(Corrected ;)) Temperature lower with case open!?

[Yitch]

Shouldn't the system/CPU temp should be lower with the case door on as long as you have proper airflow. Sadly with my new Lian-Li PC68, my CPU temp is 36C with the case shut and 31C with the case open. 5C temperature difference!

My system specs:

Athlon XP 1700+@220x11, 1.8 Vcore
2x256 MB OCZ 3500 Platinum
Abit NF7-S v2.0
Antec TrueControl550 (2 fans)
Thermalright SLK-800U/Tornado
Lian-Li PC68 case
2xSunon 35 CFM, front intake
TT Smartfan II 75.7 CFM (ya right!), rear CPU exhaust
Sunon 35 CFM, rear AGP/PCI exhaust
Adda top exhaust fan

The exhaust air from the PSU is noticeably warmer than the exhaust from the CPU exhaust fan. I bought this PSU to overclock more but perhaps it is holding me back because of all the heat it puts out!

It is very frustrating to leave the case open because my Vantec Tornado is very loud!

Any suggestions on how to improve my airflow? I already have rounded IDE cables and most of cables are out of the way. I don't really want to cut a hole in the side of my case.

Yitch

[q149]

Yeah, it should be lower with the case shut. 2 intake and 1 exhaust is not enough if you ask me.. those lian li's don't seem too be too good for airflow. I think the best thing to do would be put a 92mm Blowhole at the top then reverse the exhast as an intake.. then use something like part of a clear plastic bowl attached to the back to deflect the hot air from the psu upwards. Theres not much you can do without cutting the case up.. you can clean up your wires and stuff.

[Yitch]

Thanks for the response but I'm a little confused...which exhaust should be an intake?

[IFMU]

Originally posted by Yitch
Shouldn't the system/CPU temp should be lower with the case door on as long as you have proper airflow. Sadly with my new Lian-Li PC68, my CPU temp is 36C with the case shut and 31C with the case open. 5C temperature difference!
Yitch

From that right there I would presume that you dont have adequate case airflow. If you can take the side panel off and your temps drop would mean the air-flow isnt all that it should be.

Now from what you have the thread labeled, Temperature higher with case open!?. I would say that with it open the cases air-flow gets disrupted which in turn kills the temps.

[st0nedpenguin]

Should case temps be about equal with the case on or off then?

[IFMU]

If you can get your case air-flow to be good enough that its the same as your room air temp, then youve reached optimum air-flow throughout your case.

[Yitch]

Oops...the thread is labelled wrong! How can I edit the thread subject?

[IFMU]

Just let me know how you want it and I can do it for yea.

[Yitch]

Here's another suprise...I can only achieve 2C improvement after changing my CPU fan and exhaust speed from 3750 rpm to 5100 rpm! I was expecting much more improvement considering how much louder it is. Maybe I should just throw out the Lian-Li!

[q149]

What i am talking about is making every fan an intake except for a 92mm blowhole. And deflecting the hot air from PSU upwards so it's not sucked back in.

[st0nedpenguin]

Originally posted by IFMU
If you can get your case air-flow to be good enough that its the same as your room air temp, then youve reached optimum air-flow throughout your case.

My temps decrease by about a degree with the case side off, looks like something in there is working.

[toymaker]

Hot air rises and the only place it can escape is through your Power supply. You can install one of those thin 120mm Evercool fans in the top of your case with an adjuster. That alone would make a Huge difference. And make your P/S cooler too. But of course you'll have to cut a 120mm hole in the top of your case.

You can also either install a better exhaust fan into your Power supply or modify the existing one so that it stays at full speed. Just bypass the thermal control.

I have a Zalman CNPS7000Cu CPU cooler running full speed on the CPU on my P4C800 motherboard. It's big but it's quiet and keeps the CPU nice and cool.

[felix88]

toymaker, WELCOME TO XTREME!!!

i believe the PC68 has an 80mm blowhole on the top of the case. my PC60 does, and i'm pretty sure they are the same case with different front panels.

[shrae]

I know this is an old thread, but here is a post I made on another forum a few months ago about my Lian-Li PC-6087 case. Hope it might help somebody.

It looks like the PC-68 has better fans though. My PC-6087 came with Arx fans which are worse than the ADDAs and Sunons.


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Yeah, Lian-Li cases are a bit disappointing in terms of airflow. My main comp is in a PC-6087. This model has four fans; two intake at the front bottom of the case, one exhaust in the “conventional” spot on the back panel below the PSU, and another exhaust at the top of the case. With the stock fans at max and cover on, my case temps were a shocking 11C/20F above ambient. That's worse than either of my other two boxes, the much-cheaper and non-aluminimum SLK3700 and Enlight7370, which both came with PSUs and at less than half the price of the Lian-Li although granted I did add one extra fan to the empty fan mount in each (120mm intake on the SLK3700 and 80mm exhaust on the Enlight). Naturally, this huge increase in case temps on my Lian-Li was passed along directly to the CPU temp.

I originally thought that the high case temps were due solely to the intake filter/grill and the odd redirection of the intake vent; the PC-6087 has a front window cover, so the air comes in from the front lip on the bottom of the case. So essentially the air is pulled through a ninety-degree kink that doesn’t seem very conducive to smooth airflow. This first thing I did was remove the grill/filter, and I also set my computer so that the front of the case where the intake is was hanging off the side of my desk so it’d have more room to work with. This resulted in an immediate drop in temps to around 8C/15F above ambient; moving in the right direction but still too high – not to mention I’d rather keep my case on the floor. I did a quick unscientific test and compared the airflow of a bare Arx fan (outside of the case) with the airflow of one of the intake fans in its stock mounted position, by sticking my hand in front of each. The difference in the pressure was very substantial; based on this I believe that the front vent system is not sufficiently designed to allow enough airflow to support even the stock fans.

However, a friend of mine who had a PC-60 (which has direct-intake front fans) also reported high case temps, so I decided that the poor construction of the front intake was not the only problem. Doing some research, I found my case uses 2100rpm/23dba Arx fans. I could only find info about the Arx fans on Japanese sites, and could find NO cfm ratings at all, only rpm and dba ratings. Compared to most other fans of approximately the same rpm and decibel rating, I estimate the cfm to be only around 21-25. That had to be fixed. But if the front vent design could not support two 21cfm fans, I could not expect it to support stronger fans. I decided to leave the intake fans in place and instead just totally redo the airflow through the case.

First step was getting rid of the 21-25cfm-ish exhaust Arx fans and putting in Sunon 39cfm fans. Because I’m too lazy to DIY (and really don’t trust myself that much anyway), I then purchased a modded dual-80mm-blowhole Lian-Li window from FrozenCPU ( http://www.frozencpu.com/cgi-bin/frozencpu/win-86.html ) and mounted it so that the blowholes were in the top left (over the CPU hs/fan) and in the left center. I had two Antec Blue LED fans (36cfm) lying around so mounted them both intake. This way, the ambient air went straight into the CPU from the top left blowhole, and also right onto my vidcard from the center left blowhole. Surprisingly I think I get pretty even airflow with this setup - again, probably due to the fact that the two Arx intake fans are not pushing nearly as much as their rating. My case temps dropped to 0.5-1C above ambient according to aBit’s hardware monitor.

Final fan count: 6 (2 stock Arx intake fans ~21cfm in front bottom; 1 Sunon 39cfm fan exhaust on top; 1 Sunon 39cfm fan exhaust on back; 2 Antec 36cfm LED fans intake on side panel). Also the 480W Antec PSU fans exhausting. Because my CPU fan is by far the loudest, having this setup with the case closed is still much quieter than having the case open. On a side note I also sealed the rear vents by the PCI slots.

I also considered using a dremel to cut out the case grills over the exhaust fans. After all, one big lesson I learned from this case is that the cfm of a fan is irrelevant if the air can’t get to the fan (or conversely, away from it) in the first place. The top grill in particular probably blocks a lot of airflow, but I decided not to cut the top grill because it would totally change the look of the case. I’ve grown rather fond of those top slits, which go with the aesthetics better than a radial grill.

Well, didn’t mean to type so much but that’s the story of my Lian-Li. Yeah, I bought the case for looks but I was rather disappointed to have to spend an extra $50+ on a nearly-$200 case just to make airflow work.