At 17:15 -0400 08/18/2002, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>In reflecting on this space and cooling issue, my solution of moving to a >larger case may not have given the S900 case design an honest chance to work. > I hadn't recognized bay #6 until recently and I have little experience >installing extra fans to cool a hot-running system. Clearly, some or maybe >many people are operating with 5 HHDs. But I recall a thread a while back >that revealed some people operate with the side panel permanently off or with >HDDs mounted externally, which is valid for some but probably not everyone. >FWIW, I had considered attaching a metal sled to mount another drive >vertically near bay #7, almost flat against the removeable side panel. It >would be useful to know how 5 HDDs (plus perhaps CD-ROM, CDRW, FDD) have >been "properly" mounted and cooled, using the case as it was designed. BTW, >in my S900 ATX case I'm using rounded IDE cables to facilitate better air >flow. The Palo Alto Products ATCX Convertible (S900/J700 case) is a nice case and it has good airflow. Having an extra exhaust fan in addition to the power supply fan is a *good thing*. If you add the intake at the bottom it has truly heroic air flow. However, the weakness most cases have including the ATCX is in the drive bays. They tend to become a bit of a dead space relying on heat powered convection for air flow. This can shorten drive life span. If I was using both bays 3 & 4 at the same time, I would install a small fan at the front of the bays pointing back at the drives. If you have not punched out the openings on 3&4 then there should be a metal plate there. You can get one of the 80486 or early Pentium heat sink and fan combos which has an adhesive back and just stick the fan to that plate, so that it blows on the drives. There are drive coolers which fit in place of the bezel for the 5.25" bays and put a couple of fans there blowing air back over the drives. If you're worried about heat of a 3.5" drive installed in a 5.25" bay, you can use one of these--or use the adhesive backed fan trick again. If you have two CDROM or CDRW drives in the 5.25" bays it's harder to get airflow on them, but they don't tend to produce as much heat as hard drives and some CDRW drives have their own little exhaust fan built in. Anyway, the point is that the ATCX case has plenty of air throughput even if you fill all the drive bays. But you may wish to add some local air circulation around the drives. Jeff Walther -- SuperMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | Service & Replacement Parts [EMAIL PROTECTED] | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> SuperMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/supermacs/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/supermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
