Should I use the CPU fan and a front intake?

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

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dentaku
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Should I use the CPU fan and a front intake?

Post by dentaku » Wed Jun 06, 2007 1:15 pm

I just got a Geforce 8800GTS and obviously it heats up the inside of my P182.

I was just playing the Colin McRae DIRT demo and I noticed that my core temps didn't drop right away like they normally do after shutting down a game. This is a very taxing game so the cores where staying at around 41 and not dropping. I don't know how high they got during the game, only what they where at afterwards.
I removed the left side of the case and it went back to the normal CPU~36, Core1 and Core2 ~33 right away.

I have the top and rear Antec fans set to low and the Scythe fan attached to the Ninja blowing towards the back.

I'm wondering if it would be better to remove the Scythe fan from the Ninja since it already sits right next to the 2 Antec fans and use it as a front intake. I'm thinking that my case is starved for air and the heat is just staying there too long.

IsaacKuo
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Post by IsaacKuo » Wed Jun 06, 2007 1:41 pm

If opening the case helped so much, then the intakes are currently too restricted. This isn't surprising, since the P180 has highly restrictive intakes. Try removing the front grills and filters.

Removing the CPU fan is unlikely to change temperatures at all in either direction.

dentaku
Posts: 110
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:33 am
Location: Canada

Post by dentaku » Wed Jun 06, 2007 2:01 pm

IsaacKuo wrote:If opening the case helped so much, then the intakes are currently too restricted. This isn't surprising, since the P180 has highly restrictive intakes. Try removing the front grills and filters.

Removing the CPU fan is unlikely to change temperatures at all in either direction.
I haven't even tried it with a front intake yet so I guess that's what I'll do.
3 fans on a Ninja is overkill obviously, especially when I don't have a front intake. :)

IsaacKuo
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Post by IsaacKuo » Wed Jun 06, 2007 2:09 pm

You already have front intakes. That's part of the P180 design. With two exhaust fans operating, every other opening is an intake.

You seem to be confusing "intake" with "intake FAN". But you don't actually need any intake fans to have an intake.

Air that the exhaust fans suck out of the case doesn't get magically replaced by spontaneous creation. Instead, it gets replaced with air entering from other openings. However, if those other openings are too small--so that the total area is less than 2x120mm fans--then there's a bottleneck in the airflow. The fans can't move air efficiently because of this bottleneck.

By removing the side of the case, you turned the entire side of the case into a huge intake. This intake area is far greater than 2x120mm fans, so the airflow bottleneck became the fans themselves. This allowed the fans to efficiently move air.

Khrono Devil
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Post by Khrono Devil » Thu Jun 07, 2007 2:38 am

If you do not have enough ventilation behind the case then the hot air that you have just expelled out the back of the case can be sucked back in through the PCI brackets and the grill in the P180. The heat that is exhausted out the PSU also heats the air up behind the case. Putting a fan in the upper chamber as a intake fan would most likely help.

dentaku
Posts: 110
Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:33 am
Location: Canada

Post by dentaku » Thu Jun 07, 2007 6:09 am

IsaacKuo wrote:
You seem to be confusing "intake" with "intake FAN". But you don't actually need any intake fans to have an intake.
Yeah, I guess I wasn't specific enough. I DID mean intake fan because just the openings in the front of the P182 aren't quite open enough to work without the aid of a fan.

I was thinking that the amount of air the out-blowing fans in the back had to be matched somehow by incoming air. Thanks for your explanation.

I'm still wondering if the top "blowhole" fan on the P182 really is terribly useful. When the air coming out the back is slightly warm the air coming out the top is still perfectly cool.

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