Fan locations on the P180 - anyone tried this?

ct991 · Post by **ct991** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 2:02 pm

Has anyone tried mounting a fan below the optical drives in the P180? I realize there is the fan bracket attached to the front of the case right below the optical drives, but I want the fan to be closer to the MB chipset and vid card.

I want to mount a 120mm fan below the back edge of the optical drive cage, so it's as close as possible to the chipset. I've already removed the hard drive cage under the optical drives and right now the fan is just 'sitting' there, but I need something more permanent.

Any thoughts?

silence · Post by **silence** » Wed Dec 07, 2005 6:28 pm

If you put the hard drive cage back in the case you should be able to mount a 120mm fan onto the back of that...I believe MikeC actually recommended that solution to someone here in the past. It would then be your choice whether to have a fan installed in the very front intake mount to augment airflow into the case, or to rely on the exhaust fans to suck cool air in for the fan mounted on the back of the hard drive cage to blow on the graphics card and chipset.

-DG-

nici · Post by **nici** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 8:23 am

Heres a picture i just took.

nici · Post by **nici** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 12:36 pm

And here´s a picture of how it looks when in place, and a fun shot of the wall behind the computer

pictures are taken with my phone, dont know why photobucket resized them though as they are under the limit.. They should be 1632x1224. Oh well..

ct991 · Post by **ct991** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 12:43 pm

How is that fan secured to the back of the cage? Is it those little black strips I see?

nici · Post by **nici** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 12:59 pm

Sorry i forgot to mention that, but yes its the little black strips

Its double-sided foam tape, and holds the fan in place very firmly. I´ve used the same method on fans before and they have never fallen off.

You could of course use something else, i had this tape, some silicone wire, and a hot-glue gun around and decided this is th easiest and cleanest way.

riddles · Post by **riddles** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 2:41 pm

all i have to say is this:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=936507

ct991 · Post by **ct991** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 4:56 pm

riddles wrote:all i have to say is this:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=936507

That's not where I want the fan. Look at nici's pics.

swaction · Post by **swaction** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 7:33 pm

If you tape up all the holes in the side of the drive cage, the air from the front should blow straight over your NB...

Thats my take on it at least....

nici · Post by **nici** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 8:20 pm

swaction wrote:If you tape up all the holes in the side of the drive cage, the air from the front should blow straight over your NB...

Thats my take on it at least....

Yes, well thats also true. But a fan doesnt blow straight, the air flows more like a cone.. So having th fan placed where it is now, it blows right on the chipset. If i had the fan in the front and made a duct of te drivecage most of the airflow would miss the chipset and blow more on the graphics card.

But i think the largest advantage of placing the fan where it is now is that it isnt so close to the front-panel making it harder for the noise to escape.

darthan · Post by **darthan** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 9:09 pm

I've also put a fan in that location on the back of the upper hd cage in my P180. It was to make sure my Zalman NB-32J could adequately cool my NF4 chipset. It works great with a couple of pieces of electrical tape holding it in place (yeah, it's sloppy, but, well, who can see it?). My NB temps are low (28C idle, upper 30s load) and I am happy. One more 5-volted 120 buried in the middle of the case really doesn't make a difference. And I think it probably blows some air throught the PCI cards too.

As far as intake fans go, well, I can't see why anyone would need one in the P180. I am running the stock Tri-Cools at 5ish volts (yes, they are the loudest part of my system and I do want to replace them...hmmm Christmas time soon!) and I can feel air being sucked in all around the grills around the sides of the door. This thing has good airflow control.

nici · Post by **nici** » Thu Dec 08, 2005 9:16 pm

darthan wrote:
As far as intake fans go, well, I can't see why anyone would need one in the P180.

Positive case pressure? I have a couple PCI slots open so some of the heat from the gpu gets exhausted, without an intake fan running slightly faster than the exhaust fan, or completely without a intake fan, dust would be sucked in thru the open slots.