Anyone know how important it is to have slotted sides on a case door? I'm thinking of building one, either as a mod or part of a DIY build, and my current design is basically a standard door with the sides cut out.

I plan to make it by mounting sheet metal on hinged standoffs, bending "ears" to close off the top and bottom, and hemming the edges to reduce diffraction and spilled blood. It would be just about as non-restrictive and easy to construct as you could possibly get, so it makes me very nervous that I've never seen anything like it. I'd rather not waste time, materials, and airflow if it's not going to make things quieter.

Just trying to make sure I've grasped what you're talking about when referring to the sides of a door, some hamfisted ascii art:

Left side view


Assuming my visualisation of your open door side concept is correct then my hunch would be that slats are included in commercial designs firstly to prevent fingers/pens/BLT sandwiches getting wodged down there, and secondly for perceived aesthetic benefits.

Slats seen in decent designs like Antec/Fractal etc are likely to be open enough that (a) they don't introduce any impairment or turbulence to airflow (at least at the speed we're likely to run case fans) and (b) don't produce any effective barrier to sound (not that this is necessarily needed in this position).

As such I'd further guess that an open design over loosely slatted would in theory produce better airflow and have no effect (for better or worse) on noise. In practice the theoretical airflow benefit is probably negligible or insignificant.

I suppose that one option might be to leave open the side which will be further away from you when the case is in use and close up the side sitting nearest you, coupled with as dense a layer of sound absorbent material as you can fit - however I'd guess that the likely noise benefit in this scenario to be placebo only.


Disclaimer: you'll have noticed I have frequently used the words "hunch" and "guess". Beyond a physics education (which (a) only tangentially touched upon such issues, (b) has not subsequently been used in work, and (c) is now rather old) I have no qualifications in this regard beyond a persistent grumpiness at all things noisy which occasionally motivates an attempt to fix such irritants.

Understood, but my technical expertise is certainly no more advanced than yours, so it's good to hear that your analysis aligns with mine.

By the way, my desire to omit vents is less about restriction and more about laziness and lack of skill. If I had to cut dozens of slots in sheet metal with a Dremel, I'd tear out most of my hair in frustration and the end product would make the beige boxes of yesteryear look like works of fine art.


Edit: BTW, your ASCII depiction was dead on. Bravo!