SPCR

ARRRRRGHH!! I"ve never been so fustrated with a case in my entire modding career. I recently just added some foam insulation around my drive bay door as "Night Wind" was pulling air through the drive bays and pulling dust through my optical drives.

Now that i've got the problem solved, I noticed how very weak the airflow from my PSU and 120mm fan in the back was. I took of the side panel and noticed an IMMEDIATE difference in airflow indicating that my Sonata is still sufficting big time from lack of air. What else can I do? I've hacked the crap out of the front to allow maximum airflow but its still not enough.

ARrrgh!! What else can I do so this poor system can freaking breathe?? WIll putting a 120mm of front help that much or should I hack a 120mm hole in the side panel? Need some input cause my system is sufficating itself to death

Yeah a 120 at the bottom front would definately help, you might wanna put a seal above the hole betweem the case and the facia so air comes from where you want it. IE the vent at the bottom
You case in not starved its unbalanced airflow, you have 3 outtakes and no intakes
Read psu fan, 120 mm led fan and ati silencer

As another Sonata owner, I feel your pain.

1. Elevating the case slightly has improved my airflow slightly (my HDD temps dropped by a few degrees).

2. Sure, airflow is restricted. But is it sufficient? You did mention it is suffocating itself to death. Can you elaborate?

I'm assuming you want to redirect most of the intake air over the drives? If you don't mind cutting a hole, why not at the bottom of the case under the drives?

Without any cutting, you can try to duct air from the lowest PCI slot (filtered) along the bottom of the case to the big hole at the bottom of the drive cage.

And finally, you can do what I did after getting the Sonata - buy the other extreme in airflow, the CoolerMaster Centurion 5 That comes with its own set of problems, of course. But at least airflow is not one of them.

The HDD"s themselves are running at good tempatures, im more concerned with feeding the system enough air to keep all my other components cool and this passive system isn't working.

I actually did try removing all my extra PCI slot covers to see if it would improve. With my kleenex test, it was pulling air through the back but the exhaust on the 120mm was still pathetic, just not enough air is being pulled in.

I guess I could try attaching a 120mm fan in front and see how well it performs before I go hacking away at the case again.

Whens that damn P180 case coming out?????

Have you tried taking the front bezel off, and then the dust filter?

FYI I did the same about 3 hours ago and there's only 2° difference with dust filter on. I'll take the dust filter off but it traps a lot (reasonably close to carpet). There's only the stock fan at about 5v - PSU partitioned off. Maybe it will help you more than that.

Don't use the filter. I guess I could try taking the front main panel off and see if it helps but whata freaking pain.

icewindius, I know your concerns. But bear in mind this : more airflow is not necessarily better. If increased airflow led to cool air getting exhausted from your system, all you have is a more effective dust collector.

In your setup, the component that would benefit the most from more intake is the graphics card. Opening up the PCI slots to give it cooler air (provided it doesn't suck in the exhaust of the VGA silencer) will obviously help.

Finally, I suggest not using the airflow of your fans, but the temperature of your various components, as your guide on what you should do. Take measurements before and after you mod your case any further, taking into account ambient temps, load on the system, and how long the system has been up.

Oh, by the way, there is at least one report that adding the front fan led to higher system temperature. I don't recall if there's been a resolution on the issue, but the main suspicion when I was following the thread is that the fan is blowing hot air from the hard drives directly into the temperature sensor on the motherboard, so that although overall temps did not rise (or may even have fallen), the motherboard temp. sensor is sensing warmer air.

Does it flow a lot more air with the front bezel open/off? It looks to me like the intake slits on the bezel are much smaller in area than the case's front fan hole. If the bezel is the choke point, I'm not sure that an intake fan in front would do you much good.

Icewindius, I gotta agree with Lenny, unless your temps are problematic you shouldn't worry about the restricted intake space.

If they are problematic you could either add more intake space, increase the volts on your exhaust fan, or add another intake fan.

You already said that opening up all the PCI slots wasn't good enough for you, so to add more intake space you'd have to deinstall everything and cut a new intake hole...which might raise your hd temps to an undesirable level too by providing a new airflow path. The problem with new intakes is that you want them to be strategically placed so that they don't "short circuit" with your exhaust fans (imo a major problem with the telescoping duct on the SLK 3000B). It also definitely will create a new path for noise to escape from.

Raising the volts on your exhaust fan would increase noise but it'd be pretty easy and cheap...i don't remember whether or not you have it undervolted though- and it wouldn't address the fact that it just doesn't have enough intake to prevent creation of negative pressure in the case.

Adding an intake fan would increase noise, but not that much unless you have your case on top of your desk. That'd be your easiest solution. If that doesn't enough for your temps, I'd also raise the volts on the exhaust fan.

I did a strange version install with my sonata. I reversed the rear 120mm into an intake. I also placed a VERY slow turning (@ 3V) 120mm fan horizontally right at the back of the PSU (level with the support bars). Temps improved incredibly.

I know this would kind of defeat the purpose of a fanless PSU but a slow 120mm fan @ 3V really doesn't add much noise. For my case I'm using the included sonata PSU modified with an 80mm acoustifan (I breathe stronger) so while it's not fanless it's nearly so

The Exhaust fan is already at 12v, its just controlled by PWM by my AeroGate 2 and even at full crank the airflow is pitiful. The case is on top of my desk next to me and theirs not much I can do about it other then putting it on the carpet and have it suck up more dust.

Guess its worth taking off the front panel and seeing if it gets better and trying the 120mm fan for shits and giggles.

Tempatures iv'e been monitor both in the upper and lower portions of the case and of course with no blow hole the upper tempatures are always higher then lower portion for obvious reasons. Under loads the temps can increase a good amount but nothing really bad. I'm simply used to more airflow and noise from my past cases that run much cooler.

Ahhh i've made a discovery. By removing the front lower benzel cover the airflow DRAMATICALLY increased inside. This confirms my suspicion that the intake design is extremely resricting in allowing passive airflow to move through the front and thus, into the case.

Im now formulating a plan to somehow cut out a section of the front and install metal meshing to allow more airflow through the front as the side and bottom intakes are simply not enough to feed the system.

Below are pictures of what I mean as well as my foam insulation of the drive bay assembly.

Thanks for the photos of the foam insulation. Good luck with your airflow mod.

on my superlanboy, i removed the front cover, drilled through rivots, and totally removed the entire hdd bay structure. This improved my air in greatly as this structure serves as a large blockage the intake/intake fan.

Instead, i have suspended one harddrive using bungee cord in that area, and put the other quieter one on sorbothane on the 5.25" bay.

GL!!

Search the forums for "modders mesh". A few of the guys (Katana man, IIRC, and Bill Owen) have used with with much success on various SLK3xxx's and the like. Someone may have even done a Sonata with it, but my memory is pretty hazy these days.

That's some nice looking case!

I love it

sux for air though. needs a large, not larger, a large large air intake in front to make it effective. I hear bluzzing and drilling for this to go your way. (i switched to an uglier 3700 BQE with a psu swap)