Can a case have too many vents

bryanchar

Honorable
May 22, 2013
2
0
10,510
I have a Cooler Master HAF XB case and love it. I was wondering though if a case can have to many vents. This has vents everywhere. I was thinking that by creating more of a defined air flow path it would exchange more air through the case. This is more of a thought rather than a problem I am having.
 
The importance is for heat to be able to escape and not be trapped. An almost open design on that HAF XB is pretty ideal. The drawback of having a case with a lot of ventilation... dust. Just make sure you keep compressed air around to manage the dust.
 
I generally tape over all "vents"
For example I have vents (for mounting a Fan) that is located back left side. I have two front fans, a High volume rear fan, and a top mounted fan.
The rear fan would pull some air in from the back-left vent holes totally bypassing the GPU and CPU.

What I did is bought a temperature unit (cheapy) with a external wire. Mounted the wire (external sensor) about an inch from the HSF. checked system air temp going into the HSF. Then plugged left back vent holes and checked Air temp going into CPU and cpu temps under load (using prime 95)

Leaving vent holes uncovered and dust - solution is to place a filter material over vent holes - But as I stated, I just tape over.