Placing PSU at hte bottom of the case.

haral · Post by **haral** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 12:00 pm

So, if I put my PSU at the BOTTOM of the case, it will get fresh and cool air from the intake fan. Sou the psu will run cooler and so produce less sound. Am I right? The only problem is that will the caple length be enough but I think nexus 300w will have long enough cables.

Has anyone tryid this?

marc999 · Post by **marc999** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 12:47 pm

Nope, but I recently came to the same conclusion. I hope they start making cases one day with the PSU slot at the bottom. I don't know if you can do this as a personal mod because once you screw in an ATX MOBO, the bottom PCI slots/cards take the back bottom of the case up, leaving no spot to put the PSU. It may be possible with a micro ATX case, but then you would have to make a hole through PCI slots, not a flat piece of steel. I guess maybe you could somehow affix it at the bottom front and then use a flexible duct to exhaust air from the PSU out of the case somewhere else.

If case manufactures starting doing that, and making the intake ports on the bottom of a case instead of the front, then I think we Quiet PC'ers would have a much easier life !!

Kostik · Post by **Kostik** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 1:25 pm

As far as I know, PSUs typically exhaust warm air, 37°c - 42°c depending on load for mine. I wouldn't want such warm air to enter my case.

fmah · Post by **fmah** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 4:32 pm

You could always turn your case upside down.

But actually what you're talking about is having intake go straight into the PS and exit. The intake would be some vents in the case and only supply air to the PS so the air would be cool air.

rpc180 · Post by **rpc180** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 6:42 pm

The newest Dell catalog is showing off the insides of one of their cases. The PSU is located at the bottom in a separated compartment. Chili, a case manufacturer, also had this design for a little bit of time with the MB on the reverse side of the case and the PSU at the bottom. Though I thinkthey're out of business now. There's a lot of potential with this design, I'd like to see some temp readings too. I think that if you have intake fans at the bottom of the case, entering into the PSU compartment and another directed at the CPU you get teh coldest air available and let it rise. PCI cards require little cooling and even the fastest GPUs can handle being placed at the CPU position instead.

fmah · Post by **fmah** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 7:21 pm

That's a thing you see, if you invert the motherboard and have the CPU at the bottom and the inlet of the case directly in front of the CPU not blocked by air you can have the air leave behind the CPU. Also you're AGP card is with heatsink pointing up, not down.

Kostik · Post by **Kostik** » Tue Jun 10, 2003 11:20 pm

fmah wrote:But actually what you're talking about is having intake go straight into the PS and exit. The intake would be some vents in the case and only supply air to the PS so the air would be cool air.

Ok, now I see. That's one great idea. And with the top rear free of PSU, you could add 2 exhaust L1As @6v and get a decent airflow with minimum noise.

Alistair · Post by **Alistair** » Wed Jun 11, 2003 12:35 am

http://www.dell.com/us/en/dhs/products/ ... htm#tabtop

if this is the desktop you are refering to, those look like 40mm fans in a very similar designed psu which is in the top of the very loud Apple G4's. certainly not designed for silence.

regardless, seperating the PSU from the warm case air has always been an efficient idea... but working with ATX form factor is painful, to pull it off you need a hefty combination of creativity and modding.

a.

Shadowknight · Post by **Shadowknight** » Wed Dec 21, 2005 6:00 am

Bumping as a blast from the past, given how there has been an explosion of new cases from several manufacturers using this concept now.