On Thursday 25 September 2003 12:59 pm, brett holcomb wrote:
> The more fans the better! One fan should pull air into
> the box. However, just having fans doesn't mean you'll
> have adequate cooling. There may be dead spots inside the
> case where air doesn't circulate no matter how many fans
> you have.
Brett is absolutely right. It can't be too cool inside your case.
But, there is the law of diminishing returns. At some point, the air
inside your box gets so close in temperature to the ambient that more
fans becomes a waste of money and power supply wattage. In my Athlon
XP 2100+ box, the inside air temp stays at about 10 degrees C above
ambient and the processor about 5 degrees C above that.
Currently, CPU temp is 36 C inside air is 32 C and ambient is 23 C. I
have 2 generic fans at the front of the box sucking air in and one at
the rear blowing out. The CPU heatsink and fan are the basic AMD
approved units that came with the processor. ($8 retail)The 450 Watt
PSU is a dual fan unit that sucks air in from within the case and
blows it out at the top rear.
The dead spots that Brett mention can be the fault of a poorly
designed case or, more commonly cables and other "stuff" obstructing
air flow. The biggest culprits are the IDE cables. If not positioned
properly they can cut air flow to the point where you can have 20
degree differences in temps in various spots within the case. The
best bet is to buy the round jacketed cables, but these can severely
destroy a budget. I tend to tuck extra length of my IDE cables into
unused drive bays and rout them in places where they won't block air
flow I hope this helps you some what.
--
Regards, Ernie
100% Microsoft and Intel free
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