Antec 3700BQE Sonata front fan mod??

nervx · Post by **nervx** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 11:25 pm

Has anyone ever tried drilling some holes in the back of the drive cage and adding another 120mm fan? If so what type of results did you get.

Fan goes in red circle

The way i would imagine it to work is the fan would help the flow of air over the hard drives and into the case since so much is blocked by the sideways drive cage.

vhx1 · Post by **vhx1** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 12:14 am

Drilling holes into that thick sheet metal was a fuckin bitch to begin with. I'm not sure if putting a fan there is gonna do much good.. Its just gonna circulate the hot air thats already nside.

Pjotor · Post by **Pjotor** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 12:20 am

vhx1 wrote:Drilling holes into that thick sheet metal was a fuckin bitch

Oh, behave

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 6:22 am

vhx1 wrote:I'm not sure if putting a fan there is gonna do much good.. Its just gonna circulate the hot air thats already nside.

I agree. It doesn't do diddly in the Sonata, I can't see how it would help on a BQE.

bomba · Post by **bomba** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 6:32 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:
vhx1 wrote:I'm not sure if putting a fan there is gonna do much good.. Its just gonna circulate the hot air thats already nside.
I agree. It doesn't do diddly in the Sonata, I can't see how it would help on a BQE.

Actually, a 120mm low-speed/undervolted front fan in a Sonata does significantly lower drive temps while slightly raising case temps. However, with the BQE option of an intake fan, why bother with a 2nd internal fan?

acaurora · Post by **acaurora** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 1:02 pm

bomba wrote: why bother with a 2nd internal fan?

Well for me, I think it may be an interesting option to experiment with, since the current BQE design has it such that the air MAINLY goes AROUND the HDD cage, rather than through. By taking out the front intake, and putting it behind the HDD cage, it forces air through the HDD cage, thus making more air go through, and finally achieving cooler HDD temps. I would try it, but my WCing experiment is still in progress. =[

nervx · Post by **nervx** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 10:18 pm

I think i'll give it a try and see what happens but instead of drilling holes i'll use some elastics or paper clips to hold the fan on. I'll post an update if it does anything.

vhx1 · Post by **vhx1** » Thu Sep 09, 2004 10:11 pm

that mite be a better idea. cutting out the front fan grille made huge improvements in airflow. I did the same thing. Your idea of mounting the fan there with the enlarged fan hole may be effective

whoiswes · Post by **whoiswes** » Fri Sep 10, 2004 1:30 pm

or you could save the trouble of mounting a second fan and build a duct that routes the air ONLY through the hard drive cage...

something made of cardboard would be cheap, easy, and would give you an idea if a duct would even work.

just thinking out loud...

Spod · Post by **Spod** » Fri Sep 10, 2004 11:59 pm

whoiswes wrote:or you could save the trouble of mounting a second fan and build a duct that routes the air ONLY through the hard drive cage...

something made of cardboard would be cheap, easy, and would give you an idea if a duct would even work.

just thinking out loud...

Yes, I was just thinking that as I read through this thread. I'd be interested to hear if anyone tries it, since I'll probably do the same myself.

nervx · Post by **nervx** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 4:19 am

Well i did some tests tonight.

First for hard drive placement. The very top and bottom slots are the best choices if you have two drives or the top if you only have one.

As for the third fan behind the drive cage test results were very positive. Video card and cpu temps dropped by 2'C and case temps by 5-6'C at idle. Load temps were even more impressive. I'm going to retest again later today to verify the results and after that i'll post more indepth numbers.

nick705 · Post by **nick705** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 5:04 am

Spod wrote:
whoiswes wrote:or you could save the trouble of mounting a second fan and build a duct that routes the air ONLY through the hard drive cage...

something made of cardboard would be cheap, easy, and would give you an idea if a duct would even work.

just thinking out loud...
Yes, I was just thinking that as I read through this thread. I'd be interested to hear if anyone tries it, since I'll probably do the same myself.

A guy on the ArseTechnica forums did something along those lines (in a Sonata), but the pics seems to have disappeared

. Here's the link anyway, if it's any use...

Prozzaks · Post by **Prozzaks** » Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:32 am

How many drives do you have? I curently use my Antec Sonata with a single WD800JB and the tempreture of the drive stays around 40C.

BTW : The only fans in the system are : The PSU fan, the supplied rear exaust 120mm fan, and the fan on the AMD heatsink that came with my Barton 2500+. The loudest one is the one on the CPU cooler.

I already used the case with 3 HDs : The WD described above and 2 Seagate 7200.7 120GB. The hottest drive was around 43C. I think 43C is pretty reasonable for a HD...

If you are using Linux and recent drives, you can use hddtemp or smarttools to get the temperature of your drives directly from the internal sensor.