Case Airflow good or bad?

[Kami-kun]

That's a picture of the exact same case i have, a virtus hp, it comes with a 120mm rear exhaust fan and an 80mm one in the top, there's the psu fan and i'm about to receive a vigor monsoon iii lt cooler, with two 120mm fans.

I have a Phenom II x4 955 BE, maybe i'll do some overclocking to 3.6.

I want to know if the air flow is good to keep the case cool, or would i have a problem?

I think i can remove some HDD bays on the front bottom to put an 80mm intake fan, what do you think?

I also want to know your opinion on the psu, is a delta electronics 700w real, it has 7 sata, 3 molex, 1 6 pin and a 6+2 pin

One last thing, im having serious doubts about whether the cooler monsoon iii is gonna fit with that 120mm fan and the psu on top, my mobo is an mATX ECS Black Series A785GM-M

 

[shovenose]

for one thing: i am quite sure that that 120mm psu fan inst blowing psu air into the case, instead its taking air from inside the case, blowing it through the psu, and out the back...
about the psu: it should be ok for hp's STOCK CONFIGURATION!!! if u have upgraded this pc, what is in it now???
see if the psu can handle what u have:
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp
however, i dont think its a very good psu, buts it not too terrible AFAIK

 

[Kami-kun]

you are right about the psu fan, my bad, i havent moved the components to the case because im still waiting for my monsoon iii lt, my main concern is the airflow in regards to the overall temperature of the case and components, maybe doing a little overclocking, and the possible problem that the cooler wont fit because of the rear fan and psu.

 

[shovenose]

will the cooler have fans blowing air towards the rear of the case? if its right there. then if need be u can remove the case fan, and the fan on the cpu will do that for u

 

[geofelt]

I think that case will cool poorly. It needs some air inputs to get decent airflow. Even if you add a 80mm fan in front, It will not be enough. You might get by if you removed the side panel .

I think the delta psu is OK, but no personal experience with it.

Big cooler vendors often have the dimensions somewhere on their web site.

 

[shovenose]

good point. geo.
op: why are u using this case? is this a new build?
it may be a misunderstanding, but it sounds like u have an existing configuration and u want to migrate it to the hp case. hp cases arent know for their great cooling in fact the y usually have TERRIBLE cooling. the top 80mm fan would do much more good as an intake at the boottom front of the case, if there is a spot for a fan...

 

[jsc]

It looks like you have room for a 120 mm fan on the lower front of the case. That would be a very good place for an intake fan. It'd get more air into the case and it would help cool the drives.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

The classic configuration for airflow is intake at the bottom front and exhaust at the top rear. If you can manage it add a 120mm intake fan at the bottom front of the case.

Scroll down to the bottom of the following web page to see an animation of a classic bottom/front to top/rear airflow configuration:

http://www.lancoolpc.com/en/product/product06.php?pr_index=15&cl_index=1&sc_index=25&ss_index=62&g=spec

 

[shovenose]

i have a seomewhat unrelated nquestion: if the air will come in anyway, to equalise pressure, whats the point of a front intake fan? the air will come through those holes in the front anywya, so wont it cool the drives automatically?

 

[JohnnyLucky]

shovenose - The answer to your question is no. The only time pressure is equal is when a state of static pressure exists (what goes in goes out). If the intake and the exhaust fans are not equal, then you will wind up with either positive or negative pressure. A little positive or negative pressure is okay. It does not seem to make any difference. Some enthusiasts prefer positive pressure while others prefer negative pressure. Personally I try to balance the fans to try and get a state of static pressure. Most of the time it is not possible.

My Lian Li / Lancool Dragon Lord case came with one intake fan and three exhaust fans. I added a Coolermaster 4-in-3 bay device with a 120mm fan to help balance the airflow. Last week I removed my Thermalright Venomous X cpu heatsink with two fans and installed my original Coolermaster Hyper 212 (not 212+) with one fan. I just wanted to see what it could do. I also made a few changes to improve airflow and cooling. I ran torture tests for several hours while monitoring cpu core temperatures. Overall there was a 4C drop in cpu core temperatures and a 2C drop in gpu temperature - with one less fan!!! I am pretty sure the second fan on the Venomous X was too close to the exhaust fan on the rear panel. There may have been turbulence that disrupted airflow.

Here is a link to a few photos I took so you can see what I did:

http://www.johnnylucky.org/dragon-lord/index.html

I am wondering about having two exhaust fans on the top panel. I'm thinking I might be better off just using one exhaust fan at the rear of the top panel. The reason is one of the fans is too far forward. It may be exhausting cool air that the fan in the 4-in-3 bay device is blowing in. It's possible some of the cool air is not reaching the cpu heatsink because of that extra exhaust fan on the top panel. In addition, the end result would be two intake fans and two exhaust fans. That would balance air pressure quite nicely. I'll experiment with it this evening.

 

[shovenose]

a. holy crap u have ur own friggin website!!!
b. thats a cool looking cpu cooler
c. nice case...
d. whats better the thermalright or the cm cpu cooler???

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Just getting started on the personal web site. No advertising on the site. I simply wanted to organize all my reference material. It's very slow going.

So far my original Coolermaster Hyper 212 with one 120mm fan seems to do better than the Thermalright Venomous X with two 120mm fans.

Mine is the original Hyper 212 with 4 copper heatpipes, a solid copper base, and excellent screw in fan mounts:

http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=3096

The new one that is very popular has 4 four direct touch copper heatpipes instead of a solid copper base and those flimsy fan mounting clips:

http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=6603

I don't not know if the newer Hyper 212+ is better than the original 212.The new one is definitely cheaper and an excellent value.

 

[shovenose]