A window would make it look tacky not to mention increase the viberation of the side panel. Never understood why people like the ugly plexiglass windows in cases.

Another small update,
I ducted the PSU in my Solo to take care of the hot hard drive temps (45*C) I was getting. It also helps keep the PSU from ramping up at idle to cool the CPU if I run its fan too slow using my own simple fan controller.

Side View: The duct goes right up to the CPU cooler.


Angle View: The duct is made from cardboard lined with black bristol board.


Hard drive suspended in front of duct: Notice the small cardboard baffle below the drive at the duct opening allowing all air to enter from around the drive ensuring better airflow.


The view from the top rear


Before this, I tried passive HD cooling with a piece of bent sheet metal screwed to the HD, but that didn't reduce temps at all.


The duct merely cut the HD temp a degree or two, does anyone else have a 1.5+ year old WD blue and can compare HD temps?

I guess I'm trying to make a P180 out of a Solo .

Is the hard drive actually blazing hot to the touch? Maybe the sensor is just reporting the temperature too hot.

If the drive really is hot, I'd guess a lot of the intake air must be coming from the back of the case from the open PCI slots and vent.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of air is just going straight from the honeycomb PCI grill and out the rear exhaust. I always block those grills in all of my cases since they are completely out of the way of components.

Mine usually run 40-45 FWIW. Have a couple pre "Blue" designations and a couple Blue's but the one constant is pretty weak cooling for them all.

One in what was once a P180, suspended in the lower chamber with a Earthwatts 430 I believe, with a Nexus 80mm fan swapped in. Another in my HTPC case (an NZXT Duet) in a 5.25" chamber to get a little bit of air around it. And in the WHS, but it will be going into a 4-in-3 bay with a fan after my vacation. None of them get any real direct airflow so there you go.

Thats assuring, thanks. Mine are running around 41*C.

The drive isn't hot, its barely warm.
I originally had the PCI slots/ grill open because of the 92mm fan in the 5.25" bays (see previous pics) blowing across my hot passive GPU, and hopefully out the back. But for now, I taped up the honeycomb grill, so lets see what happens.

I think the reason why my temps alarm me is because of the hot summer we are experiencing. If not, I might have to consider a bigger Antec 300 and mod it for silence.

awesome pics...

The temps of your drive shouldn't worry you. Google's massive study from a few years back showed that there was no difference in failure rates of drives operating between 35-45°C. Even up to 50°C did not show any significant failure rates. I once read that the whole 40°C max thing that people use for all kinds of electronics was from some dude working for the military who basically pulled that number out of his ... you know what.

If you are concerned, just put a slow spinning fan on it. 80mm @500rpm will do. Because that fan will be 10 times quieter than an open (i.e. not in some kind of enclosure) hard disk
Seriously dude, if you're into silence - and given the lengths you went through with this case mod, you obviously are - you can't accept a non-muffled HDD. That thing should easily be your No.1 noise source. A lot of people underestimate them, because they mistake their whoosh noise for fans.

Years ago, Tony Kordyban, an electronics cooling expert, wrote a little piece called Ten stupid things engineers do to mess up their cooling, and Rule 9 is cited below:

Ah yes, that was it. And it really is a rule that never seems to die. I have a friend whom I have explained that a thousand times and who still prefers to sit next to his whoosh-machine just so his GPU never hits 40°C degrees.

I just don't feel like another fan will do justice to quieter computing though... it just seems like I'll have too many fans! Besides I ducted the PSU right up to the HD so it gets enough airflow, and no temperature difference.

My HD isn't the noisemaker I'm after, its the PSU foremost. I'm just worried about the temps, as (I should have mentioned) before the case mod sitting under the suspended fan (see the pics on the 1st page of this thread) HD temps were usually 35-37*C, although we've been having notably hotter weather (no AC ) since then...

Has anyone noticed HD temperature increase as their drive ages?

Congrats on having the guts to tear apart the case and approach this new form.

But, with components tending to become less power hungry and more efficient (except GPUs that at some point went speeding in the wrong direction) and PSUs heading towards over 95% efficiency on all loads, I consider a top mounted PSU (with fan) to be better in the near future (from the silence point of view).

I'd say that in a mid-tower case, a 95% efficiency PSU with a 14cm fan (with speeds that generate noise up to the lower limit of human hearing) will give a much appreciated help in exhausting the heat without having any problems with the heat generated by the other components or added noise, assuming that is not the only exhaust fan in the case.

My WD Blue 640GB is iding at 35 degrees and maxes out on 41 degrees. Nothing to worry about.

A simple rule is to have a HDD that is not getting over 60 degrees. Over 60 degrees there is more chance on failiures. This was researched by Google.