More cooling power for my pc - any advice pls..

[doddze]

I am starting to get intomy PC a lot more recently and I am using to run bigger programmes..... One issue I am getting is with the side panel on my tower the fan is seeming to need to keep surging to keep everything cool...(the one of the CPU heat sump. If I remove the side panel all is fine again which implies lack of air flow. All the fans are working ie the in fan and the out fan and the CPU fan... Can you get ventilated side panels? or can you get more efficient fans...

My system is an ACER T130...

AMD athlon 64 3200+ processor... system does what I need but just seems to be getting warm and I don't like leaving the side panel off in the case the dog wanders in and sticks her nose in it... or even worse one of the children!!

thanks

[FunkyNige]

Drill a big (120mm) hole in side panel. Put sodding big fan there. Job done.

I've experimented with fans in the front, back and top, the only place that really makes that much difference to the CPU temperature is the side one.

[doddze]

FunkyNige said:

Drill a big (120mm) hole in side panel. Put sodding big fan there. Job done. I've experimented with fans in the front, back and top, the only place that really makes that much difference to the CPU temperature is the side one.

Next dumb question then..... power supply for this fan will come from?

Do you mean replace the inflow fan the back with a big one in the side and use the back fan power feed?

[FunkyNige]

The power comes comes from either a spare fan supply on your motherboard, or (more likely for a big fan) a spare cable that could go to an extra CD drive/Hard disc, etc. If you take the side off your computer and take a look at what leads go to your CD/HD from the power supply, (4 wires - red, yellow, black and something else I think) and find an extra one hanging about (they will be some) use this to power the fan.

[bigdods]

I overclock my PC and found with the side on the CPU was getting up to 75 Deg C + . This was with just one 80mm exhaust system fan at the rear(plus the PSU fan). Upped this to a 120mm , plus added another 120mm at the front of the case to cool the hard drives - slight improvement but still hitting 70 Deg C. cut hole in side of case, added 120MM inlet fan - now down to 65 Deg C but still not happy as this would rise significantly when overclocked. So invested about £30 in a high efficiency CPU cooler - now even when overclocked CPU doesnt get above 40 deg :-)

My M/board has 2 fan connectors , so the side and rear run off those and throttle up and down as needed. The front I run off a hard drive power connector - it just fits inline.

Fans are about £3 each

[koenig999]

The only trouble with more and more fans is the noise.

I've used a Zalman Flower cooler on the CPU, which is a massive copper finned figure of eight with a speed controled fan.

Have a look at www.zalman.com

Not cheap, but one of the best at cooling.

Koenig

[xiphias]

Yeah a good cpu cooler is a must. But be wary of trying to completly silence it, mine ended up something akin to flemke and his F1 But it doesn't make a noise anymore and will still play everything going with decent gfx.

[Wildfire]

Zalman are great coolers, not the most efficiant in the world for Hi performance OCing, but for performance/noise, unbeatlable.

For a 120mm fan in the side, you can either connect it vai a 3 pin to the mobo or you could get a molex poered one and connect it directly to the PSU.

[RobDickinson]

I use a decent quiet CPU cooler and two 120mm fans at low speeds on my athlon, tho it isnt overclocked, and I dynamicaly modify the fan speeds using speedfan software. Does get noisier playing games but its still quiet.