idea if you like to turn the fans down while websurfing and crank them up for games, 3d stuff. That zalman is a good cooler i do not think that it will need much more cooling than it alredy has unless you start to overclock your video card as well.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Mon May 10, 2004 6:39 pm

I have been looking at the Enermax 120MM adjustable fan, Newegg is out of them though so I'm looking other places. I want as much air blowing through this thing as possible. The two stock fans up front don't feel like they are moving air at all, and my concern is that any stock fan is cheap. I don't mind running my puter with the cover off, but wouldn't mind putting it on either.
I have thought about getting two 92 mm fans and spacing them about an inch apart on the door blowing air onto the cpu fan and the memory, replacing the stock case fans with two good 80 mm fans (that is the only size that will fit), and using a controller to monitor it all.
Right now I keep my house at about 78 and my cpu is clocked at 3.65 and idles at 41, after 2 hrs of C&C Generals it is running at 48-50, which to me isn't too bad.
I'm just one of those people who has to tinker. The wife said no to water cooling (She says me, electricity, and water just doesn't sound safe), and i don't want to spend $700 on the really high tech stuff, so what now. Does anyone have experiences with pelts? Do you think a pelt would work in conjunction with the SP-94 and alot of case fans?

Post by **Illuminati** » Mon May 10, 2004 7:58 pm

capper5016 wrote:... The wife said no to water cooling (She says me, electricity, and water just doesn't sound safe), ...

Ah... having water cooling isn't really that bad... I mean look at Nate... he got our hydrocool setup for some of our test rigs and didn't have a problem.

That almost means anyone can do it

... LOL.

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Mon May 10, 2004 10:14 pm

a pelt is going to requare "$700" as for only 80mm fans fitting on your case well thats not much of a problem if you have a dremel. My case only takes 1 80mm fan so i got 3 120mm fans and cut some new holes

If you realy like to tinker and overclock you may want to lookin to buying a vapochill unit. i think that seems right up your ally. its a bit more work than watter cooling and its a bit more expensive than cooling fans but you will get killer cpu tempretures.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Tue May 11, 2004 11:00 am

Okay, heres what I ended up doing.
I have the SP-94 heatsink, bought a nice lapping kit to lap the cpu, which was rough.
I put a panaflo 92mm fan on the heatsink, two 92 mm fans on the case door (one over the cpu fan, one over my RAM), I replaced the two front 80mm stock fans with panaflow ultras, put the zalman heatsink on the video card, put a swiftech on the NB,and am using a Thermaltake Hardcano 12 to control everything....whew, If I never see another rats nest of computer wires again it will be too soon.
With the new CPU I'm getting and the memory I won, I might just sell this system and buy one of those Corsair water cooled systems and put it in a silverstone case. If I ever get my Raptors back (doubt they can be fixed) then I'll have no room for anything.

infinitevalence · Post by **infinitevalence** » Wed May 12, 2004 3:19 am

Hehe... thats a lot of air. If you have it i would love to see some pictures of your heatsink lapped.

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Wed May 12, 2004 1:04 pm

This has been kind of an experiment. I haven't got the lapping kit yet, but once i do, and run some benchmarks, I'd be happy to send you some pics, if I can figure out my wifes camera (I hate the friggin thing, been trying to get pics of my broken HD for days).
I am an adventurer, in my own house). I stay budsy toying with my puter,
That is alot of air, but the stock fans are garbage, and with almost a 1 Ghz OC, I want to keep it as cool as possible
Now that this computer is done, I might sell it and use the new CPU I just bought, P4 3.2 EE, and the memory I just won to start building a new system, and water cool it with a corsair setup

Xerxes · Post by **Xerxes** » Wed May 26, 2004 10:17 am

the enermax 120mm adjustable seems to be a good fan, i havent used it a whole lot as its part of my work in progress stuff

but i really really love having 120mm fans in my main system. the loudest thing in my system is a mechatronics 80mm fan on my heatsink and i cant hear my system until i walk into my room. (im a huge fan of mechatronics now i've had that fan since i bought a 1.4ghz t-bird soon after they came out and its still working perfectly).

LVCapo · Post by **LVCapo** » Wed May 26, 2004 3:22 pm

I tried to find an enermax 120 mm adjustable, but everyone was out of stock when I looked. I went with Panaflo, and recommend them to anyone looking for a great fan , moves alot of air with minimal noise. My only priblem is that I had to buy the Hardcano fan controller because they use the three prong power molex. I have been trying to find a four pin that splits into two three pins, but no luck. I have found a three that splits into two threes, and a four that attaches to one three.