Balancing act

[floppybootstomp]

Think I've finally found a balance between heat & noise. My 3 Evercool 80mm fans arrived this morning and I've just fitted them.

The Sunon fan that came with my Alpha 8045 was really noisy. In fact when I turned my computer off, there was an audible sigh of relief from anybody else in the room.

I was getting 38C from my Athlon 1.2 @ 1.32 with the stock Sunon.

This is what I have now:

1 x Evercool 80mm sucking up from the Alpha 8045.
2 x Antec 80mm fans on exhaust, rear of case, individually switched from front of case.
(Don't know what make these fans are, but they're ultra quiet)
2 x Evercool 80mm fans on intake, front of case, switched as a pair.

I run it mostly just with the exhausts and it's really nice and quiet. No complaints anymore :)

So now I'm getting better internal temps and the CPU averages around 40C maxed out with UD.

If I turn the intakes on it goes down to 38C but then the noise is quite noticeable.

So, I think I've reached a compromise. These fans only cost £12.69 for 3 and they arrived the next day. Quoted dba is 32.5.

[catcorpse]

that is a very tight rope you walk. I have my Alpha on blow, did it make it quieter when you flipped it? I know that some HSF's didn't like that at all and self destructed. I know, I am reminded alot when people sleep in my guest room and want to know why one of my machines sounds like a plane taking off;) Oh well I am going to try liquid cool I think. (I feel like breaking things all over)

(my moto, if it works fine, tweak it some more)

[floppybootstomp]

CC: As ever, it's a compromise isn't it? I'm actually quite happy with it now. I'm using an Antec SX1030 case, btw.

Before the Alpha came along (from New York - thanks Lurch :)) I was using a Silverado cooler and temps on load were between 48 & 51C. I didn't like that much :(

I initially fitted the Alpha fan as blowing, then read in the 8045 thread on this Forum that sucking worked better, so I tried it. It seemed to make sense as the air was picked up and blown out by the two exhausts in close proximity. And it seemed to work as I got a coupla degrees lower. As for the noise, I didn't notice any difference at all whatever way the fan was up.

Just been having a clearout, noticed I've got a heat sink off a video card I blorbed a while back, about 33mm square and I also noticed I got some Arctic Silver Thermal adhesive.

I'm wondering whether it's worth heatsinking my Southbridge?

EDIT: I just went to heatsink the Southbridge - not much point really, it's not even vaguely luke warm!

[ImaginAsian]

Have you tried blowing the bottom rear in and sucking the top rear out?

[Skamp]

Originally posted by DJ ImaginAsian
Have you tried blowing the bottom rear in and sucking the top rear out?

Keep it clean mate,where do you think you are!!:p

[floppybootstomp]

IA: You think that may improve things? It wouldn't take a miniute to try out I suppose, but I can't see it myself.

Below is a rough sketch of my set up. Do you suggest that 1 rear blowing, 1 rear sucking, coupled with the Alpha fan's airflow, would create a kind of circular flow?

[TheHeretic]

This I believe is what IA is referring to on the air flow and fans.

I do know this format works rather well.


TheHeretic

[AmStoned]

Flops, you have a SX-830 or 1030? If you have the former, you can add another 80mm up front to create a positive air pressure in your case, by have more air coming in than going out. I really don't see the point of adding a blow hole on top 'cause you have all the PSU wires in the way and it'll add more dust to your interior. Nor should you have the exhaust fans blow in differ direction 'cause it'll cancel each other out. To sum it up, the best and quickest thing you can do is at another intake up front.

[floppybootstomp]

TH: Add a fan to the top eh? Hmmmm, if I didn't have to share this room with other people, I'd have probably have left the 'noisy' Sunon on the Alpha and considered a blow hole in the top. What I'm trying to do is strike a balance between cooling and not blasting everybody's ears :) I also think IA has all his fans blowing in, with just the 'rooftop' fan sucking out. An interesting concept.

AS: I've got the SX1030, the one with 4 x 5.25" bays and 2 x 3.5" bays. I already have 2 fans at the rear, they came with the case, and two fans at the front, the Evercools I just bought. Of the two hard disk cages in the case, only one has the facility to take a fan. The other front fan is towards the bottom of the case. So it looks like the case has all the fans it can take unless I started modding.

I've actually got one front fan in the empty hard disk cage and have my floppy drive and hard disk (soon to be disks, plural) in the other bay. That's so the air flow through the case takes precedence and isn't impeded by the HDD & FD.

From my diagram, I really can't see how IA's suggestion would help. I think I'd get a clash of air currents as he's described it. As things are, I figure 2 at the front sucking in with 2 at the rear blowing out, picks up the hot air sucked up from the Alpha.

It seems to work OK anyway :D And winter helps a bit as well :)

And maybe IA'll be along in a whiles to comment? :hat:

[ImaginAsian]

IA's here :D

Yeah the blow/suck config was just a thought to see if it would work...I had 0-60 try it on his Lite On with 2x120mm rears and it didn't really do much. Circular airflow was the idea I was getting at but they might just cancel each other out like Stone mentions. Probably dependent on the distance between the rears from each other and the location of the CPU Fan with respect to the reares. Still willing to try it though?

The most improvemnt for you will come with a side blowhole if you feel like modding. And Stone brings up a good point about the top blowhole, if you don't arrange your wires...it will defeat the purpose of sucking out the hot air, cuz it won't ever make it through the spaghetti :)

BTW...i wouldn't try a reverse air config either (rear blowing in, front suckin)...simply because hot air rises so you would be sucking out colder air most of the time.

But I must tell you again...the Chimeny Airflow design works really well for me...case temps = ambient temps. That's about as good as it gets!