View Full Version : Air Flow!
I have recently installed my new Akasa 913 into my WaveMaster case and this has sorted my CPU temps out as i had hoped. The only problem is due to is massive size and the fact i have a PCI-E card in the case means that air flow is, for lack of a better word, ****e. My mobo and CPU temp rise by about 4 degrees when i put the side panel on.
I need some ideas as to what i can do to sort this out. I do have a top blowhole but due to a lack of a fan controller i can bear to have it on as it sounds like a helicopter taking off!
To explain the situation better below is a pic, i hope people have some suggestions as to to what i can do.
Sorry every1 for my constant posting and asking noobish questions but theres no1 else i can realy ask about it.
Case at the moment;
http://img292.echo.cx/img292/7032/flow9hv.th.jpg (http://img292.echo.cx/my.php?image=flow9hv.jpg)
Sorry again for my noobishness
Croz
From the pic u can see that hotair from the HSF is being blowing into the graphics card, I assume that when the sidepanel is on this hotair has nowhere to go and probable isnt helping the cooling. What would happen if i put the fan on the otherside? It would have little clearence from the GFX card and would probably such in alot of hot air but it could be easily blown out. what do u guys reackon?
just turn the fan round and see if that works.... no need to swap the sides. have it suck instead of blow. the other thing that would help is a blowhole in the roof, hot air rising and all that...
thanks for your reply, i do have the blowhole in the roof with an 80mm fan, only problem is is that its like a jumbo jet. And thats a good idea about the fan. Will be sorting that later
If that case is a WaveMaster, the problem is likely to be restriction on the inlet flow (the air inlet behind that nice piece of aluminium on the front is merely a few holes drilled in the case). Hence you're going to need to improve the air inlet flow to make any differences - try either cutting some holes in the case somewhere hidden (bottom?) or maybe reversing the rear case fan so it blows into the case (not ideal, but should work).
I did think about getting a CM WaveMaster for a while (they do look great) but the airflow was simply too bad for me.
You might not necessarily need a super-deluxe, turbo-power, wind-tunnel fan as your top fan.
Hot air rises and a slower, quiet fan (from personal experience I can recommend SilenX fans) could be just as effective. If you don't mind dust, then having fans exhausting gives you negative pressure inside the case, pulling air in.
If there's room, alter the top blowhole to install a 120mm fan. I have two silent 120mm fans and they keep my system very :cool: with minimal noise.
Hope this helps :)
Well, i'd take all your fanguards off your casefans, and at the back cut out the protecter metal if you see what i mean, that should let your back 80mm go a bit harder - i have heard that a major let-down of the wavemaster it's is little 80mm at the back, is there no space to add another one on?
Also, do you have a fan on your psu that is pushing onto/off the area above the cpu?
right, after reading every1 suggestions i've reversed the rear fan to blow air in, the HSF is sucking air through the heatsink and towards the top of the case and my top blowhole 80mm fan is blowing air out. Its hardly quite but cooling is ok and there isnt so much of a rise in temp when i close the side panel. The one thing i have noticed about my top fan is that it is held in place by a bracket with a metal plate with loads of holes in sticking out the top of the case. I cant mount the top blowhole without this bracket and i think that it is restricting the flow of air, any1 with a wavemaster have any ideas? As for using 120mm fans, the only place i could use one is on the rear exhaust but it would have to be outside the case with adapter connecting the the exhasut hole. Would this work?
thanks every one for their help, i'll have a play and see what happends.
one quick question, is there any other way of attaching a fan other than using the screws. I have an 80mm hole and an 80mm fan, how could i attach this?
Yeah, there are several ways of sticking the fan to the case
Shufty? (http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/Fan_Mounting.html)
I actually used cable ties on my shoddy old case- the screws were rattling in a mental fashion and four cable-ties threaded through the mounting holes, fanholes and back through again worked a treat. :)
It was a case from the Last Of The Summer Wine school. Bathtub on Pram wheels technology.
I'm currantly playing with the idea of ducting. I could direct the air from my rear fan (blowing into the case) to behind the HS. Here this cold air could be drawn through my heatsink and cool the CPU. is this a good idea? What household items can be used for ducting? Will a sheet for card do the job?
I would definitely use proper ducting, not card. Don't forget you could get high temps building in your PC... :eek:
Plus, card can go wobbly over time (insert crap Viagra joke here) and you don't want it falling over into your HSF or anything.
Have you considered modding the side panel for a 80mm or 120mm fan?
hmmmmmmmmm, i'm a bit aprehensive about cutting holes in anything for the time being, i've only had the case about a month and dont wanna go messing things up now. lol, your probably right about the card. I'm running out of ideas realy, maybe its time to stop obsessing about system temps............
I would definitely use proper ducting, not card. Don't forget you could get high temps building in your PC... :eek:
Plus, card can go wobbly over time (insert crap Viagra joke here) and you don't want it falling over into your HSF or anything.
Have you considered modding the side panel for a 80mm or 120mm fan?
Card is fine unless you're running stupidly hot (pelts and the like). You're unlikely to have anything likely to be in contact with it exceed 60 deg C, while the autoignition temperature of card is IIRC well over 200 deg C.
Card is a little insecure, but it's cheap and easy to fiddle with to try out different configurations.
croz can you tell us what temps you are getting as chances are you've got fine temps mate ;)
lol, yeh sure
38 idle
50 load
the retention plate of my heatsink is screwed, cant tighten as the bolts are slippin. Will nab a pair of decent plyers from work and tighten it all the way
BoyWonder
09-06-2005, 10:04
I too am the proud owner of a CM Wavemaster and also suffer from the same problems as you do ...
heres what i did to resolve the cooling issues this case seems to have ...
1 - Removed the back 80mm fan and attached an Antec TriCool 120mm DBB Fan to the back using a 80mm to 120mm fan adapter.
The beauty of this fan is that it comes with a little switch that allows you to control the speed of the fan, even on high speed the noise isnt that noticible.
Sure the whole thing sticks out at the back of the case, but it doesnt look bad at all.
2 - Removed the ports at the top of the case and tried to install a fan, it sounded like a helicopter taking off.
I removed the fan but left the black fan grill in place to allow any hot air to escape (hot air rises ... or so they have us believe)
3 - Purchased a windowed side panel for about £20 and replaced the plastic window with black mesh grill purchased from B&Q, this allows my cpu fan to blow the hot air out straight through the grill, it also looks really good and is a lot better than the plastic window.
I, like you did not want to cut any holes in to the case, the biggest problem with this case is the front air intake ... it is pitifull, and attaching powerfull fans at the front to improve the air flow makes it sound like a damn vacuum cleaner.
hope this helps ... :)
Thanks very much for your advice. I will be getting the 80-120mm fan converter and sticking that on the back but theres a few problems with the rest of it.
1. My heatsink blows air out towards the top of the case, but i may just remove the whole blowhole mount grill mesh thing and have a hole for the air to escape.
2. I have the blue edition of the wavemaster therefore I cant get a side panel in the same color. I might just get the silver one and do as you suggested with the mesh. I presume there are hole where the plastic was mounted and you just screwed through these into the mesh? How easy is this to do?
Thanks for again for your help, any more input would be much appreciated.
Cheers
CrozUK
p.s I'm at work and I've got some plyers so i can fix that damn HSF when i get home!
something that i'm considering doing in my case is fitting an 80mm fan in the 3.5inch bays with cable ties so that i can get improved airflow around my graphics card which is the same for you. This might be quite effective for me but i have a good 120mm intake at the front, whereas yours is very restrictive, try improving that intake and give what i said a go coz it might just get the temps down a couple degrees if your lucky. That's all you need with your temps anyway, get them down by about 5 degrees and you'll be fine. Although the temps you have now are not that bad so don't be worried if you can't improve them :)
EDIT: after just looking at your pic i think you may be able to improve the temps if you spend some more time on your cable tidying. Those rounded ide cables do restrict the airflow whereas a flat ribbon ide cable folded against themotherboard tray or behind the drive bays will help the airflow. Thats all i can think of right now, hope this helps, although i'm surprised that you aren't getting lower temps with that heat sink :confused:
Josh
That idea of fitting a fan in the 3.5inch bay sounds good buy how many bays would u use and will it fit? As for cable tidying it used to be tidy (check the cable tidying gallery!) but when i installed the new heatsink i had to take out the mobo so everythig got messed up. As for the heatsink, in an earlier post i said that the bolts of the retention plate are well and truly fudged. I cant tight the heatsink any more as the bolt slip in the plate. Will hopefully be fixing this tonight. Thanks for all your suggestions. I'll order a few fans and one of those adapter thingys tonight and will post a few pics of some changes i'll make. lol but what do u reackon to silver panel on a blue wavemaster?/
Thanks Again
Croz
p.s I'd love to chat with you on MSN or something about this and your pretty helpful. PM me your addy if u feel like it.
BoyWonder
09-06-2005, 15:15
removing the plastic screen from the side panel is extremely easy, its just a matter of removing the plastic rivet type fastenings.
Use the plastic window as a template to cut round the wire mesh, get some cheap rubber edging from kustom to make the edges on the mesh look neater, and then its just a simple matter of screwing the mesh on using the holes left in the side panel.
Trust me, if i can do it then so can anybody else!
Good luck, if you need any further help with this then just let me know.
P.S. just thought of this, could easily attach another 120mm fan (or smaller) to the mesh side panel and use it as an extractor/blow hole! now why didnt i think of that before! DOH!!! :rolleyes:
That all sounds like a good plan but you can only buy wavemaster sidepanels in silver and i hav a blue case! what do u think that would look like?? What did u use to cut the metal mesh? I have a very limited supply of tools at home.
removing the plastic screen from the side panel is extremely easy, its just a matter of removing the plastic rivet type fastenings.
Use the plastic window as a template to cut round the wire mesh, get some cheap rubber edging from kustom to make the edges on the mesh look neater, and then its just a simple matter of screwing the mesh on using the holes left in the side panel.
Trust me, if i can do it then so can anybody else!
Good luck, if you need any further help with this then just let me know.
P.S. just thought of this, could easily attach another 120mm fan (or smaller) to the mesh side panel and use it as an extractor/blow hole! now why didnt i think of that before! DOH!!! :rolleyes:
got any pics of this?
StreetSam
10-06-2005, 17:42
That idea of fitting a fan in the 3.5inch bay sounds good buy how many bays would u use and will it fit?
If you have 3 5 1/2" bays free you could try this:
http://forums.kustompcs.co.uk/showthread.php?t=28456&highlight=scarlett
i use the same method as streetsam has posted and it works well but i would've thought croz would keep the door shut as that does make the wavemaster look good. If you don't mind having the door open whenever the system is on then try it croz but the airflow from the 5.25bays will not go under the cpu heat sink which is where you want the airflow really. Still worth a try though :)
that is a pretty cool idea cept i only have 2 free driver bays. but yeh, i'll think about it, cos i'm sure u can mount 2 80mm in 2 drive bays
the retention plate of my heatsink is screwed, cant tighten as the bolts are slippin. Will nab a pair of decent plyers from work and tighten it all the way
same thing happened to me with this heatsink....its an pain to take it off again :(
cool_dude
12-06-2005, 21:01
i too have the CM wavemaster, and its really bad for airflow... love the case but think im going to have to change it...
thanks every1 for there replys. I have sorted it out a bit now and modifying the top blow hole to shift more air. Iago, what sorta temps did u get with that heatsink? How did u fix it?
what temps you getting now croz?
extemely poor, but i decieded not to worry about it too much any more so i cant just enjoy the PC. But there are a few plans for sort it out, just need to order some stuff.
i only ever used that heatsink on my dodgy a8n-sli (damned ebuyer) hence unfortunalty the system was never stable enough for me to get a temp out of it, i upgraded to a zalman thingy because i though the system was overheating (before i knew the mobo was dodgy) and thence to an xp120 i intend to go for water in the future
oh, happy coninsidence im using the same mobo and cpu as you - part of the retention bracket thingy for the xp120 needed a slight modification to fit (i believe this was because im using all 4 ram slots...) ill add some photos if you want them
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