[Pc_Support] Case airflow dynamics?

[Jason Boxman]

On Monday 03 April 2006 03:41, Justin M. Keyes wrote:
> On 4/2/06, Jason Boxman <jasonb at edseek.com> wrote:
> > My workstation actually has a top fan blowing air into
> > the case, since there's no front intake,
>
> You mean you don't have the option to put a fan on front? I'd bet a
> dozen turtles that that is the problem. *Turtles*

I've never owned a case with an actual intake in the front.  I've seen fans 
mounted in the front, but they're blowing air from apparently nowhere and not 
taking in fresh air from the outside.

> Try disabling the top intake--it may be counteracting the PSU, which
> is trying to pull air OUT of the very same area? From what I
> understand, there are parts of your case that are seeing virtually
> zero airflow.

Could be.  This particular case is my desktop and it does pretty okay with 
respect to temperature.  The intake fan on top is in the middle of the case, 
blowing downwarding.  The PSU and rear exhaust are in the far back, of 
course.  I thought blowing in some fresh air would increase the ease with 
which the external blowing fans could get air out of the case as there's 
nothing blowing in air from the front at all.

> On 4/2/06, Jason Boxman <jasonb at edseek.com> wrote:
> > On Sunday 02 April 2006 13:02, patrick wrote:
> > <snip>
> >
> > > I grabbed some Floppy/Zip drive adapters, using the side rails to fit
> > > my hot scsi hard drives into the large bays, and putting expanded metal
> > > mesh into the opening so they get lots of air flow, and the front looks
> > > neat.
> >
> > That's a cool idea.  Where do you buy your metal mesh stuff?
>
> I actually looked around for metal mesh and all that crap a while ago
> and I just ended up going to Home Depot. I also tried various air
> filter material...
>
> But I read a _ton_ of opinions (including an engineer who gave a very
> lucid explanation--can't find the URL, unfortunately) on this issue,
> and the bottom line is that there is no discernable advantage to using
> air filters to block dust, because the dust builds up in the filter,
> blocks the airflow, and causes poor cooling, rather quickly.
>
> Mesh (not high-density air-filters), however, may perhaps be worth
> your time, if only to block the "big" stuff. I guess.

Interesting idea.  I know on Silent PC Review it's pretty common for people to 
'bezel' out their metal fan guards on cases and put, perhaps, those really 
large finger guards in front, but nothing else.  My new Kama Bay has a huge 
dust filter for the 12cm fan, but I thought it was odd.  I thought if you had 
enough positive case pressure you'd keep a lot of dust out that way?

I think I might try removing the dust filter on that, although it's a pain to 
remove and I don't quite want to mess with it yet.  I don't have any power 
tools to rip the metal fan guards out of these cases, unfortunately.  I sort 
of hate having to take tools to cases, anyway.  I'm not really a shop kind of 
guy I guess.  I'd rather have it working correctly out-of-the-box than to 
have to modify the box itself...

Thanks.

-- 

Jason Boxman
http://edseek.com/ - Linux and FOSS stuff