P182 Bottom \ PSU chamber with fan issues

dannyuk32 · Post by **dannyuk32** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 11:37 am

Hi guys,
Just bought my P182 and a Corsair HX620 PSU. I'm a little perplexed regarding the bottom\psu chamber...
Firstly, however I install my Corsair PSU, the fan on it will either be facing up or down. I chose mine facing down as Corsair has the writing this way up

So there is hardly any airflow going to the harddrive area from this PSU fan.
So i assume I need to use the bottom fan installed in the case. But this fan is setup that the air will be blown straight at my PSU (the spoons on the fans facing the PSU are dictating this obviously) , not at my hard drive.
Just wondered what anyone with this fan feel about the fan and airflow in the bottom chamber. Do you have your PSU fan blowing up or down like on the Corsair?
Any help much appreciated,
Danny.

Vicotnik · Post by **Vicotnik** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 2:37 pm

Just install the PSU fan down or fan up. Doesn't really matter. I have my PSU mounted fan up since I stuff a few unused cables under the unit.

Then, if you have HDDs in the bottom chamber, you should tape up the ventilation holes around the PSU in the back, to maximize the air intake from the front. You usually won't need a second fan for the bottom chamber.

dannyuk32 · Post by **dannyuk32** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 3:39 pm

Thanks Vicotnik,
I will only be using one HD and I don't think it will be at the bottom if I can help it. Maybe I won't need to use tape or even the fan.
Best regards, Danny.

ACook · Post by **ACook** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 9:30 pm

The PSU is at the bottom so it's isolated from the heat of the CPU and the GFX.
This keeps it cooler.
This also makes the fan spin slower.

The fan still spins, and forces air through the psu to the back, outside the case.

That air has to come from somewhere, and because it's isolated from the rest of the case, it has to come from the bottom chamber.

There are holes at the front and the back for air to come in.

We want to cool the hd's at the front, so we tape off the back holes.

HD's don't need alot of airflow to cool sufficiently, so even the slow spinning PSU fan is enough to have a decent impact on HD temperatures.

Hope this explains the P182 design.

I have 3 HD's there and no fan, they're all under 45C (idle).
(i'm not sure anymore which of them are there, but they're all samsungs)

NyteOwl · Post by **NyteOwl** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 3:22 pm

I have 3 HD's there and no fan, they're all under 45C (idle).

From most HD specs I've seen they should be kept under 45C even at load if you expect any longevity from the drives.

bexx · Post by **bexx** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 9:25 am

Googles real world data on 100s of thousands of drives show higher temps do not cause failures, lower temps actually increase failure rate.

40-45C had lowest AFR
50C and 30C had equal failure rates.
25C had over double the AFR of 45C

http://research.google.com/archive/disk_failures.pdf

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:44 pm

bexx wrote:Googles real world data on 100s of thousands of drives show higher temps do not cause failures, lower temps actually increase failure rate.

The report you reference does say that, nor does the data it contains suggest that. There is some evidence from the study that undercooling hard drives leads to a higher failure rate. But on higher temperatures the conclusion is quite clear

"... What stands out are the 3 and 4-year old drives, where the trend for higher failures with higher temperature is much more constant and also more pronounced..."

More pronounced by the way, means 3 year old drives running at 45C+ failing at three times the rates of drives running at 30C, and 4 year old drives failing at twice the rate of cooler drives.