PC Cooling & Fan Controllers

[tvrforever]

Right so finally decided that my mesh PC Mini Tower need some extra cooling (it's powered up 24x7 as a server).

As an interim measure for the failed 120mm case fan I've put one of these in :-

www.akasa.co.uk/akasa_english/spec_page/fans/spec_ak_183_l2b.htm

and I already have one of these :-

www.akasa.co.uk/akasa_english/spec_page/system_coolers/spec_ak_sb_bk.htm

But I'm now looking at adding this as a monitor, alarm & controller :-

www.thermaltake.com/accessories/hardcano/a1845.htm

which is £35 from www.coolestpc.co.uk/acatalog/Control_Units.html#

But I'm not sure what to do with fans and what will work best with the controller - anybody got any comments / thouhgts / better ideas? (don't want to spend £100s)

[mattley]

tvrforever said:

Right so finally decided that my mesh PC Mini Tower need some extra cooling (it's powered up 24x7 as a server).

what makes you think that? If it's been running fine for a while, unless you plan to massivly increase the loading I'd say you stand a greater risk of disrupting a stable machine rather than improving anything. An occasional vacuum and some squrity air should be all you need.

[tvrforever]

see here :-

www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=95&t=260777&p=1

I design very large IT systems for a living so have been aware I've been cheating on the cooling when I'm using it 24x7 as a server...

[Zad]

Stopping the hot CPU / northbridge air from flowing across the hard drives is probably the most important thing, so I would spend the money on a bigger case instead and give the hard drives some room to breathe, being physically separated from the motherboard/cpu area (decent sized cases without PSUs can be had pretty cheaply). Those radial blowers are ok, but better at achieving a low flow/high pressure differential. A bigger case will give you space to mount an axial fan like the Akasa 120 to exhaust a large volume of air, and pull in cooler air across the drives. Run something like Smartguardian to monitor the system temperature.

[tvrforever]

funny you should say that I'm looking at getting this case as well :-

www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/cases/p180

Now looking at PSU options?