[Please take a look my Alladvantage info page. It is really worth it! Click here. ]


 

Implementing Effective Case Cooling


Front view of case..See two fans on side and a chimney fan on top.

Date: March 12, 2000

Author: Android

 

So you’ve selected and pieced together all of your favorite components into a potentially killer overclocked system. You’ve got a massive Alpha CPU Cooler and active cooling on your TNT2, but there’s still room to maximize the potential overclockability of your system. You want to spend your time and money in a way that will bring the most performance benefit. In other words, your time and resources may be limited, but you don’t want to compromise when it comes to factors that might help you squeeze every little bit of power you can get out of your components. In this article, I’m going to propose a way that I improved the ventilation of my system drastically in a few hours of dedicated but not too complicated work. The lack of effective cooling and air circulation through your case might just be that final barrier that is keeping your system from reaching it’s full potential overclockability.

 

There’s no question that a top priority of every overclocker is keeping those overclocked components in your system as cool as possible. The effectiveness of the cooling methods you use is critical in gaining those extra frames per second. But simply put, you will find it difficult to “cool” anything with warm air. If fresh air is not circulating through your case, the warmer air temperature inside the case will drastically reduce the effectiveness of your existing CPU and Video Card cooling.

 

The ideal solution is to have as much fresh air circulated through the case as possible, and which better location to bring that air in than right over the critical hot spots in your system, focusing on your peripheral cards and CPU. My 7200 RPM IBM Deskstar Hard Drive does run a little warm but because it is out of the way near the front of the case, it is not as significant of a concern as the main heat producers that are running overclocked. Mainly, my Hollywood Plus DVD card, my TV Tuner card and my Viper V770 Ultra are in need of cooling. And of course I would like my CPU, the main heat bandit of the system, to stay as cool as possible. I am using an Intel Retail Pentium III 500 SL37D.

 

What I Used:

 

·   2 120mm Panaflo Case fans, 70 cfm

·   1 92 mm Sunon Case fan, 44 cfm

·   2 120 mm fan grilles

·   2 120 mm wire mesh filters (optional)

·   1 92 mm fan grille

·   1 92 mm wire mesh filter (optional)

·   Various drill bits

·   Heavy duty power drill

·   12 bolts and nuts to secure fans to case

 

 I was able to purchase all of the cooling-related items either at 2Cooltek or Millisec at very reasonable prices.

 

A note on the fans; there are many different types of fans to choose from. I chose to use the biggest fans I could possibly use so that they would cover more area. I particularly think the Panaflo fans fit this purpose perfectly because one of them can cover all 6 card slots with 70 cfm of fresh air, while creating only 33db of noise. If noise isn’t an issue, then one could use the Sunon 120mm fans that blow 130cfm of air!! However, other problems might arise with so much air pressure inside the case.

 

In my trials with overclocking components, I always had one side of my case open so that I could tweak with stuff when necessary. But upon closing up the case once I had established a stable speed and configuration that I was satisfied with, the configuration would be no longer stable. With one look at Hardware Doctor, I realized that something needed to be done. At that point, HWDoctor was reporting an inside case temperature of 32°C! How could I “cool” my CPU by blowing 32°C air onto it? I set out to find a way to maximize the efficiency of the airflow in my case and keep the temperature down to as close to room temperature as possible. I want to bring as much fresh outside air as possible onto the critical “hot spots” and allow for an exhaust of warm air from the top of the case. The simple 3 fan solution that I implemented allows me to run the P3-500 at 610MHz and the V770 Ultra at 175MHz core and 220MHz memory. This configuration is solid as a rock and still keeps my system temperature inside the case at a chilly 21°C. 11°C cooler is an incredible difference over what I had before, but I still feel there is room for improvement, which I will detail in my next article.

 

WCPUID..Pentium III 610MhzPowerstrip..175Mhz Core, 220Mhz Memory

 

           

 

 

 

 

Now let’s move on to actually installing the fans in your case. We are going to put a fan sucking fresh air into the case directly over the processor area and another over the PCI cards area. Finally, we are going to put a smaller fan in the top of the case to expel warm air out. The first thing that I did was lay out my fans and trace around them. Using a pencil to trace, I just placed a grille and traced around the outside where I wanted to cut out. I also marked the four corner holes for the bolts. I tried to center the fans locations directly over my hot spots.

 

The challenge now is to cut these holes out of the sheet metal. There are potentially many different ways to cut the holes, but due to my drastically limited resources, I had to create my own method. At a slight expense of aesthetics, this drilling method is the quickest and probably most painless. I decided to pick up an extra drill bit from the hardware store to make sure I had one that was very sharp. Using a small ¼” strong drill bit, I simply drilled around the outside of the circle until I had drilled the entire circumference. Once I had drilled hole by hole around the entire circumference, the metal was easily pulled out using some pliers. It only took about 10 minutes per hole. 30 minutes later, I had drilled out 3 holes for my fans and also drilled the accompanying 4 corner holes for the screws to hold the fans. The next step was to secure the fans to the case. This can be done easily using regular bolts and nuts. Here are a few more pictures of the fans stuck in the case.

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, this is a project was a very worthy upgrade. At a cost of less than $50, a few hours of time, a little bit of effort and creativity, I managed to reduce my case temperature by 11°C at all times. This has allowed me to reach overclocking potentials that did not exist before. With this project, my goal was to lay a foundation for a supercooled CPU project. With the incredible amount of airflow and circulation the case has now, I can pursue much higher levels of overclocking. I hope this article will give you some ideas on how to improve the potential overclockability of your system as well. Please send me your comments and results. I would love to hear some feedback.

Next stop, supercooling the Pentium !!!!


[Please take a look my Alladvantage info page. It is really worth it! Click here. ]


This page has been visited 13209 times.