P180 air flow door open vs closed.

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Devonavar

Post Reply
Snowdog
Posts: 21
Joined: Sun Jul 29, 2007 10:03 am
Location: Ottawa, Canada

P180 air flow door open vs closed.

Post by Snowdog » Fri Aug 03, 2007 5:52 pm

Just wondering how much the door impedes airflow. Has anyone tested temperatures open vs closed?

tehfire
Posts: 530
Joined: Mon Jan 01, 2007 9:57 am
Location: US

Post by tehfire » Fri Aug 03, 2007 6:54 pm

Not specifically, but I've felt the airflow open door vs closed and didn't notive a difference...

cmthomson
Posts: 1266
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2005 8:35 am
Location: Pleasanton, CA

Post by cmthomson » Fri Aug 03, 2007 11:13 pm

It depends on how fast your fans run.

In my system, which has extremely slow fans, the extra impedance with the door closed produces a significant temperature increase. This is because with the door closed, all the inlet air has to come though those tiny slots on the side of the case (and the bigger ones on the bottom, assuming your case is not sitting on carpet). These have a much smaller cross section than the filtered inlets behind the door (plus, in my system, the Kama Bay inlet). OTOH, if you haven't removed the goofy swing-out covers over the filters, then all bets are off...

wumpus
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 946
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 9:57 pm
Location: Berkeley, CA, USA
Contact:

Post by wumpus » Sat Aug 18, 2007 3:30 pm

I found there's a MASSIVE difference in temperatures on my P182 when the case door is opened vs. closed.

Lots of data and graphs here:

viewtopic.php?t=42801

As loted by cmthomson, this may depend how fast/powerful your fans are.. but I'd assume most people running a P182 are interested in quiet and thus run on "low" or "medium" tricool settings.. and are susceptible to the severe airflow restriction problem of the front panel.

Bottom line, you REALLY really should consider removing anything obstructing air intake on the front middle fan mount on the P182.. the dust guard, the fan grill with tin snips, and even the plastic cover. I found the plastic cover alone hurt temps almost as much as having the cover closed (!).

cmthomson
Posts: 1266
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2005 8:35 am
Location: Pleasanton, CA

Post by cmthomson » Sat Aug 18, 2007 4:01 pm

A P180/182 with slow fans will always have better cooling with the front door open.

The swing-out plastic doors in front of the dust filters should always be removed. They serve no useful purpose (in my opinion they don't even look good), and cut the air flow in half.

As for the other measures wumpus recommends, it may be slightly helpful to cut out some metal from the inlets, but it is a bad idea to remove the dust filters, as this will result in the HSF becoming less efficient over time as its fins get coated with dust.

Wibla
Friend of SPCR
Posts: 779
Joined: Sun Jun 03, 2007 12:03 am
Location: Norway

Post by Wibla » Sat Aug 18, 2007 4:11 pm

About those swing-out doors.. how do you remove them properly without breaking them in the process?

cmthomson
Posts: 1266
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2005 8:35 am
Location: Pleasanton, CA

Post by cmthomson » Sat Aug 18, 2007 4:23 pm

Wibla wrote:About those swing-out doors.. how do you remove them properly without breaking them in the process?
Open the door (push on the right-hand side), then press down on the top hinge as close as possible to the case. It has a little bump on top that will disengage, and let you remove the door with no damage.

SecretFire
Posts: 7
Joined: Wed Feb 14, 2007 5:22 pm

Post by SecretFire » Sat Aug 18, 2007 9:39 pm

I just tried this myself with an 8800GTS in a P180. I fixed the fan speed at 60% and loaded it with rthdrbl. The temp went up (from 69C) to about 80C within 5 minutes, then stayed there.

I opened the main door, and the temp remained at 80C for 10 mins. I removed the little doors in front of the filters, and it's still holding steady at 80C. So the response is probably pretty specific to each setup; in my case, I'm guessing that a significant amount of the GPUs air is being drawn in from the nearby rear intake.

wumpus
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 946
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 9:57 pm
Location: Berkeley, CA, USA
Contact:

Post by wumpus » Sat Aug 18, 2007 10:03 pm

8800GTS draws a fraction of the power of an 8800GTX.

That's why the GTX has two 6-pin power connectors, and the GTS has only one.

8800GTX about 146 watts
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... 00_11.html

8800GTS about 104 watts
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... 640_6.html

I own a 640mb GTS in another machine and it runs quite cool compared to the GTX-- which makes sense if you consider that they have the exact same NVIDIA designed cooler .. it just runs a lot hotter on the GTX.

Post Reply