The case of the thermally advantaged case.

orion456 · Nov 13, 2004

I have one of those thermally advantaged cases that Intel recommends. It has a small region about 2.5 inches across with air holes punched in the metal and a plastic duct leads from the side panel to the HSF.

I have a p4 2.6 ghz with stock cooling, 2.5" side panel duct to HSF. My idle/load = 35/47 (room=21c) and I wasn't that impressed so I did some duct mods.

Below is a SpeedFan temperature graph with various regions marked. Notice the temperature steadily rising from 41 to 48 as I adjust the type of duct. Listed below are the regions and their corresponding duct type.

A -- 3" duct sealed around HSF

B -- 3" duct not sealed sitting about 1cm from the HSF

C -- 4" duct not sealed sitting about 1cm from the HSF

D -- Side panel off, no duct

E -- no duct side panel on

------------------------

As you can see there is a big change in temperatures depending the duct type. Before the experiement started I also switched my one intake fan to exhaust and I have my psu which also exhausts air.

orion456 · Nov 13, 2004

Here is the reverse of the above graph. The 48c line is with no duct [two exhaust fans (100% load)] and the 42c line is with a sealed 3" duct from the side panel (plus exhaust fans).

The temperature drop happens pretty quickly. So a duct is obviously not always a good duct. You need to experiement a bit. By the way, left over time the 48c line drifts up to 50c and the 42c line drifts down to 40.5....an amazing difference.

archilochus · Nov 13, 2004

I have one of those thermally advantaged cases that Intel recommends. It has a small region about 2.5 inches across with air holes punched in the metal and a plastic duct leads from the side panel to the HSF.

Did you mod the hole on the side panel? Or is it still stock,with air holes punched. Are you using a filter?
Nice experiment..5C drop. :clap:

orion456 · Nov 13, 2004

archilochus said:
Did you mod the hole on the side panel? Or is it still stock,with air holes punched. Are you using a filter?
Nice experiment..5C drop.

That purdy air hole dotted dent in the side panel is now one big hole with a 3" dryer vent leading to the HSF.

I also made a ghetto air filter that causes only a 0.5c increase in temps. I took some air conditioning filter material and roughly sewed it into a box 4.5 x 3.5 x 3". Turning the box inside out, I put it over an old strawberry basket for support and placed that over the intake hole. You can see the green support ribs of the basket under the filter material in the pic below.

The farther the filter material is from the intake, the less effect it has on air flow and noise. Noise and air flow reduction are mainly caused by air moving fast thru the filter so if you can move the filter away from the rushing air, you get good filtering and no noise. With the filter in place and the new air duct my load temp is 42.5c compared to over 47c with the original metal mesh and over 50c with no duct at all.

I'm going to make a bigger filter that surrounds the entire white duct molding and see if that further reduces the air filter temperature raising effects.

Another effect that showed up: hot air pushed out the back of the puter was wrapping around and back in the new duct. It actually caused a 1c rise in temps until I put up a blocking piece of cardboard.

archilochus · Nov 14, 2004

Those are the details I was looking for..Thanks..

Dcasole · Nov 14, 2004

orion456, Nice Job :thup:

I currently have my duct about 3/8 inch from my HSF as I wanted any extra air to cool off the surrounding motherboard area but after reading your results I think I am going to try and seal it

Dave

somegeek · Nov 16, 2004

This knocked 10ºC off my load temp...

*** this is a work in progress so it's ugly at the moment ***

80mm Panaflo fan with duct....

Dropped my load temp by 10ºC and my idle temp by 11ºC.

The end of the duct sits 1/2" above the CPU fan and the diameter of the duct at the CPU end is the same size as the CPU fan.

Got the idea here and the duct at True Value hardware in the plumbing section and cut down to size. The camera distance makes this look disproportionate- the duct tapers down from the 80mm fan to the size of the CPU fan.

somegeek

orion456 · Nov 17, 2004

somegeekDropped my load temp by 10ºC and my idle temp by 11ºC. The end of the duct sits 1/2" above the CPU fan and the diameter of the duct at the CPU end is the same size as the CPU fan. [/QUOTE said:
Nice duct and awesome temp drops.

That a fan you have on the side panel side of the duct?

somegeek · Nov 17, 2004

thanks orion...

Yeah - there's a Panaflo 39CFM/32dB fan mounted there.

orion456 · Nov 17, 2004

somegeek said:
thanks orion...

Yeah - there's a Panaflo 39CFM/32dB fan mounted there.

Kewl I like that fan.

I've been experimenting with putting a fan at the end of my duct. At first I didn't think it helped temps much, but since I started overclocking my 2.6 to 3.0 I have seen the effect of a 2nd side fan multiply especially on my stock intel HS which is making 42c full load @ 3.0. I also have an air filter there and the 2nd fan overcomes a lot of air resistance.

Did you test to see if your 2nd fan made much difference...if so what did you find?

Oh yeah, better get a fan guard for that baby before she eats a box of kleenex or, god forbid, a finger.

I see you put an exhaust fan at the back on the top. I decided to put mine on the bottom fan holder nearer my video card which seems to generate crazy amounts of heat. I figured I didn't want my exhaust fan to compete with the PSU's exhaust fan which is close by AND I was hoping to suck more air over the video card. I can't measure my video card temps so I don't know if that idea works. What do you think about the problem of the two exhaust fans competing with each other for air? I also cut out my fan grill, way more air comes out now (I put a fan guard on it though).

I also sealed off the upper fan grill and put a flap on the top of my exhaust fan to prevent air from being sucked from above, hoping the PSU fan would do that job. I was trying to get more air movement around the video card by limiting the air that come come from up above. If I put my hand around that area I can really feel the air movement.

somegeek · Nov 17, 2004

Nope - didn't think to test it without the intake fan. I'm currently seeing around 27 at idle and ~39 at load. I have a few more fans to add to the system which should cool things down a bit... been contemplating dropping my mem ratio to 5:4 to up my CPU some more but hesitant since I am seeing higher mem bandwidth at the 1:1 ratio...

someone on guru3d stated that the memory bandwidth increase would be negligable and that going to 5:4 and raising the CPU speed would be more benefical overall.

Gonna try that after I get the new fans added.

orion456 · Nov 17, 2004

somegeek said:
Nope - didn't think to test it without the intake fan. I'm currently seeing around 27 at idle and ~39 at load. I have a few more fans to add to the system which should cool things down a bit... been contemplating dropping my mem ratio to 5:4 to up my CPU some more but hesitant since I am seeing higher mem bandwidth at the 1:1 ratio...

someone on guru3d stated that the memory bandwidth increase would be negligable and that going to 5:4 and raising the CPU speed would be more benefical overall.

Gonna try that after I get the new fans added.

Whoa, great job you have really good temps of 39c @3.3 ghz especially with a stock HS.

I like that HS's design. Did you notice the center core is blocked off and used to conduct the heat up a copper core into aluminum fins. Then all the air from the fan is concentrated on the fins and none gets wasted in the "dead spot". But I think the fan they put on it is needs the boost of a 2nd fan with a duct like you're doing.

I'm stuck at 3.0, my memory won't go faster and my board is crappy (bought on purpose as a 2nd machine) so I can't change the 1:1 ratio.

Let us know how things progress!

somegeek · Nov 17, 2004

stuck on 1:1 - doh... 3.0 for a second machine isn't bad though...

Will be posting some pics when I get my sleeving, fan adds and window done(get my stuff this Friday).

Did some prepatory work tonight - emptied my case for a few hours and dremel'd out one remaining chassis fan grill for better flow and cleaned up the other four openings that I had clipped out before. Ended up drenching the case in orange cleaner and hosing off to get all the dust from the dremel discs and metal shavings off of it. Squeaky clean after I dried with a towel and a heat gun and loaded my guts back into it. Now it's cable management time.

orion456 · Nov 17, 2004

somegeek said:
Squeaky clean after I dried with a towel and a heat gun and loaded my guts back into it. Now it's cable management time.

Ohhhhh, you're doing serious work tonight!! :thup:

Here's a pic of my back fan placement.

orion456 · Nov 17, 2004

somegeek said:
stuck on 1:1 - doh... 3.0 for a second machine isn't bad though...

LOL, yep not bad at all...I wasn't even going to overclock it....but you know what happens.......one great way to turn 10 minutes into 10 hours.

orion456 · Oct 23, 2005

Upgraded my CPU to 3.2ghz, now my temps are a lot higher so I will have to do some more mods to get them back down.

GQBalla · Oct 25, 2005

hey i have a air duct on too cept it came like that when i bought the case its a antec TX1050B soho case

i lowered down the airguide all the way as far as it could go down to the hsf and my temps are 29 idle and 41 load.

i am overclocked to 2.56 ghz from a 2.0 ghz processor.

i have not added a fan to my air guide yet it fits a 92 mm fan but what im thinking about is addin a filter to it when i add the fan so minimize dust...im just wondering if the panty hose thing and im just wondering if that will make a whiny noise like everyone talks about.

aznkc730 · Oct 25, 2005

thats a nice way to keep ur cpu cool! Great job man.

RisingPhoenix · Oct 27, 2005

Hmm, interesting. I never thought about putting a duct in my case, but since my video card is idling at 60C now and has loads of over 70C oftentimes, I might. I think my problem is that I don't have good airflow into the case for starters. A duct straight to my card should cool it off good.

The case of the thermally advantaged case.

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