According to the Intel manual you should be able to run fanless in a well vented case. It will run hot, of course, but with an $80 board I wouldn't worry about that. So what if it only lasts 10 years instead of 20.

shleepy, I've seen a case (forget the model) which has holes for 60mm fans in that location. This doesn't force air in between the cards, though, so I don't think it's ideal. Another approach is to use the location as an intake for a duct, with the fan above (perpendicular to) the cards, like a side...

Does whether the power supply is top mounted (acting as an exhaust) or bottom/isolated affect the best choice of power supply? Here's my thinking: if the power supply is isolated from system airflow, then you want the minimum fan speed (zero if possible) which is needed to cool the power supply. But...

Is this the sort of thing you had in mind? Wow, that case (Coolermaster 840) has a lot of fan options! It's a monster. Top or bottom mounted power supply, 120mm bottom fan, 120mm external ducted slot fan, 2 120mm hard drive fans, 230mm front fan, 2 230mm top fans, and 120mm rear fan. It doesn't loo...

Some cases with bottom mounted fan: Corsair Obsidian 700D/800D, Fractal Design Define R2 and a bunch of cases from Cooler Master. Then, of course, there are the Silverstone cases with a rotated motherboard tray, but that's a different airflow concept altogether. Thanks for the info. These cases use...

After considering this more, I no longer think this is a great idea. A better approach is to put an intake fan in the case bottom. For maximum (or any) benefit the high power card should be in the lowest slot, otherwise it would be shielded by another card. If no cards are installed, the bottom fan ...

I am wondering, what is the reason these fanguards are fitted to cases at all? They can even be found in cases that are built for silence, in places where fingers are not an issue (like SPCR's own P180), so why are they fitted/stamped? One good thing about a fan guard is that it prevents stray cabl...

If you are relying on a case fan to cool the power supply, a concern is that it may work fine with the case closed, but not with the cover off (since there won't be any airflow).

I wonder if there are any cases which support mounting a fan where the slots are. The fan would block all the slots except the first, but it would be quite effective if you only have a single high power card in the first slot with no fan of its own (or if you're using a mini-ITX motherboard, which o...

You might find this helpful, it's a summary of Atom(Pineview) boards:

http://www.linuxtech.net/features/intel ... rview.html

Power supply fans are almost always exhaust (some very old ATX supplies were intake as this was the original suggested design). You can flip the fan if you like, but it should work fine either way.

But...why not get a board which accepts an external 12V?

If a fanless power supply were designed for front to back airflow (unlike this one), then it would offer the potential advantage of using a large front case fan to cool the power supply without the 90 degree turn of a built-in 120mm fan. No such animal. Very difficult to achieve if you consider whe...

If a fanless power supply were designed for front to back airflow (unlike this one), then it would offer the potential advantage of using a large front case fan to cool the power supply without the 90 degree turn of a built-in 120mm fan.

What do you think of this idea? Take a tower case and custom mount a mini-ITX (170mm x 170mm) board on top. Put a big heat sink on the CPU, no fan. So the heat sink is in open air. Other components are placed in the tower (no fan). A key question is what is the CPU TDP limit for this type of cooling...

If the BIOS and drives support "staggered spinup", then you won't have a power peak.

Or for a brute force solution: http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showt ... ?tid=35851

Let me explain my interest. I'm comparing the options:
(a) cheap fanless desktop
(b) cheap fanless laptop

The cheap fanless desktops have similar limitations to laptops, and are not a lot cheaper. So I figure, why not get a laptop, even if 99% of the time it will be used in desktop mode?

I've never owned a laptop so this is a naive question. Is there any problem with using a laptop as a desktop replacement? That is, is it normal and standard for a laptop to support using an external keyboard, mouse, and monitor, never needing to use the built in keyboard and display?

The I/O shield is important for blocking undesirable airflow (assuming the usual rear case fan) and providing mechanical support. It's also a nuisance because it's something that the big computer makers (Dell, Gateway, Compaq, HP, etc) customize. They are incompatible with each other and with retail...

I see lots of fanless motherboards, but you still need a fan to get the heat out of the case (or a custom case). So here's the idea: why not have a motherboard with a heat sink which protrudes from the I/O area (the I/O would be relocated to a slot bracket or two)? This would get the heat out of the...