Very Cheap Case, Cool Mods

[Vulkanonistix]

Here is the result after increasing the chipset voltage up to 1.72 volts in the BIOS with the current cooling setup. The picture is here. The temperature idles around 34-35 degrees celsius. I believe this is amazing with 350 MHz of FSB, I now could raise the FSB more than 350 with this amount of extra voltage to the chipset (probably up to 400 MHz). Also, this snapshot was taken after 12 hour duration since the Arctic Silver 5 was applied to the 7800GT and the chipset. So, I am expecting couple more drop in the current temperatures. I will keep you guys updated with temperature changes. I care more about function than style; therefore, I really love my cheap Antec case that is going to push more air after I go to CompUSA to buy one more 120 mm fan as intake during this evening.

[Vulkanonistix]

Do guys think I should somehow manage to fit the Zalman's fanless heatsink? It's because I noticed there is a possible of doing so after checking some extra spacing between the chipset heatsink and the rear of the fan. I believe the temperature will drop even more because of Zalman's higher heat absorbing volume with the middle section being tall.

[jumpman]

whats the ambient temp in that room?

 

Really creative mod tho...keep up

[Vulkanonistix]

The ambient temperature of my room is around 30-31 degrees. I finally got a very stable overclock results with this new setup. The results are in the overclocking section, here . The results were extremely weird for a CPU with a Venice core. What made the results weird is that when I literally bumped up the volts up to 1.6 for my 3200 Venice, the temperature during Prime95 stress testing stayed 39 degrees that highest. At that time, the computer warmed up my entire room as well as the heater. The chipset never went above 38 degrees. The PWM temeperature however was the highest like around 41 degrees. I can assure you that these temperatures were indeed accurate on my board because I ordered a laboratory-level temperature probe from Japan, and recorded the temperature of the side of the heatsink (further down the heatsink gave me reasonable reading). The probe detected the temperature for the CPU 37.45 degrees at the same time the Prime95 was running and the chipset run at 36.93 degrees. By the way, I was running the same stock AMD cooler.

 

I have the desktop screenshot right here.

 

Read more about that thread if you want to know why I bumped up the voltage up to that level. I will be looking forward to hearig from you guys.

[supershanks]

Great Mods Vulkanonistix & well documented. Nice 2 see someone else using the Silverstone 120mm fans. I think their great & am currently running 3 in my case with a4th coming soon I use the FM121 & love the fan controller that comes with it.

Have ditched the drive bay & mounted them directly 2 the case like:-

FM121 Fan Controls Mounted On CM Centurion 530 Now have an extra 2 along the left hand top of case 1 for memory cooler & 1 spare @ moment but 4 bottom intake.

 

Thanks for sharing

[Vulkanonistix]

Thank you for sharing your picture and your positive thoughts for Silverstone fans. I also like their fan controller because of nicely designed panel with smooth silvery touch to it. These fans do blow a lot of air at low decibals. I really had a diffiult time trying to cut the front part of the case neatly with just a Dremel or a hand drill (it took like a whole day to do so). These are the pictures of the original form of my case (the case in the picture is not mine by the way; just got it off from the web).

 

Front View

 

You see how crappy the original drive cages look?

 

These are the air holes that blocks a lot of air plus the additional air filter at front. You gotta be merciful for those 80 mm fans since they won't push a lot of air like that.

 

I am glad I managed to make some extra room by taking out those drive cages. The drive cages were also a problem especially when I wanted to plug or unplug the motherboard's 24-pin power supply cable because I own an OCz's modstream's VERY hard metal sleeved power cables. It only becomes a problem if an hard drive sits at the first drive cage while it has a blue fan bracket in the front. However, even with an hard drive any where in the drive cage spots, it still creates bunch of space problems with many cables blocking the air travel. I don't like those whining 80 mm fans.

[KingYubbo]

I have the exact same case. Air flow problems are very real in this case. Though my case isn't very loud, the air doesn't get through very well. Show me some pics of what it's like now. I was also thinking of cutting out some holes so its direct airflow without bits of metal blocking me. The obvious thing would be to pile your HDD's in the top cage, and just pile fans in the bottom one. I did that and temps were very good, but now i'm getting 2 hard drives out, its gonna be squishy with airflow.

[Vulkanonistix]

Well the trick is you don't just make holes in the front. What you do is first yank the two drive cage support (aluminum bezel in antec chassis, probably pure aluminum in other brand like Chenming). After the two drive cage base support is pulled out, you then open the front of your chassis and cut the middle portion of the front panel so that the cut space is 100 cm wide. You cut it all the way to the base, maintaining the 100 cm width. After that is cut, you now have nothing in front of the fan that will block the airflow. This solution is much better than not cutting anything and just additing holes. Adding holes will prevent some dust from coming in, but it will also block airflow and generate noise. Before you asked this question I hope you have seen the picture I posted with a 120 mm Silverstone fan. Well, on the bottom of the fan, you could see that the front panel is clearly exposing. That is because I cut that part out and created a perfect rectangular air passage for dual 120 mm fans to take in air.

By the way, how many hard drives are you running? I am only running one so that won't be a problem because I have extra three more 5.25 drive bay at the top. I am going to buy Cooler Master's Cool Drive 3 very soon for the single hard drive. I don't personally care that I lost all the 3.5 drive bays for floppy drives, hard drive, and etc because I am so glad about the current temperatures. Its like I am emulating those large giant cases such as CM Stacker and Thermaltake Xaser Armor at a very cheap price ($50, hehe). I love this Antec cases since they are so modder-friendly. I didn't want to buy the pure aluminum one that is similar looking because they are very susceptible to scratches unless if you are buying brand-name cases from Lian-Li or Silverstone. Its good to hear that some has tried doing the same thing as me.

[KingYubbo]

I have one drive at the moment, but am thinking of expanding to 2. I'm intrigued on how you modded the case. It's a very good idea. Sound is a problem in my case, i don't really care about dust as that can be easily fixed. I have the Enermax version of your case. I shall get on to cutting some holes to create better airflow soon.

[Vulkanonistix]

With all those hard drives, there would be much noise especially if they are 7200 rpm or above. My Caviar SE still creates a lot of vibration.

[fartonmyear]

looking at these pictures i have no idea what's going on.

[KingYubbo]

Yeah my one 80Gb WD drive at idle makes a bit of noise. I might just use only 1 drive, and get rid of the whole bottom tray, so i can expand to 2x120mm if possible of 2x92mm bringing in air through the front. Cutting one large whole is a great idea!