P180 fan swaps

Delta_42 · Post by **Delta_42** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 7:33 am

I'm going to have a play swapping the fans around in my gaming rig. Currently I have the stock tri-cools in the two top/rear outlets, the tri-cool from the bottom chamber is mounted on the middle chamber to blow air over the HR03-GTs cooling my graphics cards. The fan on my heat-sink is a Noctua NF-S12 that came with the heatsink.

So, in order to quiet things down, and hopefully beef up the cooling too, I've bought an extra NF-S12 and a pair of Scythe S-Flex 1200RPM fans.

I'm intending to move the existing Noctua off the heatsink and use both Noctuas in the rear/top outlets, and put the s-flex fans on my heatsink and in the middle of the case to give airflow over the HR03s

Does this sound like a reasonable plan? I may also try blocking the top vent (I have the plastic plate that came with my Fusion case somewhere) and just using the rear outlet.

Anyone got any better suggestions for the placement of these fans?

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 8:20 pm

Hello,

It sounds like you have it well in hand -- a little experimentation will tell you more that we can.

Delta_42 · Post by **Delta_42** » Mon Feb 25, 2008 5:33 am

Well, its done, except my temps are causing a little concern now, so I haven't tried adjusting fan speeds. My E6600 is idling at around 50C. I'm not sure whether its the heatsink not being seated quite right (the chipset cooling fouls the CPU heatsink a little, but it should be ok) or the fact that I've got the heat from a pair of 8800GTs also being dumped in the case that is giving be such a high idle temp.

I didn't have time over the weekend to have a proper play around as I was also moving my server from WHS to Windows 2008 amongst other things.

When I get chance, I'll have a bit of a play with a cooler graphics card in there, and clock the CPU back to stock etc.

sgtseth · Post by **sgtseth** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:47 pm

I also have a P180 case and had problems with my 8800GTS getting hot inside my case. What I did was rig up folded sheet of light card board to create a windtunnel like ducting. I placed this so that it directed air from the mid mounted fan over the vid card. It dropped temp quite nicely. If you concerned with not getting enough air to your CPU and upper portions of the mobo/ case, I would recommend mounting either an additional 120mm fan in empty 5 1/2" bays or maybe a 90mm there. This will provide additional air to upper areas.

Delta_42 · Post by **Delta_42** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:09 am

Thanks for that. To be honest I'm not really too concerned about the temps at the moment. They are a little higher than I'd like, but considering the fact that the CPU is overclocked and overvolted and I have two over-clocked 8800GTs being passively cooled inside the case I think I'm doing quite well.

I might swap the Noctua cooler for a TRUE if I have any spare cash, but to be honest the temps are well within the operating range of the CPU (it idles quite high at 45-50, but only goes up to around 60 under load) and its all nice and quiet, so why mess further?