What about drilling new holes, like this.

I have a Chieftec, too. Nothing to be ashamed of Radeonman. Buck up brother !

I have also cut the grills out and removed the plastic fan mounts. I have my fans (1 intake and exhaust) mounted using EAR isolators. The holes that are left in the case after removing the plastic fan mounts looked like this (X and Y being the holes and the other lines representing the edges of the hole from the cut-away grill):

I was able to use the EAR isolators in the X holes and drilled new 3/16" holes in the case in the Z position pictured below:

Someday I'll get around to posting pictures of this.....

If you go this route with your fans, you could put the novibes on the floor of the case and use the lower front intake for HDD cooling. That way you are not adding the noise of another fan.

Re: GPU cooling, are you opposed to a real Zalman bracket to have the fan blow across the card? How free is the airflow of your current fan (if you have the intake side blocked, it could limit the CFM...same issue if there is no place for the air to exhaust as it comes off the Zalman cooler)?

Re: Alpha fan direction. You will really have to give it a try. I also have an Alpha and with my CPU fan at 12V, it made only 2° difference in the max temp whether pushing or pulling air. But at 5V, it made a >5° difference. Can't remember the exact numbers right now....sorry.

I wonder if your cooling issues (GPU, HDD, & CPU) may be related to your case airflow. I know you have the door off, but even then you may just be pushing hot air around in the case. Worth considering I guess.

A 120mm is gonna be really hard to fit...2 92mm fit perfectly after removing the fan mount. Soundwise, a huge improvement over 2x 80mm but still can't touch the 120mm. I think the two 92mm @5v will push the most air though.

Sorry dude, you're busted. Feel free to bring your box over here and we'll work on it though. Ambient temps here are probably 10°F cooler than where you are, but of course you have the "dry heat" advantage.



I'd say they're on the hot side too. The "Gaming Rig" in my sig lives in an Antec SX10x0 (physically identical to your Dragon) type of case. All my temps (except the ambient) are almost exactly 10°C cooler than yours even though we're running very similar setups. I'm running a P4 2.66B OC'ed to 3.0GHz and am using an 8942 on it. I'm using an L1A though, as compared to your NMB. The NMBs are nice and quiet but they don't work well on an 8942 (I tried). First thing I'd do would be put an L1A on your 8942 ans see what happens. You can always put it on a Fanmate and play with the speed.

The other issue is your case ventilation/airflow. You really should have a couple of case fans in there, you're just not ventilating the hot air with your current setup. These cases have excellent airflow so it doesn't take too much fannage to keep things cool. I'd throw at least 3 18cfm NMBs in there, two on the back as exhausts and one in front of where your HDD is mounted as an intake. The intake will mostly serve to cool your HDD. You should notice a nice difference in your temps by doing this, and hardly any increase in air noise.



There is no internal sensor on the vidcard. You'd need to get an external temp probe (like the Digidoc thingies) and place one of it's sensors as close to the GPU as possible.



I'd bet that by increasing your case airflow (as I outlined above) you'd increase the performance of the ZM-80 as well. Currently the hot air has nowhere to go so the cooler isn't working too well. Why are you resistant to adding a Zalman fan bracket above your vidcard? These work well and with a 5V L1A you'd certainly never hear the fan.



As I said above, swap out the NMB for an L1A + Fanmate. The NMBs don't flow enough air to work well with the 8942s.




120mm fans will not fit on that case. 92mms will, and I even have a set of templates to locate them in the best possible configuration.

If you want to stick with 80mm fans, do what the others have suggested and throw away those awful plastic brackets, drill a set of mounting holes and mount them to the case with elastomer grommets.



/Ralf wanders off down the hall, muttering under his breath......"OK, now I'm going to install some deadbolts on my doors and make sure my guns are loaded. Gotta protect my PCs..., gotta protect my PCs..."

Yaya, I haven't done it myself but it looks like it works with a little cu|tt/nn|ing .

Source

Front Top: L1A blowing across HDD suspended below the FDD/HDD cage.
Front Bottom: Cut grill, and left the hole open for airflow.

Rear Top: L1A-exhaust.
Rear Bottom: Covered--to help direct airflow and prevent it serving as an intake vent. (I cut the grill out and drilled the holes on the lower fan hole in case I want to play around with my fan config, add a duct, etc. at some point in the future, but then covered it up with a piece of mass loaded vinyl--cardboard works, too.)

Looks like one of those Cut-Your-Hand-Off-If-You-Mess-With-Modding-This type of Case...

Not really any more than any other case. A Dremel and drill are equal-opportunity flesh-eaters. They don't care what kind of case you have--just whether you are careful with your tools or not.

The Dragons don't have real smooth finished edges on the inside, but a little common sense about how you stick your hand in there keeps the bleeding to a minimum.

/lemme see now.....1-2-3-4.....10. Yep all my fingers are still here.

Why use 92mm or 120mm fans in an application where an 80mm fan may work just fine and push sufficient CFM?

Perhaps we are struck with Tim-The-Toolman-Taylor (from US sitcom Home Improvement) Syndrome and just want "more power." I'm guilty of this in areas of life other than computer fans. *sheepish grin*

I know someone will point to the relationship between CFM and noise at various voltages between 80mm and the larger fans, but if your case takes 80mm fans (which are generally quieter than 92 or 120mm fans when run at the same low voltages) you may want to try putting in 80mm fans and checking temps before going to the trouble to cut a big ol' hole in your case for a bigger (and noisier) fan. ...FWIW

How about a Zalman fan bracket for your ZM-80? It's only about 1% of the cost of that LCD monitor and would help you cool your vidcard.

Plan on using that fan as a door-stop or to level out your fishtank or something. They're very loud (for a "quiet" fan at least).

Huh?

What kind of 92mm L1A is this? I've never seen one w/o mounting flanges on both sides. The only Panaflos I've ever seen with a mounting flange on only one side are those Augmented 80mm L1As like the kind Thermaltake is using on their new HSF.



I can't visualize what you mean here. Do you mean that you'll have to mount it outside the front case wall? Clarification please!

So just to clarify, again: you got 92mm L1A Panaflos that are just like the 80mm versions on the TT HSF? Where did you get them, how much were they and why did you choose them over a "regular" L1A?

And now I can visualize what you're talking about too. When you go to work up a mounting setup for these fans you should read this technical paper about Augmernted Fan Technology. Note that they recommend mounting the fans "half in and half out" of the boundary (the front case wall for you) wall. There's a diagram (figure 7) showing this at the bottom of the page.

Good luck to you. I tried the 80mm versions of these a few years ago but wasn't impressed with them in a head-to-head comparison with regular L1As. The augmented L1As did flow more air than a regular L1A but they were also noticably noisier than the regular Panaflos at the same voltage. The "noise" was a lot of air turbulence noise, not mechanical. I started reducing the voltage until they were as quiet as a regular L1A but by then the airflow was about the same as a regular L1A too (measured by case temp). So it ended up being a wash. I had some $15 Panaflos that cooled as well as, and were as quiet as my regular $8 Panaflos!

Into your PSU? You mean where the fan mounts inside your PSU or where the PSU mounts to the case? Help a silent PC rookie out a little here...

Jason

I never decoupled a whole PSU, but I once decoupled a big coil in a PSU (using rubber washers and earplugs). If you lived in a country where PFC is mandatory, you would soon discover that some passive PFC PSUs buzz loudly.

If your PSU doesn't buzz, decoupling the fan should be enough. But If you want to decouple the whole PSU for some reason, you might find this interesting, though it might be hard to find in the US. But it's just a piece of rubber anyway.

Those do work, and you can get them here too.