quick question -- would 12 cm fan fit 5 1/4 bay on top drive

dan · Post by **dan** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 3:21 pm

Hi,
I have a quick question -- would 12 cm fan fit "horizontally" 5 1/4 bay, on top drive of a PATA seagate 3.5" ide drive?

I notice my HD temps from speedfan to be around 50-55 C, and it is hot to touch, so I have one IDE attached to top PATA optical DVD drive, and the second in the bottom a standard 3-bay 5 1/4 with the middle empty. I have the ide drive on some soft foam so it is slightly elevated, perhaps by 1-2cm so its vibrations do not vibrate the cage.

Given the high temps, I've been thinking of installing a 12 cm scythe fan on top of it directly, so it would be between the hard drive and optical drive, in the middle of the 3-bay 5 1/4 external enclosure.

Would this work?

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 10:03 pm

It would fit (I have one vertically in 3 5.25" bays) but it doesn't sound like it would do much good in your setup. If the fan does not draw cooler air from some other location, all it will do is circulate hot air around the drive. Also, the wind turbulence noise would probably be annoying.

Could you supply some pics of your current setup? It's kind of hard to visualize from your description.

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 6:11 am

Some cases have quite poor airflow around the 5.25 bays, and no doubt a fan would help, but really it would need you to open up the front of the bay by removing the covers, otherwise you wont get much more air going around. Then you'll need a dust filter. And dont expect it to be silent. The backpressure of a fan right on top of a drive would create alot of turbulance. Anything more than a 500rpm slipstream would be quite loud on most SPCR type systems.

Overall it may just be easier to buy the scythe kama bay which comes with a 800rpm fan. You need 3 optical bays free to mount it, although you can put the HDD in the middle of the 3 and it would be fine. It will also help cool your RAM and CPU.

dan · Post by **dan** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 6:32 am

teejay wrote:It would fit (I have one vertically in 3 5.25" bays) but it doesn't sound like it would do much good in your setup. If the fan does not draw cooler air from some other location, all it will do is circulate hot air around the drive. Also, the wind turbulence noise would probably be annoying.

Could you supply some pics of your current setup? It's kind of hard to visualize from your description.

I could how do I stick a picture on this? thanks

dan · Post by **dan** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 6:33 am

FartingBob wrote:Some cases have quite poor airflow around the 5.25 bays, and no doubt a fan would help, but really it would need you to open up the front of the bay by removing the covers, otherwise you wont get much more air going around. Then you'll need a dust filter. And dont expect it to be silent. The backpressure of a fan right on top of a drive would create alot of turbulance. Anything more than a 500rpm slipstream would be quite loud on most SPCR type systems.

Overall it may just be easier to buy the scythe kama bay which comes with a 800rpm fan. You need 3 optical bays free to mount it, although you can put the HDD in the middle of the 3 and it would be fine. It will also help cool your RAM and CPU.

My top bay of the 3 5 1/4 external bays thought has a DVD writer which I do use for software and movies.
and burning cd's for friends.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 7:39 am

air moving on a drive is good enough to keep it cool. you dont need to bring outside air to keep it living happier. The actual heat of a drive is small in terms of heat generated. It just builds up heat as it has no cooling system. a tiny amount of air blown on it regardless of ambient temps would keep it cooler.

dan · Post by **dan** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 8:06 am

teejay wrote:It would fit (I have one vertically in 3 5.25" bays) but it doesn't sound like it would do much good in your setup. If the fan does not draw cooler air from some other location, all it will do is circulate hot air around the drive. Also, the wind turbulence noise would probably be annoying.

Could you supply some pics of your current setup? It's kind of hard to visualize from your description.

Hi,
here are good pics
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article134-page1.html

FlorisNielssen · Post by **FlorisNielssen** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 9:54 am

Can't you put a fan behind the HDD? (If there's room cablewise.) Or in front of. The fan will then blow towards the PSU.
Air can be drawn from the side vents (on the front). It might work. I don't think you need a 120mm one by the way. Just a little air is way better than no air movement.

dan · Post by **dan** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 1:23 pm

FlorisNielssen wrote:Can't you put a fan behind the HDD? (If there's room cablewise.) Or in front of. The fan will then blow towards the PSU.
Air can be drawn from the side vents (on the front). It might work. I don't think you need a 120mm one by the way. Just a little air is way better than no air movement.

I don't see how you can do it front or back b/c the top one has a optical dvd drive that i use, from time to time. it is ide as is the seagate drive, in a master/slave configuration

zgundam · Post by **zgundam** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 4:18 am

dan wrote:I could how do I stick a picture on this? thanks

Sign yourself to something like PhotoBucket, upload pics there and then copy the resulting "IMG Link" here.

Do you have 3 5.25inch bays free? If so just get yourself one of these - Scythe Kama Bay, and have your HDD's setup behind that.

dan · Post by **dan** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 1:37 pm

zgundam wrote:
dan wrote:I could how do I stick a picture on this? thanks
Sign yourself to something like PhotoBucket, upload pics there and then copy the resulting "IMG Link" here.

Do you have 3 5.25inch bays free? If so just get yourself one of these - Scythe Kama Bay, and have your HDD's setup behind that.

Hey I've never heard of photobucket. Interesting, thanks.

Seeing that scythe kama bay I can see that that particular fan will clear thanks