Silverstone Temjn TJ04 HTP²C Build

ST · Post by ST » Mon May 15, 2006 10:37 am

Kinda slap in the face when Intel owners start referring 90nm Athlon chips as "hot", but hey I'm listening, and here's my latest iteration of everything. Things I have done now:

- Eliminated 1 HDD altogether; consolidated storage so there's only 3
- Eliminated front HDD fan; after much testing, temps were still reasonable in a passive configuration
- Eliminated rear fan; see next item
- Eliminated internal PSU fan (noisiest in the system); replaced with external Panaflo fan w/ software control
- Cut out the fan grill in front chassis for more airflow
- Decreased CPU speed to FX-60 speeds only (2.6GHz), but at max voltage of 1.2V

With this new configuration, the max temps attained with the lowest, almost inaudible fan setting is now 47C (see Speedfan CPU temp charts):

Some upcoming mods will include:

1. Replacement of HSF with Thermalright Ultra 120
2. Rear Air duct to Ultra 120
3. Thermalright VH1 or AC silencer S1 passive GPU HSF

As always, any comments / feedback appreciated.

mattthemuppet · Post by **mattthemuppet** » Tue May 16, 2006 9:55 pm

further ideas -

somehow get those 3 HDDs in a rack in front of the intake and remove fan. Duct it so that all the air from the intake goes over the HDDs. They'll then get nice cool outside air, without warming up the inside of the PC too much.

remove that fat 120mm fan from the PSU and put a nice (Yate loon for eg) inside it and use the space to make a nice cardboard duct to the front bays recently vacated by the HDDs. PSU'll now get fresh cool outside air rather than hot air from the CPU/ HDDs and therefore shouldn't spin up much.

Stick front to back tower style CPU cooler (like a Ninja) on CPU. After cutting out the rear, restrictive grill you can then duct the HS so that either the fan (that big 38mm on currently strapped to the PSU for eg) is on the HS and there's no exhaust fan (pushing) or the fan's on the exhaust pulling air through the HS. That way all the CPU heat will be exhausted straight out of the case with the minimum no. of fans. Plus, that single fan should pull enough air over the HDDs to keep them cool (provided there are no other significant intakes) passively - it's what I've used for my PC, though I've only got a single HDD.

Finally, find a way to supply fresh air to the GPU - I'm still convinced that you could cut a nice hole in the side of the case and duct it straight to the AC silencer fan. Or, if you don't want to chop up your case (understandably), you could use those rear vents as an intake, with appropriate ducting and a baffle to make sure hot air that's already been exhausted isn't sucked back in. Whatever GPU HS you put on, keeping that hot air away from the CPU will make cooling the CPU that much easier.

All pie in the sky ideas, but as cmthompson's user article on his scorching hot P4 beast has shown, you can have your cake and eat it, it just takes more effort

Or - if you're thinking of using the rear grill as an intake to a ducted CPU HS (in turn exhausted by the PSU), you could always make the front intake fan an exhaust, using the vents around the PCI slots as an intake. You would need a different GPU HS though and your HDDs wouldn't get much air. Q's Q's !

ST · Post by ST » Wed May 17, 2006 1:03 am

matt, interesting ideas. i'm not quite sure how much airflow the hdd's need, as they seem to run fine presently, but i am moving to a suspended hdd arrangement soon (once i get the elastic bands). Scythe does offer that Kaminaki (sp?) 120mm bay fan cooler, but I'm not sure I want to go to that again.

as for the nexus fans for the psu, i have been deliberating that; actually the AC 120mm fans also look interesting with low dBs as well as decent airflow. I was still shooting for a negative backpressure system to help with the cooling, but still undecided.

The Ninja idea venting to the rear has crept into my mind more than once though (see note about Thermalright Ultra 120), but another solution I was cooking up was using a fan shroud on the TT TYphoon and cutting a hole on top of the side case to pull in fresh air directly. BUt this is still in planning stages, as I don't want to mode my case too much.

One thing a bit radical that i have done is to remove the PSU outside to the rear altogether mounting it via the 120mm rear fan grill area (cut out also). With the rather lackluster <70% efficiency rating of my PSU, it was cooking up a lot of heat internally. I decided for the interim to play with the idea of a direct rear exhaust with the PSU externally. Seems to help thus far. What are your thoughts on it?