Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, mac_h8r1, Nelliesboo
DPete27 wrote:What about using a 140mm fan and mounting it outside, ie below the bottom of the "case" -- it already has that little stand at the bottom you could drill mounting holes into. You'd need feet or a mesh ring at the bottom to raise it off the floor, but you're going to need that anyway to let air in.A 120mm fan could fit, but I'd have to grind the corners off the frame to approximately the center of the mounting holes. (square peg, round hole)
DPete27 wrote:No you're right. I originally thought that SFX was going to work, but once I got everything drawn in CAD it didn't fit because the GPU needs to be located smack in the middle of the cylinder to provide the clearance I need to plug in the aux power on one side and the PCIe riser on the other. Then I considered a TFX form factor (since I have one in my spare parts closet), but the width wasn't the problem, I needed something with less height (in the conventional mounting orientation). The PSU is now a Silverstone SSF-FX350G. I'm not terribly excited about the tiny 40mm fan, but it's an interesting new product to try out. This thing is smaller than some gaming laptop's power bricks and produces 350W How's that for power density? The PSU fan will probably end up exhausting downward toward the mobo (unless reversing the fan produces no ill effects), which I realize isn't ideal, but it's probably going to have to be that way so that I can plug everything in with minimal wiring clutter. I plan on shortening the PSU cables to only what's needed (that will also be a fun new experience).
DPete27 wrote:At this point I'm planning on venting the top as much as possible, and I'll also vent/slot the IO panel cover on the mobo to allow some heat from the CPU to escape there. My hot box only had the existing openings in the top, but I can at least drill 2 additional ~1/2" holes beside the pressure gage without anyone noticing because the shroud shadows that area pretty well. With all those extra holes, I should almost double the 20CFM that my hot box tested for. Try as I might to seal it up, I'm sure I'll incur some additional airflow losses around the mobo IO panel protrusion, which will allow some additional CPU airflow out the back. However, I don't want to let too much out near the IO panel for fear that would stagnate/starve the airflow past the GPU.
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To circle back to my earlier air velocity estimation, the case volume is only 0.254 Cubic Feet so even if I only get 25CFM, that means (theoretically) every bit of air spends less than 3/4 of a second inside the case.
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And yes, the GPU has to be mounted with the display ports facing down for cable routing, but also because the expansion bracket is the only thing I can use to bolt the GPU to the component frame.