Lian Li PC-7077 Side panel mod-useful?

[SamHughe]

Hey there,
I'm planning to cut a 120mm hole on my case's side right above the cpu and stick a fan. Would this help cpu temps go down dramatically? What are the dowsides of doing this if any?

Currently I own a fx-57 and my temps are at around 40C idle and 50C load. HS is a Si-120 with a lousy (and noisy) Sunon fan on it.

Thanks in advance for the input.

[Tulatin]

Sounds like a good idea, but mightaswell slap one over the card area too. Only issue is that you had better filter these, unless you want dusty shag carpeting over the motherboard and everything else. Other than that, a huge hole in the side panel sort of obscures the view of the componentry behind. Besides that, no issues to forsee here, go for it (and for convenience sake, use a holesaw)

[Serra]

The word 'dramatically' can be kind of subjective, but I would expect you to see some temperature drop. At the very least your other components are likely to thank you... especially if you take Tulatin's advice and slap one over your card area too. As far as the filter thing goes, I suppose that depends on which direction you want the air going through the hole.

One thing you are likely to notice is that you'll hear your HS fan even better than you did before, now that you have a large hole directly over it.

[SamHughe]

The word 'dramatically' can be kind of subjective...
Right now I got 39C idle 49C load temps. I wanna see at least 5+ degree decrease on both temps If I do this mod. Is this a realistic expectation?

One thing you are likely to notice is that you'll hear your HS fan even better than you did before, now that you have a large hole directly over it.

That's what I'm afraid of. I don't wanna drill a hole on the side of my case for lotsa dust and noise exchange of 2C decrease on temps.

[Tulatin]

If you're afraid of noise, mould an insulated duct over the hole, as seen in the V-Series

[Serra]

Right now I got 39C idle 49C load temps. I wanna see at least 5+ degree decrease on both temps If I do this mod. Is this a realistic expectation?

Hmm... still depends. The best way to see what sort of difference you can get is to start by taking the temperature of the air in your case and your ambient room temperature, because that should be able to tell you a lot. If, for example, you find the temperature in your case is the same as the temperature outside the case, then you aren't likely to get much of a temperature drop because it's your HS that needs upgrading more than anything. If, on the other hand, you notice a decentish temperature difference, then you'll likely be able to expect a drop. That isn't to say that you couldn't get a drop at all if your case is at even temps with ambient, it just wouldn't be likely to be a large one.

That all being said... 5+ degrees is a decentish amount to drop, but I don't think its unreasonable to expect. Results will vary by current airflow and cabling though, so don't hold it against me if it doesn't :)


That's what I'm afraid of. I don't wanna drill a hole on the side of my case for lotsa dust and noise exchange of 2C decrease on temps.

I generally support the use of side case fans to blow air out of the case anyway (HS, cabling, airflow, and side case fan dependant), meaning that you still only have to keep the same screens you had before.

[SamHughe]

Hey look what I did.

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/4213/casemod22mv.th.jpg (http://img8.imageshack.us/my.php?image=casemod22mv.jpg)

Yep, it's a dryer duct blowing fresh air to the CPU area. Just wanted to utilize the 120mm fan better. Ironically, it didn't help temps at all. I can say I have 1 or 2 degrees average increase. And yes I know it looks horrible. Well..I'm not exactly a handy man.

[SamHughe]

BTW, there is 5C difference between leaving the side panel open or close. So, something must be done here.

[Serra]

Hmmmm... 5 degrees you say?

The picture helps a lot in terms of letting us figure out what's going on in there for airflow. Off hand, I'd say those 2 video cards probably contribute to the total heat in the case pretty well, so it's not just your CPU. You might try putting a fan on your side panel over your video cards exhausting out... it doesn't look to me like they get a lot of airflow. Assuming your intake fans are above your hard drives, the air should be going over them, through your CPU, and out the vents right behind it... totally skipping them alltogether. Even in the event that they are right in front of your HDDs, I'd kind of doubt they're getting a lot.

One solution I came up with for my case was to toss a Vantec Tornado on the top of my case as an input fan. I don't have half the heat requirements that you do, but it made a very sizable dent in my temps. By sizable, I mean that on idle I run my OC'd Intel 2.4c at 27 degrees with my mobo being at 29... when I put in the tornado (which I often have out because it's a noisy :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana:) It's more like 22-23 degrees CPU, 23-24 mobo @ ambients of ~20 degrees. Anyway, I mounted it between my dvd drive and my PSU and it's forceful airflow was more than enough to shove a lot of air down to the bottom of my case (while nicely ventilating everything else as well). Strictly speaking it wasn't really an ideal airflow, but my case is wide enough and my processor old enough that it worked out just fine.

Post back with what your solutions might be or anything else you think is significant for us to know.. I would like to know how this works out.

~ Serra

[TransNone13]

I would, mine has one. It will help balance ou tthe case pressuure and gives those 7800's air to breath.

[SamHughe]

Serra you are right! Those two fire-breathing sons-of- :banana: :banana: es are not helping the temps at all. To make things worse, some genius at Asus decide to put a passively cooled chipset right between videocards in an SLI setup (see the pic). If you look at the picture, you'll also notice that there is a 80mm stealth fan right between two vidcards. It helps but not enough.

http://img282.imageshack.us/img282/4171/pc70770056pw.jpg

I think I have a logical explanation for why my temps get hotter with the Duct mod instead of improving. I believe it's something with the fact that the duct is being right under the psu (even touching it). You see, when the system runs a certain period of time the psu gets hotter. Consequently, it heats the duct lying beneath it (which is made of thin aluminum), and of course the air flowing inside the duct gets hotter. So, while I'm thinking the duct blowing fresh, cold air into the cpu area, it actually blows hot air. When I open the case the duct exposes the cold air and neutralizes the psu's negative effect starts blowing cold air again, which in turn, makes cpu run much cooler (37C instead of 42C with the side panel closed).

If you're still following you're very patient person! Now to make things even worse, my dumb, stupid, crappy piece-of- :banana: :banana: CPU fan (120 mm Sunon) stalls in low RPM's. Right now the side panel is open and it's not turning! I'm running my FX-57 without the cpu fan! (37C stable). This is how effective the duct mod actually is. When you close the case fan, however, that's a different story.

[Serra]

That's good thinking about the air duct getting warmer as a result of your PSU, though I was kind of wondering if it might be the result of something else. I was thinking it might be because the air duct wasn't actively blowing air, and therefore instead of bringing air in your fans created a pressure differential and were blowing air into the duct, which wouldn't go very far and just resulted in a hot pocket of air right at the enterance. I guess simple explanations are better.

I also pretty much missed seeing that stealth fan in front of the video cards on your first pic due to cabling... but yeah, I'd say it's probably not doing quite enough. I still say you should punch a fan hole in the side where the video cards are. Keep us posted with how it goes.

[SamHughe]

Well...before puching any hole on the side panel, I'll try getting a decent 120mm fan for my cpu (any suggestions?). Cause I kinda like the Kubrick's Monolith look on the case you know, standing tall and dark and mysterious. I'm also waiting Nv Silencer5 Rev. 3 become available (ETA October 15). That should pretty much take care of vid. cards since they'll be blowing hot air out of the case. Finally, I'll revise the duct design, try to make it more effective. I may try a better fan on the duct (Right know I got 11DbA silenx fan blowing 40CFM) or I may even just eliminate the duct completely. My goal is taking cpu temps down to 30C idle 45C load but, at the same time, keeping the system very quiet.

[Serra]

If you're looking to keep the duct and maintain a quiet system, you may be in for a problem. Much like your basic case, the duct should act as a resonating chamber (nothing in there to absorb sound)... effectively giving you a noise total that exceeds the sum of the individual components. One really cool thing you could do to both help would be to line it with some type of porus rubber.. as long as you're only blowing cold air in you don't have to worry about it holding heat, and it should reduce/eliminate sound from the duct AND sound from in your computer itself. From there, I'll add that you should make sure the fan in the duct (not seen in any pictures, so I don't know where along the line it is) is close enough to the end to be able to still get good airflow in there... if it's too far back it won't do you much good.