On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 13:42:46 -0700, John Corliss
<jcorliss@fake.invalid> wrote:

<snip>

>>> But back to the hard drives, I'd like to find something that will mount so
>>> as to suck the hot air right off of the hard drives and out of the case. I
>>> would prefer not to use something that will suck the heat off of the hard
>>> drives and distribute it into the case, but maybe that additional fan in
>>> the 5.25" empty bay will render that concern of no consequence. Any
>>> recommendations?
>>
>> Easiest solution (if your case allows it)
>
>Unfortunately, this is not the situation. It's a very bad design.

A case can be set up to do that with no problems whatsoever.
I happen to have a couple that did no worse than any other
configuration. All it requires is a side-panel fan with
ample flow rate to not limit exhaust from both the
rear-upper quadrant and front-bottom. Actually a little
more than equalized so positive pressurization forces some
air out in other areas too. In fact it might even be
optimal for extreme overclocking.

The thing is, most cases are not set up with such a large
side fan(s), and it is not a good thing to do with a small
side fan or none at all. Generally it would require at
least two 92mm, one 120mm, or two loud 80mm fans in the side
panel.


>
>> is to separate the drives (put one
>> drive space between them) and have an intake at the front of your system
>> sucking air in and blowing it across them. You can easily attach a filter
>> (bought or home-made) to prevent dust monsters from invading. As far as the
>> added warm air, if you have a couple of good exhaust fans it'll make little
>> or no difference and in fact might even keep your case cleaner if you had
>> negative pressure in there before the fan was added.

Completely untrue.
Adding a filter that is even remotely effective at keeping
dust out of a system will substantially reduce the flow rate
in the system. It doesn't even come remotely close to being
offset by the dust accumulation unless you only consider one
running state for comparison- the temp at a moment _after_
having ran for several years in a very dusty/dirty
environment. That would be presuming system was never
cleaned. Ironically even then, the filtered system would be
hotter as we would then have to assume the filters weren't
cleaned either, if a person were so reckless to leave a box
running in dirty environment for several years between
maintenance intervals.

I'm not against filtered systems, my main-use system IS
filtered in fact, as well as others and the filters do
always cut flow rate a lot except in an otherwise very poor
case where there was so much impedance to flow that the
filter state was a minor %


>
>As I just mentioned in another post, I'm thinking of fabricating an
>extension of some sort though. Also, I notice that the rack lacks holes
>for ventilation where it would hurt nothing to have them. I will drill
>them in.

Holes where, in the sides?
You may not benefit much from holes in the sides unless the
rack is rotated such that the long-side of the drive is
parallel with the front wall of the case, ie- rotated 90'
from how they're normally situated. Adding holes to the
typical configuration just allows more air to escape or be
slowed down traveling through the racks instead of maximum
flow across the drive surfaces. Since your case is 3 years
old it's not likely your drives are rotated 90' as mentioned
above.

>
>I am looking into cutting a hole in the side panel right where the hard
>drives are and then mounting another 80 mm fan in that hole. It won't be
>pretty, but it should do the job.

Why? What case? That may have less benefit than you think.
The typical solution, to have large passive intake vent or a
fan, in front of the whole rack such that the vast majority
of case intake is pulled through that rack, is quite
sufficient for cooling the drives. While they need airflow
for cooling, they are not hard to cool given some space
between each in the rack.


>
>What I don't understand about my case is that there's some kind of
>square plastic cage that's 3" deep by 4.25" tall by 3.5" wide and it's
>located in the front at the bottom, snapped onto a ventilated metal
>portion of the case. There is a sensor of some kind in the cage and it
>has two wires going to it. I think this is supposed to be a housing for
>an optional case fan that I foolishly didn't order with the system.

Standard front-case fan configuration, and the "sensor" is a
speaker, perhaps better called a buzzer since it's tonal
range is rather small. If your motherboard has an integral
speaker, you don't need it.


>However, since the system is three years old and there's no manual for
>the case I don't know for sure what the cage is for.

Fan holder. It may also have slots in it, that "could" be
used to support the ends of full-length cards... at least
some of them used to have such slots, if/when the case was
the right length, and that is why the cage was so deep in
such cases, to match where a full-length card would end.
That doesn't necessarily mean it coincides to that length in
your case, the manufacturer may've simply spec'd one fan
frame that does serve this purpose in one or more cases but
used same part in other cases as well.