Some cooling questions.....

[fstroupe]

a. Anyone ever use a 92>80mm adapter? (preferably store-bought, but would like to hear any story about a homemade one)

b. Anyone ever experiment with moving fan away from HS? (when I clean HS, there is a very clean round spot behind center of fan, which is directly above center of processor...I would assume that this is the hottest part of HS, and is getting less circulation)

c. Are the "quiet" fans, i.e. Zalman, Vantec, etc, really that much quieter than "generic" (Coolermaster, Tt's regular ones, etc)?

Anyway, my thoughts are that using "a" should help "b", with the bonus of extra air flow.

[techniq]

a.) I have not used a 80>92, but have used a 60>80. I used it on a swiftech to get rid of the 6800rpm delta whiner it came with. I did noticed a slight increase in temps, but the decibal drop far outweighed the small increase in tempature. The tempature increase problem came from both the bigger deadspot in the middle as well as more backpressure. I bought a UV reactive one from frozencpu for something like 10 bucks.

b.) The reason the center is hottest is because all fans have dead spots where the motor is in the middle. Moving it away may help (as long as you put a duct or something to keep the air going where it should). I would look into those fans which are ran from an outside track instead of a center driven one. If I recall though, they only come is slightly odd sizes (70mm?). I don't know much about them, but I do know they have a much small dead zone in the middle.

c.) I have an assortment of different fans in my system (8 total) and really couldn't tell you which I spent a bit more on for a slightly quieter fan. I also adjust them alot with my fanbus to keep sound down somewhat, but IMO I have not noticed alot of difference, unless you have something that is much higher in RPMs.

[playafly187]

C: yes, you can notice a big difference between regular fans and quiet versions. i have 5 zalman quiet 80mm fans in my rig, one quiet 92mm fan and a silent psu. you can hardly even tell that they system is on, and it gets surprisingly good temps too.

as for B: you might want to check into those Vantec TMD (tip-magnetic driving) fans. they are designed to eliminate the 'dead spot' in the center of most fans...

[fstroupe]

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b4da04b3127ccebdd55d725ecc0000001610

Here is my present setup...today anyway.

80mm side fan (controlled by fanbus) blowing directly into HSF...HSF is more CFM than side fan so it pretty much sucks everything that side fan puts out. I experimented with a duct to make flow more direct, made no difference in cpu temp.

Rear fan blows in at appx 1000rpm.

PSU fans turn at appx 900 rpm, heat regulated, will blow full power if case temp reaches 70C. (which I don't think will ever happen)

Two HDD fans (controlled by fanbus) blow out.

Blowhole controlled by fanbus blows out.

60mm fan blows at constant low speed.

Only problem I really see is air coming from L side of HS creating turbulance...PSU fan probably does not extract all air from that side of HS AND rear fan.

Anyone know of something decent, i.e. colored smoke to check airflow. Not that it matters THAT much, but I would love to see what is actually happening.

[Roadracer_4ever]

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b4da04b3127ccebdd55d725ecc0000001610

Anyone know of something decent, i.e. colored smoke to check airflow. Not that it matters THAT much, but I would love to see what is actually happening.

I've tried holding a cigarette near enough to one fan to have it suck in, but it simply disapates inside the case due to increased flow....although i suppose one could fill something like a plastic squeeze bottle with a larger amount of smoke to make a more concentrated amount of it and hold it near one of your intake fans to see where it goes and what it does..at the very least you could get someone to take a pic of it as the smoke billows out of the blow hole and make it look like you're pc is burning up :shock: :P

[playafly187]

you might want to try some dry ice. that stuff puts off a good amount of smoke... although i dont know if it would last long enough to go through the case...

[Roadracer_4ever]

you might want to try some dry ice. that stuff puts off a good amount of smoke... although i dont know if it would last long enough to go through the case...

That would work well, as long as you have at least a hockey puck sized chunk of it....bit of a side note...if ya fill a plastic pop bottle about a 1/3 full of water, and add about a half dozen finger sized chunks to it and put the cap on real tight...it blows up with a huge bang!(the things guys do to amuse themselves at work sometimes..... :D :P )

[playafly187]

you might want to try some dry ice. that stuff puts off a good amount of smoke... although i dont know if it would last long enough to go through the case...

That would work well, as long as you have at least a hockey puck sized chunk of it....bit of a side note...if ya fill a plastic pop bottle about a 1/3 full of water, and add about a half dozen finger sized chunks to it and put the cap on real tight...it blows up with a huge bang!(the things guys do to amuse themselves at work sometimes..... :D :P )

hehe, very true. the process is accelerated if you add hot water :)

[Roadracer_4ever]

A bit off topic I know....lol...theoretically i should post this in laid back, but the dry ice comment was made here first.... I used to drive a delivery truck in a national park up here, and once was stopped for half an hour waiting for idiot tourists to stop taking pics of a bear...had the whole road blocked with tour buses, cars, motorhomes and idiots....anyways...got tired of it, had a pop bottle with some water in it since i wasn't always able to run in some place to grab a drink.....anyways....also had some dry ice in the back of the truck...damn did that bear take off in a hurry when i threw that out the window....lol...and all the tourists were wondering what was goin on...some of the best fun i think i ever had was watchin their confused faces....lol :D