Advice? {warning} Large IMG

[RenegadesRemors]

http://myimgs.com/data/renegadesremorse/case.jpg

Hey this is a quick overview of my plans for my holiday mod project - please bear with my horrific paint shop skillz (or lack there of)

now i'd like so suggestion on the above and answers to the following questions:

what is better positive air flow or negative airflow, IE, should i get the side fans to extract or to blow. I've had so many contradicting answers from modding sites - i'm totally confused and 1 step away from missioning off to the aeronatical department and asking for help.

Another thing would ti be beneficial if i add a fan shroud to the 120mm in front to direct the air over the motherboard and no-where else or should i just leave it pumping air all over the place.

any other idea's suggestions would be welcome.

[shamrock_uk]

all looking good

what are your motherboard temps like? if they're nice and low, don't bother with the shroud is my gut feeling...how big is it? would it interfere with the airflow from front to back?

[RenegadesRemors]

thing that bothers me the most is the side fans, should i make them intake or exhaust fans -> ie. negative or postive air pressure?

[shamrock_uk]

Originally Posted by RenegadesRemors

thing that bothers me the most is the side fans, should i make them intake or exhaust fans -> ie. negative or postive air pressure?

well my side fan is intake, as it's halfway up the case, and lower than the fans that blow out from the back.

I was curious so i did try it the other way round and got maybe a 2 to 3 degree rise in case temp, so for my case, having the side fan as an intake certainly works better, but as long as you've got good airflow i shouldn't think it would make that much difference.

[Phat Pat]

The best airflow isn’t positive or negative, the best is to have the air coming in and going out equal (this will also increase the life of your fans because they won’t have to work as hard). About the side fans, the purpose of those is to get cool air over the big heat producers, so Id have those as an intake. But that will produce a positive air pressure, so you'll have to counter this, you could put a fan in that was the exact CFM difference of the intake fans and exhaust fans, but that is rather redundant because you’d be just as well to put in vents or a passive blowhole at the top (vents are harder to make, but will look better).

Hope this helps

[SteveI]

Looks nice... My biggest problem is dust build up... Use filters on intakes if possible. If you can't be exact, slight positive pressure may reduce dust build up in cracks like around the DVD drive bays.

Use the 2 on the side for intake, this way your CPU fan will get air right from outside the case, and so will your GPU.
Also, have another blow hole up top infront of the PSU.... then you will have closer to equal pressure.

[web56n]

lets see, if you do not have any side fans installed, the drawing you have provided would be close to the real world....
what I mean is that your not going to get that air flow like the little red arrows you have.
there are a lot to consider, wires obstacles,unsmooth edges in your case causes massive air turbulence.
if you install 2 80mm fans blowing inwards that will make matters worse.

if your 120mm fan in the front is not as strong as the two 80mm fans at the rear you will end up having an air block in the center of your case.
(lots of sound and not much cooling)

I would suggest to have a 80mm fan for front intake and two 80mm fans intake as well on the side, but with a 120mm fan on the top exiting.
creating a draft cooling atmosphere.
having an even amount of air entering and exiting is not good, nor is negative.
dust will build up on H/S blades far faster than have positive pressure.

[Allan]

Originally Posted by Phat Pat

The best airflow isn’t positive or negative, the best is to have the air coming in and going out equal

I 100% agree!!

[RenegadesRemors]

Originally Posted by Allan

I 100% agree!!

Well, i'm gonna post some pics of my actual case later tonight if i can find the dang camera usb cable.

Well first things first, since i have 2 HDD's and 2 CDroms the top of my case is a cable nightmare (even spiral loomed [already done]) so i'd rather not add a top blowhole.

The 120mm fan pushes around 100 CFM, i'm plannign on using a vantec tornado for the rear exhaust and the PSU Fan(s).
Now those arrows are completely ficticious, they are a perfect world scenario, and what i want to achieve (not gonna happen tho).

Maybe in the end those side fans would do more harm then good? Maybe i should just have a standard window or perhaps just have one 80mm hole ducting air on the CPU cooler? I'm rather artial to cooling my video card thats why i was planning on the dual 80's on the side. My GF4 ti 4200 has a stock cooler on it, with coolermaster ramsinks using a simple 10k thermistor on the back of the GPU is around 50 deg!!!!! Now i've already planned on putting a stock barton cooler (AVC copperbase skived fin cooler) on it, and adding a HS to the rear but i would like some cool airflow over the card just to be sure. IE the dual 80's

You see what i mean about differing opinions, at least every one agree positive air flow is a dust magent but then i guy says equal airflow , then another says equal airflow = bad. Then a third agrees with the first.
Now personally i think having equal airflow is a good idea since it doesnt put pressure on the fans and prolongs their life and reduces noise a bit.
But hell what do i know about airflow.

Also is there anyway to measure the CFM of a fan , if i have the W, I, R characteristics of it or is there a device i can build to measure with?

Damn i feel like running a vote:
-----------------------------
Equal : 2 votes
Negative: 1 vote

Oh and BTW : neone have any ideas for mounting a sotck barton cooler on a GF4 ti, i 2 of em and have done some testing with the one by drilling a hole in the top corner of the heatsink i can align it with the one GPU mounting hole on the card but the other hole is in the open and around a cm away from the HSF, in the end i'm gonna run a long screw through it and a metal plate from the hsf to the screw and attach it like that the only problem being its gonna look very Ghetto! Any slightly more attractive solutions. Well there is another option a vantec IceBerg4 pro cooler, but i cant seem to find any decent reviews of it and am worried about performance technically a cooler able to handle a XP 3200+ should be fine but if the performance is decent i'd rather get the iceberg since it look snazzy.

[web56n]

Originally Posted by RenegadesRemors

Well, i'm gonna post some pics of my actual case later tonight if i can find the dang camera usb cable.

Well first things first, since i have 2 HDD's and 2 CDroms the top of my case is a cable nightmare (even spiral loomed [already done]) so i'd rather not add a top blowhole.

the good thing about having a blow hole is that hot air rises on it's own, with at least a hole, there is somewhere for it to escape.
a fan will only help it.

[RenegadesRemors]

well like i said, the problem being the masses of cabels at the top, I have a bad feeling its gonna cause a lot of noise if i put a fan there and i'm gonna need dual grills to prevent cables getting caught.

[Phat Pat]

if you put a vantec tornado in there, noise is going to be insane anyway, I have one on my HS and its louder than most fans at even 7 volts.

you could always but a fairly restrictive fan grill on a top blow hole if there was no fan, because there wont be much air coming through there, just enugh to equalize it (trust allan and I on this one, it should be neutral). so that would eliminate bad looks and like I said with a Tornado, you wont be able to quiet the noise.

as far as the GPU cooler goes, you better brace that card or it will sag like crazy. put it on with AS epoxy and zip ties, paint them if you want them to look better.

lol, Daniel needs to see the relevancy of these google ads