Sonata mods

Vulcan · Post by **Vulcan** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 5:20 pm

I've been thinking about what the best way to improve the cooling in my sonata would be. One thing I have consisdered doing is raising the whole case up about .5" and putting a 120mm intake fan (or two) in the bottom of the case.

I will definatly be opening up the front inake as much as I can.

Opsman · Post by **Opsman** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 9:37 am

Vulcan wrote:I've been thinking about what the best way to improve the cooling in my sonata would be. One thing I have consisdered doing is raising the whole case up about .5" and putting a 120mm intake fan (or two) in the bottom of the case.

I will definatly be opening up the front inake as much as I can.

I did a similar thing to my Sonata. After closing off the ANTEC holes, I cut a hole in the bottom so air is sucked in (and doesn't require a fan). <See previous page in this thread> This allows my graphics card to inhale cool air from under the case very easily and the rest of the intake air flows over the hard drives. Thus, the airflow is maximized and managed.

Putting a fan in the bottom will increase the air intake, but will create a lot of turbulence in the case unless you add more exhaust fans (or exhaust volume).

Just my two cents.

to fast · Post by **to fast** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 3:30 am

has anyone tested to use the duct but to saw it off over the 80 mm and only use the lower part of it to cool the graphic card and to get some cool air in? because then it wouldn't sit in front of the back case fan, and still some cool air could get in. with the duct i mean the included with the sonata 2 case.

akerr63 · Post by **akerr63** » Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:53 pm

The reason for my mods described below was to improve air flow, cooling, and noise, and to minimize dust infiltration (which would also help with cooling over the long term). So far, after 6 months, the improvements for minimizing dust are fantastic and there is no dust inside the case. This is in complete contrast to the 6 months before that when the fans etc were really dirty. I’m still working on the cooling – read on.

I segregated the motherboard/CPU area from the PSU/drive area using sheet metal, so that no air flows between the two areas. This gives two completely separate compartments in the Sonata. The sheet metal runs close to the edge of the motherboard, so it is spaced about 2" (5cm) behind the drive bays. A second piece under the PSU is joined to this first piece. The cables go through small holes the sheet metal. Weather-stripping is used on all joins to cope with my less than high quality metal bending skills (lack of proper tools!).

I also sealed the "ANTEC" holes, enlarged the front bezel, weather stripped the front CD drive door, and sealed up any unnecessary holes in the front and rear metalwork. Finally I cut a 5" by 6.5" (13cm by 17cm) hole in the Sonata base and lifted the Sonata by 3" (8cm). This hole has an air conditioner filter covering it (installed in aluminum U channel with magnetic tape holding it in place from the underside) and the regular front air intake has a central air duct filter over it.

Now the PSU fan pulls air in from the standard Sonata front holes over an air filter and over the hard drive, keeping the hard drive cool at about 35C or less when idle, and less than 40C when busy. With the auto-speed Sonata power supply fan I get more cooling if the drive gets warmer (since the air intake to the PSU gets warmer). This is acceptable to me and works well. The noise the PSU fan makes is acceptable and significantly less than the Nexus 120mm @ 12V. This is probably due to the PSU incoming air only being heated by the hard drive and not the CPU.

The air inlet for the CPU compartment comes from the 5”x6.5” hole in the base. The Athlon XP 3200+ is running stock (not over/under volted or clocked) and is about 50C idle to about 57C under load. This is with a Nexus 92mm fan @ 12V and an SLK-900 heatsink. I can barely tell the difference between the 92mm fan being on or off, so it is not contributing to the noise. The rear case fan is a Nexus 120mm @ 12V and this is too noisy for me.

What I think is happening is that the warm CPU air is being circulated around the CPU compartment by the CPU fan, mixing with the cooler air coming in from the base hole, and then being extracted. This just seems to warm up the entire motherboard compartment. Also I think some of the new cooler air coming from the base is going straight out the rear vent without cooling anything.

When I get some time I want to try either reversing the CPU fan and using a duct sucking air over the heatsink and venting it straight out the rear. This should keep all the really warm air outside the system. Since warm air rises, this should also suck out all the warm air from other components. Or trying a duct from the base to the CPU fan and heatsink so all the cool air goes direct to the CPU, and only then is it vented our the rear.

ZyRo70 · Post by **ZyRo70** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:57 pm

Are there any mods with the new Antec Sonata II which include the addition of the duct by Antec?

akerr63 · Post by **akerr63** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 6:06 pm

I don't know about the new Sonata II. However after the mods I did (as described above) the rear fan was still bothering me, so I removed the rear case fan and created an OUTPUT duct from the SI-97 heatsink/cpu fan to the rear case fan outlet hole. I also reversed the cpu fan to suck air through the heatsink and blow it out the duct and out the case. This has made the case both quieter and suprisingly cooler! It seems that getting rid of the hot cpu air may be better for cooling than just getting cool air into the right places.

toNka · Post by **toNka** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 11:32 pm

Let's see if anyone can guess what this Sonata mod is:

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 10:07 am

toNka wrote:Let's see if anyone can guess what this Sonata mod is

Something for a fan? Can't quite see what the smaller connector is. Perhaps 4 pin molex to 3 pin adapter, maybe with a resistor inline?

Jeff Haas · Post by **Jeff Haas** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:55 pm

Does it let you connect the case fan to a motherboard header?

toNka · Post by **toNka** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 10:12 pm

Hint: The small side is a 2 pin female header, the other is 4 pin molex.

toNka · Post by **toNka** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 9:51 pm

Well, looks like no one guessed the mod.
With this ghetto home made mod you can take those front blue lights (the ones by the usb/firewire/audio ports) and plug it into your motherboards HDD activity header. Now instead of just being on when the computer is on, they flash with HDD activity. I'm thinking about adding a switch so at I can disable it if need be.

Ryan · Post by **Ryan** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:31 pm

A lead from the power supply to regulate fans.

PCMonkey · Post by **PCMonkey** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 9:28 pm

[quote="toNka"]Let's see if anyone can guess what this Sonata mod is:

It is either the 5volt or 7volt trick to supply a fan with an undervolt power.

toNka · Post by **toNka** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 11:11 pm

You guys can stop guessing.
I gave it away a couple of posts ago.

lenny · Post by **lenny** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 9:57 am

I've thought about doing that long time ago, but wasn't sure if the header on the MB could source enough current to drive the LEDs. Didn't want to burn out the headers. How bright are they when you have constant HDD activity?

toNka · Post by **toNka** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 10:06 pm

They are just as bright as having them connected to the PSU.

jonmcc33 · Post by **jonmcc33** » Mon May 29, 2006 9:59 pm

Those things are so bright though. To have them flickering would annoy me quite a bit.

~L~ · Post by **~L~** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 4:12 am

First of all - I hate you. Since I've started to apply the mods from this site I've gotten to a point when I need to start silencing my freezer, fridge, aquarium and radiators.

It all started when I bought a new GPU. I used to play only with emacs, but now I wanted to do some shooting. It was immediately clear that I had to change the heatsink on that noisy Palit 6600GT. So I bought a VF700. I didn't install the memory heatsinks and the HSI heatsink didn't quite fit the holes, but it is hanging there. Idle temps dropped from 57 to 43

Since then I've swapped the fan from Zalman 9500 to 92mm nexus, suspended the hard drives, swapped the case fan to glacialtech silentblade that was doing nothing behind the hard drives, modded the front bezel (bottom) as well as the second plastic bezel, suspended the hard drives on some elastic. I have 3 fan mates at the moment on CPU fan, case fan and gpu. GPU has to be on lowest setting, CPU can be ~full speed and case fan 8V (guestimate).

The major "noise" source is at the moment are the PSU fan due to turbulence and Terratec DVB-C card, which starts a very high hissing when I start to watch TV. I guess I just did not notice this before I started to quiet things down. Luckily I watch TV on the other room.

The problem I want to tackle now is the following. Since my PSU burned ~1/2 year ago I swapped it to nexus nx-4090. This is rather quiet, but this results in a weird combination of fans, which creates turbulence when speeding up case fan or PSU fan. PSU fan speeds up practically immediately when I start calculating something.

Image before the fan swap.

I thought the best solution would be to move PSU backwards (toward front of the case) so that the intake would be kinda behind the CPU heat sink and to create some kind of an exhaust duct. Are there better suggestions other than changing the PSU? Also how to fix the PSU so that it would not drop?

Tibors · Post by **Tibors** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 12:18 pm

~L~, Welcome to SPCR

~L~ wrote:I thought the best solution would be to move PSU backwards (toward front of the case) so that the intake would be kinda behind the CPU heat sink and to create some kind of an exhaust duct. [...] Also how to fix the PSU so that it would not drop?

I made a bracket by glueing some wood strips of 4x18mm and 4x28mm together. Then I put some felt furniture gliders (cut in half) under one side, to compensate for the difference in height between the top of the mobo tray and the crossbar.

The bracket and the PSU are held in the case by friction, because I stuffed something between the top of the PSU and the top of the case. The extra lenght of the strip that rests on the mobo tray, sticks behind the drive cage, so the bracket can't slip of the narrow ledge that the side of the mobo tray is.

This solution is not safe for transport, but good enough to move it around on your desk.

~L~ · Post by **~L~** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 12:47 pm

Thanks,

I'm also wondering if I could put those "antec" holes into some use... Time to experiment, I guess. If it gives resonance to the case I'll follow your nice pictures and make something similar.

ultrachrome · Post by **ultrachrome** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 1:30 pm

If your PSU fan spools up, it seems likely that your PSU is doing a fair amount of work trying to remove CPU heat from your case.

I recommend experimenting with building a duct or shield to guide that heat through the rear case fan.

While it may appear that the duct blocks the PSU, there is in fact ample area for the PSU to intake air. With the vast majority of heat being pulled out the case fan, the air flow needed through the PSU is minimal.

~L~ · Post by **~L~** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 2:34 pm

I need to do some more experiments but initial result showed that the PSU fan does not speed up (just placed a sheet between cpu and psu). There is indeed not much room.

If I would do this, should it be possible to use just CPU fan (nexus 92mm)/case fan (some 120mm) and the PSU to create the negative pressure needed for the air intake next to HDs? I could in principle do both mods, there would be more room for the duct and relocating the PSU might improve the flow for at the intake. If I'd use only the CPU fan all the fans would be inside the case, which is kind of nice.

Time for nightmares - I'll experiment tomorrow.

ultrachrome · Post by **ultrachrome** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 2:49 pm

Yes, it is possible to cool a machine with just those fans.

Whether or not your combination of components will allow that remains to be seen but it is possible.

For comparison my system is as follows:

Asus A8N5X with passive cooler
3500+ w/ fanless Ninja HS
Samsung 250GB, WD 80GB
7900GT KO superclocked w/ VF900
Nexus 12cm case fan
SeaSonic S12-380

So that's three fans. I would call it whisper quiet, not silent. I'm running my Nexus fan at 12 volts and the VF900 on the lowest setting using the included Fanmate controller. My temps are cool enough to slow the Nexus down but I just haven't bothered.

Jeff Haas · Post by **Jeff Haas** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 11:43 pm

I have a Sonata from when they were new, back when this site was new! It's had my Athlon XP system running in it for about three years.

It started acting odd during bootup, crashing for no discernable reason...so it was the power supply (the one that came with the original Sonatas.)

Tonight I installed a Seasonic 380W replacement and swapped out the Antec fan on the back for a Yate Loon.

Now, I was kind of lazy on this...I actually had the replacement 120mm fan and hadn't put it in until I was forced to replace the power supply. But WOW. The Sonata has gone from "quiet" to "almost forget it's on." If I crack the window, the crickets and wind noise outside are louder than the computer is now. And I'm running an XP 3200 with one of the old, retired Thermalright heatsinks!

And as a side note, the whole production of the Seasonic is a sort of "pimp my rig" experience...it looks cool, the cables have been sleeved so they are very easy to deal with and tuck out of the way, and they even include a sticker for the outside of your case ("Powered by Seasonic").

Thanks to this board for the recommendations!

Jeff

~L~ · Post by **~L~** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 9:56 pm

I bought a corner plate used for erm... fixing things. Costed 0.6 euros.
I fixed it by small bolts using the antec HD sledge rubber to prevent scratching the glossy finish.

I added some padding on every side of the psu and placed it there.

This is just a safety pin if I turn the case or something.

Take away dust, finger prints and reflection:

It is not going anywhere even if I trun the case around. Then I created a floor for the exhaust tunnel from a IKEA table thing (that you put under everyones plate).

Results:
When Idling the computer is very quiet. PSU is still clearly the loudest component unless I turn up the voltages of exhaust fan or VF700. The radiator next to me is the loudest thing in the room, although it is off. I guess the pump from the basement gives this "noise through the pipes. When I launch glxgears PSU fan speeds up. The reason for this is apparently the wattage usage, which I can not do anything, except modding the psu, which I'm no going to do. The speed up causes humming of the psu. I can now speed up the exhaust fan without creating the turbulence effect. Temperatures went up by couple of degrees, but I haven't fixed the cabling yet. The second hard drive on top reports 50 degrees (45 before), which is a bit high I guess.

I'm a bit worried that if I make a tunnel from the exhaust fan and the psu heatsink, all the warm air from the gpu needs to be moved away through the psu and the cpu heatsink, whereas now it can go "directly" to the exhaust. I might still try it.

ultrachrome · Post by **ultrachrome** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 10:41 pm

The way I read your posts, it sounded like you had better success with a basic duct than you did by moving the PSU forward.

Can you clarify what improvements relocating the PSU provided?

~L~ · Post by **~L~** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 11:20 pm

When the psu speeds up the humming is not so audible.

I can increase the voltage of the case fan without creating humming of the psu fan. (Not completely)

The humming seems to be caused by the perpendicular airflow so some kind of duct in either of psu orientation might indeed be the best solution.

EDIT:
I have decoupled the psu, and the fan inside with just pieces of mouse pads. The PSU is moved back and an I made an intake duct from the floppy position. Now it's quite quiet.

Tom Brown · Post by **Tom Brown** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 10:21 pm

Vulcan wrote:I've been thinking about what the best way to improve the cooling in my sonata would be.

I vote for undervolting your CPU and run a cool hard disk. Stock Sonata cooling is overkill with the right setup.

frazered · Post by **frazered** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 9:14 am

been a while since anyone posted in here, but wanted to say thanks as I have found this thread very useful, and have completed the following to my sonata 1

- cut the front bezel at the bottom and raised the case up on some wooden blocks to increase air intake (approx 2 degree cpu temp improvement and also 4 degrees for my 8800gts)
- softmounted the hdd on sleds with acoustifoam
- acoustifoam pack fitted plus a ducting for the 8800gts to exhaust more efficiently (max load temp 70 degrees)

if there are any new mods please feel free to share - thanks again

frazered

Sonata mods

Applause for Seasonic