The computer case I chose for my computer project is an older Dragon full-tower case. I chose this for one main reason; I already had it. If I remember correctly, I bought this case as a bare-bone PC from Tiger Direct http://www.tigerdirect.com/ perhaps about four years ago. The motherboard went bad almost two years ago and the case has been collecting dust ever since. I will include a few photos later on, but for now let me just provide a description of the case.
The case is an all silver, thick-aluminum full tower case. It incorporates four 5.25" and two 3.5" bays. Has two removable 3.5" support bays and provides mounts for two front and two back 80mm cooling fan mounts. The side panel has a transparent Plexiglas and an 80mm cooling fan mount.
The case also included a 600 watts modular power supply with two 80mm cooling fans; one at the bottom and one on the rear to exhaust the air out. SATA cables are included as well.
It is a very spacious and sturdy case that can easily accommodate most motherboards in the market today.
What I like about this case?
Almost everything I just mentioned.
What I didn't like?
The 80mm fan mounts and the two 80mm installed on the power supply; and that's exactly where my project began.
The beginning
My first two concerns about my PC project was heat and noise; keeping both down as much as possible. Though 80mm cooling fans can provide a great amount of air, they most rotate at a high RPM and can create plenty of noise, so I decided to tackle this issue right from the start.
There are various way to lower a PC temperature while keeping the noise level down as well. You can increase positive air flow through the computer, use a fan control to adjust the speed of the cooling fans, use a water cooling system or through passive cooling using heatsinks. For my PC project I chose a combination of passive cooling and controlled air flow. I will explain my passive cooling at a later time; but for now I will discuss the steps I took to provide positive-controlled air flow throughout the PC.
To lower the noise level, while increasing the air flow through the PC I decided to replace all five (two front, one side panel and two on power supply) 80mm fans with three 140mm fans. In order to maintain my budget down, while still obtaining good quality results, I chose the Yate Loon 140mm Case Cooling Fans. These fans are inexpensive, about $6.00, and can move up to 62 CFM of air while running at around 1400 RPM and a noise level of 29 dBA. Compare that to the 80mm cooling fans that were running at 3500 RPM each and you may begin to understand why I chose to replace the fans.
To install the 140mm fan on to the power supply, I simply got rid of its rear fan altogether, while removing and replacing the fan at the bottom. I have never really understood the advantage of installing two cooling fans in series and with same specs on a power supply. The bottom fan draws the air from inside the case into the power supply, while the other fan exhaust the air out, but since they are installed in series, they don't really offer much advantage. You can get the same amount of cooling air through the power supply with just one fan, while reducing noise and power consumption.
Anyways, I reamed the lower fan mount blow-hole to 140mm diameter to accommodate the larger cooling fan and drilled four new holes to mount the new fan. The larger diameter blow-hole not only allowed room for the larger diameter fan to work efficiently, but also allowed the power supply to dissipate heat more quickly, as its components are wide exposed to the ambient.
I then proceeded to remove the two front 80mm fans, reamed a 140mm blow-hole and drilled four mounting holes. Since the two 80mm mounts covered an area large than 140mm, I simply covered the exposed area with two-inch, transparent tape. Covering the exposed area prevents the air from trying to flow back into the fan, as in a circle. This area was going to be covered with sound suppression material later on, so the tape was more than adequate for now.
For the side mounted 80mm fan I had to replace the Plexiglas due to the position of the 80mm fan mount. The fan was too closed to the edges, not allowing enough room to ream a 140mm blow-hole exactly where I wanted. I just purchased a piece of Plexiglas from a hardware store, traced the door panel onto it and cut it. I also cut a 140mm bow-hole facing the area where the video card would be mounted. This would allow for the installation of a passive cooling graphics card, which would help to maintain the noise level and power consumption down.
To mount the Plexiglas door I used regular screws and nuts with rubber washers on the head and nut side. I also used 3/8” wide x 3/16” thick foam tape weather-strip in between the door panel and the Plexiglas to absorb any vibrations and provided support to the Plexiglas. I bought this at Wal-Mart; 60' for about $3.00. I bought 60' because I needed to seal the doors at my house to prevent draft of cold air from entering the house. Since the weather-strip had glue on one side, it was very easy to apply to the back side of the door panel and get the screws through to mount the Plexiglas.
To mount the fans, I decided to use rubber mounts/fan vibration isolators, which allows the fan some flexibility, while isolating the fans from the case and absorb vibrations. With regular screws, fan vibrations can be easily transferred to the case and resonate like a guitar strings, creating additional noise.
To further lower the noise and power consumption, I installed a Nexus multi-fan controller. It's not fancy but inexpensive at $17.00 and can control the speed of up to four fans. It also fit nicely on one of the 3.5” bay. You can control the speed of the fans to make sure the fans are working at their most efficient level, while maintaining all your components as cool as possible. You control the speed of the fans by lowering their voltage, which saves power, lowers the noise being produced and extend the life of the fans. Controllers are simple mechanism and are easy to install. Some have temperature sensors, which permit the fan to lower or increase the speed of the fan as the temperature inside the PC changes.
Having positive air going through your PC is made simpler if you can compare it to running outside air through your house. To let the air in, you open a window facing the direction of the wind and then you open another window at the opposite end so the air can exit. This creates a nice breeze to enter the house, replacing any stale or hot air before it exits at the other end. Installing computers fans is not much difference. You want the air to go through one side of the PC, preferably the front and/or side and exit through the rear. This way you can get a nice current of cooler air entering your PC and exhausting as much heat energy out the PC as possible.
There are many variables that affect the air going through your PC however. I will discuss those as I continue posting about my pc project.
So now that I had the fan controller and all cooling fans in place I was ready to purchase and tackle the installation of the motherboard and CPU. I will discuss my choice for motherboard and CPU on my next post. Until them, happy computing!
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