Centurion 5 - Fan for Passive Video and Hard Drive (BIG)

[alluringreality]

PICTURES:


The case before suspending hard drive.


Suspended hard drive on elastic cords about half the diameter of a pencil. There are basically two cords at the top of the drive that carry the weight and keep the drive away from the video card. There's not a whole lot of give, but it can be pushed up and down about 3/4". The hard disk was located here to get it away from the mesh front and so that I could try using one fan for both the drive and video card.


View inside the case showing the CPU cooler at top, and from left to right - the hard drive, video card heat sink, and copper north bridge that were inteded to be cooled with a side 120mm fan.


I swapped case sides so that I could mount foam behind the hard drive. The Fan is currently attached with hot glue and directed towards the video card.


View inside case with fan. As you can see on the first install I did have the fan come off the side, so I might have to use epoxy or some other way to mount the fan at some point.


It looks the same as any other Centurion 5 except for the swapped side panels. The other side isn't pretty, but it will be hidden with A/V equipment. Running three 120mm fans (CPU, Rear, Side of Case) it's far quieter than my SXRD TV or the EVGA 8600GTS video card with stock fan. I haven't yet heard the suspended hard drive, which I could when it was mounted on foam up front. At this point the only thing I don't like is that the DVD drive isn't as dark a black as my old Nu and the rest of the front. Even as picky as I am, there's not much to complain about.

The only other modification not shown is that I shaved off the notches on the front bezel by the DVD drive so that I can remove the front without taking off the side. I'm planning on venting the side fan to the front with an adapter and 80mm duct to see if bringing air from 10" away has any effect. To do that, I needed to make the front easily removeable.


IDLE TEMPS FROM SPEEDFAN AND EVEREST TRIAL:
(Sorry I never measured stock temps because I considered it too loud)

- Open Case (only 12v CPU fan)
Motherboard - 49C
Hard Disk - 42C (on foam in 5-1/4 Drive Bay)
Hard Disk - 50C+ (using SilenX Luxurae Silencer)
CPU Cores - 29C
GPU Diode - 77C
GPU Ambient - 60C

- Case Without Side Fan (CPU and Rear Fans on 12v)
Motherboard - 47C
Hard Disk - 45C (on foam in 5-1/4 Drive Bay)
CPU Cores - 29C
GPU Diode - 62C
GPU Ambient - 47C

- Case With Unvented Side Fan (CPU, Rear, & Side fans ~950rpm)
Motherboard - 41C
Hard Disk - 39C (in location shown)
CPU Cores - 31C
GPU Diode - 52C
GPU Ambient - 40C

Across the board the temperatures with the setup shown are lower, except the CPU. I haven't checked, but it's probably because the top two temperatures were during just internet use and the last was when I was trying to get a new router setup. I had probably been running more programs and there was some fluctuation, so I did a print screen on the highest temps I saw. I haven't checked the CPU idle temp, but the only other time I've seen 31C was turning off the CPU fan.
**EDIT** It appears that the fan location did cause the rise in CPU temp.

PARTS:
Case - Coolermaster Centurion 5
Rear Fan - Scythe SFF21E (speedfan)
Front Fan - Disconnected
Side Fan - Scythe SFF21D (around 950 RPM @ 12v)
Power supply - Thermaltake Purepower 500W
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-965p-DS3
CPU - E6600 Non-Overclocked
CPU Cooler - Tuniq Tower w/ Scythe SFF21F Fan (speedfan)
Hard Disk - Western Digital WD5000AAKS
Hard Disk Suspension - Elastic cord from Joann Fabrics and Wire Ties
Video Card - MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256EZ
DVD Writer - Lite-on LH-20A1S
Wireless - Dlink DIR-655 PCI Express
RAM - 3GB
Keyboard & Mouse - Logitech LX710
Misc - Foam and Hard Disk Heat Sinks from SilenX Luxurae

[porkchop]

interesting setup!

have you considered suspending the hdd right side up where your pci slots are? if you take out some of your pci slot covers and move the side fan to blow over the video card and relocated hdd, i think it would unclutter the system a bit while maintaining the front to back airflow.
this way you can just tie the fan to your drive bays- with a duct even.

was the hdd actually quieter suspended than in the luxurae?
was it because the luxurae didn't eliminate the vibrations?

i'm interested because my wd3200aaks is the loudest in my system, so i'm considering putting it into an enclosure

[alluringreality]

I noticed the video card and north bridge were getting a lot hotter than the rest of the computer. The first thing I wanted was to cool them. At first I tried mounting a fan vertically and blowing across the video card, but that didn't have much effect on the north bridge with the case open or closed. In case open testing, the only way to really bring down the north bridge was to get a fan close to it. The angled setup shown was what had the lowest north bridge temps with the case open while still blowing across the video card.

The hard drive was basically an after thought, because I was mainly just watching north bridge temps. At first I was going to just put the drive in the bottom of the case and hope it wouldn't get too hot. Then I noticed how there's free space above the PCI slots, that the drive fit there, and how it would line up for the fan to blow across the top. I knew from case open testing that would probably keep the drive about as cool as the 80mm fan in the stock setup.

When I had tried using the luxurae box I started having computer problems. Everything else was stock at the time, so the only thing I could figure out for why my access times were slower than with AAM on was the high hard drive temps. I couldn't figure out any way to cool the enclosure with the top on, so I decided to scrap the enclosure and took the top off. Without the top it was quieter than the stock setup, but I could still hear the drive. Without the side and front on the case I can also hear the suspended drive shown. Some of what I notice seems to be mechanical noise and not vibration. Generally I'd have to guess that your suggested location would be as quiet as the luxurae enclosure I tried. If I was going to try that sort of setup, I'd probably see if it was any quieter with some sound absorbing material below the drive instead of just metal.

**EDIT** I found out later that one of my ram chips would error once it got hot enough, so the drive box might not have caused what I thought were drive problems.

[jaldridge6]

you shoulda got the centurion model where the harddrive bay faces outward. the harddrive bay is removeable. my suggestion for anti-vibration of a single harddrive would be to get a scythe quiet drive and put it on acoustifeet from quietpcusa.com or on some egg foam

[alluringreality]

MORE PICTURES:


This is the remains of the Luxurae hard drive box, ready to be turned into a fan mount.


Here are the fan mount parts. There's a base and two risers.


The base has been attached to the case side with epoxy. The risers bolt to the base and the fan screws onto the risers. Also shown is a 80mm duct and an adapter.


The duct was squished to get it inside the case, then it was held in place by the same elastic cords used for the hard drive.


NEW IDLE TEMPS:
(higher room ambient temp. from first post)

- Duct Installed (CPU, Rear, & Side fans ~950rpm)
Motherboard - 45C
Hard Disk - 42C
CPU Cores - 33C
GPU Diode - 61C
GPU Ambient - 50C

- Duct Removed (CPU, Rear, & Side fans ~950rpm)
Motherboard - 43C
Hard Disk - 39C
CPU Cores - 32C
GPU Diode - 52C
GPU Ambient - 41C

While the motherboard, hard disk, and cores might have been a little higher using the duct, the GPU was without a doubt higher. Considering all the mesh in the front I wasn't expecting to see much lower temps with the duct, but I wasn't expecting that the GPU would get hotter. The GPU was consistently cooler without the vent, so that seems proof enough to me to scrap the duct.

I am willing to say that mounting the fan in front of the CPU cooler has probably caused about a 3-4C rise in the CPU Temp. Considering the motherboard is known to have high north bridge temps, I'm willing to trade a little CPU temp for lower north bridge, video card, and hard drive temps. At this point I'm pleased with the setup unless I would happen to eventually run into problems like what happened when I tried enclosing the hard drive.

ADDITIONAL PARTS:
Fan bracket from hard drive box
FusionHDTV5 Express - Tuner and IR remote (can turn on computer from soft off)
Evercool AD-02 Air Duct (removed)
120mm to 80mm adapter (removed)

[TMM]

Axial fans don't work well trying to push/pull air through long ducts afaik. That could be the problem.