How do I cover the ventilation holes in the Corsair 200R case?

My case (Antec One) has an unused side panel mesh. Duct tape over it seals nicely.

But then again, it just lives in the dark under the desk and I care little what it looks like. It's just a black box.

Covering would help keep dust out, and help the sound too. Taping on a piece of cloth would work, a piece of paper, doesn't matter too much what it is. Lots of others recommend pantyhose or similar as a makeshift filter. You could also get separate magnetic filters but I think you were going for a no-cost solution.

Rubbish. Leaving unused grilles open will cause the existing fans' airflow to just circle around. It would be like placing a window fan in window with large gaps on the sides. Worse, no air will be drawn past the drives, unless there are fans blowing directly across them. If the case fans stop, there will be plenty of ventilation for heat to escape through those grilles.

Seal the unused grilles and pay attention to all the airflow paths in your machine. And make sure the North and South bridges get air across them if they don't have their own fans.

Unless you want a Chernobyl situation...

Why on earth did you revive a thread from July?...

I was searching for solid blocking covers which appear not to exist. The search led me here, and when I saw the unsound advice, I was moved to correct it.

Others may be led here on a Google search as well, and hopefully they will do what I said.

which is why I'm here today, and I found this as far as a filter for the top of the 200R but nothing solid.
http://www.demcifilter.com/p0357/Corsair-Carbide-200R-Top-Dust-Filter.aspx

USAFRet's solution is really the best one if you don't care about appearance, and if chosen, Gorilla duct tape will never come off by itself.

I am anal, so I demand nice cosmetics. My idea was to take a filter frame, cut out a black plastic sheet, like from a VCR case, and Gorilla tape or epoxy that to the frame. If you want to change things around, it's just a matter of undoing the screws, and the cover could be used again somewhere else. The same could be done with a disconnected fan. The tape would be sandwiched between it and the case, black side of tape facing out, of course.

As I said in my other post, unused fan grilles should be closed off. You should draw a diagram of the airflow through the case, and consider where any hot spots would be if any fan failed. I saw a Dell workstation manual which actually showed the various air flow paths with big arrows. It was a push system; the main case fans were in the front, and exhausted out the two unoccupied fan grilles in the rear.

There is such a thing as air sitting still in a push-pull system. It can create turbulences which create hot-spots. I never put fans in the front for just that reason.

I am also leery of filters. While the cut down on dust, if you forget to clean them the PC can be smoked. I have had a RAM stick here that literally burned up as a consequence of dirty filters.

If ya forget to change ya oil filter in ya car, ya can smoke ya oil pump. I wouldn't recommend ruining ya engine by doing so. If you can forget to clean ya filters, ya can forget to clean ya case interior and that means every component inside can be smoked. Can't say I see an advantage to a dust clogged Heat Sink on my GFX cards, CPUs. Don't get me wrong, I'm running w/o filters on my water cooled box but not because I might forget to clean filters. It's because I don't have a dust problem in this room and performance is better..... my son's room w/ case on floor, yes, all 3 of them have and clean their dust filters because otherwise, they'd quickly have dust clogged heat sinks and throttled CPUs and GPUs

Rubbish. Leaving unused grilles open will cause the existing fans' airflow to just circle around. It would be like placing a window fan in window with large gaps on the sides. Worse, no air will be drawn past the drives, unless there are fans blowing directly across them. If the case fans stop, there will be plenty of ventilation for heat to escape through those grilles

Click to expand...

No, just the laws of physics. The window example is totally bogus. As a engineer practicing in the building design field, I know a bit about ventilation. That example is akin to having two fan mounts one over the other in the front and removing one of them, allowing recirculation. That is simply is in no way analogous to the topic under discussion.

A true example would be that same room with a fan at the north side and a grille at the south side .... in other words, the standard cross flow design standard in building construction for small areas.

Another correct analogy would be as used in multi-level areas such as an attic fan where the fan pulls air out at the ceiling on the 2nd floor and air comes in thru a window on the 1st floor.

Air patterns can be an issue in a low budget case and yes, when a design is restricted at such and you have limited fan mounts, that's what the make thinks like the Antec Spot-Cool for. Once you get to the $100 case budget, this is rarely an issue. For air cooled case, except for special rotated designs, air in at front and bottom and air out at top and back provided all necessary cross flow without any concern on air cooled boxes.

I have nine separate temp sensors in my box not counting those that come on the MoBo. One thing that comes across loud and clear is that more air flow = more cooling and taping off any inlet / outlet reduces air flow. The only condition in which this should be considered is when you have 'same face mountings.

For example, lets look at one of the best cooled cases around the Enthoo Primo It comes with 5 fans.... 2 fill all available mounts in front, one fills the single rear mount, 1 fan is mounted where 3 can go up top, and 1 fan is mounted where 2 can go on bottom.

As they are, with 3 blowing in (bottom and front) and rest blowing out there will be positive case pressure so dust will not be an issue. The "blocking" mind set would have you blocking the rear , one fan mount on bottom and two on top.... which results in forcing three fans worth of air thru two exhaust fans greatly increasing SP with just 2 x 140mm outlets. Bad idea....reduced air flow, more SP

The sound solution is simpler, better aesthetically and will provide more air flow and lower SP.

Two front fans stay as they are....
Rear and bottom fans stays as they are...
Top Fan moves to bottom

1. No possibility for air short circuiting.
2. Bottom fans blow air up and aided by convection and low SP pushing air out 140 x 3 open grille area providing constant cross flow across MoBo
3. Front fans blow air across HDs which will go oit rear and back .... no short circuiting.
4. There are 4 x 140mm openings pushing air in and it has 4 x 140mm outlets letting air out, doubling the exhaust area and reducing SP by 70%! .... and that doesn't even include the open grille areas where there are no fan mounts. Lower SP means more flow which means more air turnover which means more cooler air coming in which means lower component temps.