my case plans

[willaby]

I want to know what you guys think about my plans for my case. First, check out the attachment. It's a picture of the back of my case, where I have two exhaust fans installed. Two intake fans are at the front of the case, behind similar "grates." One day I took off the side of the case and felt the airflow from a side-mounted intake fan (which is behind a metal grill) and decided that it was more than the airflow from both exhaust fans combined. Now, I will tell you my first idea.

I borrowed my grandpa's dremel, and I want to cut out all four grates from the two intake and two exhaust fan mounts, to leave just four plain holes. Then I will cover the holes with regular metal grills that one would find at circuit city or whatever. hopefully by doing this I will be able to increase the airflow through my case and therefore cool it down a bit.

That's project number one. If I become confident enough with the dremel, hopefully I can do the next one I have in mind:

Unfortunately, when I bought the case-PSU combo I didn't realize the difference between Pentium PSUs and AMD PSUs, and I ended up with a Pentium PSU (while the processor I run is an Athlon XP). Therefore, it has no fan right above the HSF unit to draw hot air away; it only has the fan in back. I would like to perhaps cut a hole in the bottom of the PSU and install a fan there (right above the processor and HSF unit). I also (and I may be dreaming) would like to cut a hole in the top of the PSU and my case and install a fan there as well.

While I have my computer gutted to work on these holes, I want to spray-paint the inside of my case a different color.

Mainly what I'm asking is for any ideas/comments/suggestions/former experience in these last two ideas, because they are only ideas at the moment; the first is definitely going to happen.

[stroyal]

I say this all the time, you can more than double your airflow if you cut out those little holes. Your fans will also run slower and be quieter. Front fans don't need any grills if they are behind the front plastic cover.

[willaby]

Lol...yeah, actually, I hadn't even bought grills for the front fans, for that exact reason. I just didn't feel like making my post even more wordy than it already is.

However, I'm also considering removing or replacing the front cover entirely, because it's a cheap [poorly built] case and the front was held on by stupid little snap-on plastic things, and all but 2 have broken off. The bottom of it is completely loose. If I do remove the front cover, I will put fan grills, but otherwise, why spend the money?

[MDS]

yes cut those out you will really notice air flow and will be quieter. As for the PSU I'd first check and make sure you have room to place the fan(s) where you want them. Most likely you would be better off with a better psu. If looking for a cheap but good psu I have used the following from Directron on many AMD XP builds all the way upto XP3200 without a single issue of power running 4 drives, GF 4 Ti 4600, and 5 fans.

http://www.directron.com/realpcpsu450.html

[sweeper2]

http://www.techimo.com/photo/showphoto.php?photo=5106


here is a link for my case...this is a neat post...glad you wrote it.
Anyhoo, on the left side it has a fan as seen in pic in front of handle, but don't want to cut out the holes because it would ruin case + has enough airflow now, on the other side the fan that blows on the hard drive is mounted on the inner metal with small holes while the outer case cover also has small holes. So i could cut out the inner case holes but leave the outer case intacked.
But....is there a reason for these holes, was the case designed that way for filtering reasons...the bigger the hole the more the dust,hair etc gets in. How can I protect the inside without jepordizing the looks of the pc if I do the cutouts as mentioned by
"willaby". I would cut out the back exhaust fan also which i do have a grill to mount on it which I am not worried about the appearence of the back of the case. The front fan is mounted behind vents so it sucks in well and I am not worried about it and also have a pci slot exhaust 3200rpm fan that helps but doesn't harm the apperance.

[butch81385]

spray paint it orange or yellow. thats all i gotta say....

[thekingofpain]

My easy way to remove those funky definite air restricting grills is just to enlarge the outermost holes with a drillbit to a size that barely intersects the adjacent hole, go around and the center will drop out (it might need alittle wiggleing if all the holes dont intersect) easier then Dremeling an 80mm circle, use the Dremel sandingdrum to smooth the rough edge, I find that unneccessary if I add a free-er flowing wiretype grill to keep my cat safe---notice the 4 holes aound each fan opening for the wiretype grill/fanmount...

P4---AMD most notable p/s difference = square 12v plug to the board AMD's dont require...

Edit---> blow all the metalchips out before reassembling and dont mess with the p/s imo...

[willaby]

-I examined the HSF unit and realized that the fins on the HS are horizontal, which means that the air that blows out of there goes to the sides. If I wanted to put a fan in the bottom of the PSU, it would have to suck air away that goes out the sides of the HSF first and then up and around to the bottom of the PSU. This leads me to conclude that going to all the trouble of adding another fan at the bottom of the PSU would not be worth it. Plus, there may not be room anyway, as MDS mentioned. I think my best option for this, if I have the money (probably not) is just to get a better power supply.

-I guess the best way to avoid dust is to get filters. Although I don't have any experience with them, I think that they might restrict airflow, and as you can see, my goal here is airflow to the max. I just let the dust collect and every once in a while give the inside a good blow-out with antistatic spray. Here in West Texas it would be almost impossible to avoid the dust buildup, anyway...

-I'm still tossed up over what color to spray it, that project is going to take a little while, because I would like to remove the drive cages to get a better spray. Unfortunately (as I think I mentioned before) I have a sorry case and the drive cages were riveted in (or is this a common thing? I don't have enough experience) so I'll have to drill out the rivets and when I'm ready to put it back together I'll replace them with screws. As to the painting: 3 of my 5 fans glow [bright] green, and I'll soon replace the other 2 with the same kind. I have to consider what color will look good under the green glow. Another option I have is to paint it with UV reactive paint and get some UV lights in there, that would be awesome.

-I appreciate the suggestion for removing the grates, that does sound much better than trying to use a dremel. I'm going to have to blow all the metal chips out anyway if I plan on painting it, but it never hurts to mention...

[speedyvision]

i say spray paint the inside bright green, then the outside black and if you get confident enough with the dremel cut out a couple windows if you want, i dont no if you can replace the front that easily though