+10*C increase in CPU temps w/ case side panel on vs. off???

yenniedn

2[H]4U
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Nov 26, 2007
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I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem - but I'm tired of having nice cases and having to run my system with the side panel off looking all ghetto-fied because having the panel on raises my CPU temps by up to 10*C!!!

I've tried a number of cases - primarily my Silverstone TJ09-BW and a number of different Lian Li's. Right now I'm using a LL PC-V1010B. Every upgrade cycle, I buy a handful of CPU's and find the one that overclocks the best, on the lowest voltage and at the lowest temps. For the last two CPU's (i7 920 C0/C1 followed by the current 920 D0), the idle temps have been low to mid 40's *C with the panel off. As soon as I put the panel on, the temps start to rise immediately and level of in the low to mid 50's *C!!!

This has been the case with the TJ09, the LL PC-X500, PC-V1010B and pretty much every case I've used in recent memory!

I'm sure others have this issue as well? How do you resolve this? Or . . . are there any cases out there that aircool just as well with the panel on or off? I hate using my system with the panel off but a 10*C spike is just too heavy a price to pay!!!

Ideas?
 
better cable management and attention to airflow!

I'm pretty careful with the wiring and such - not as talented as many of the super builders I've seen on these forums but my case is fairly clean. Here are the photos as posted in the Lian Li Gallery thread:

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034164761&postcount=4280

I'm going to pick up a LL 5.25" HD drive bay with 120mm fan and install it in the top 3 5.25" external bays to bring in some fresh, cool air to see if that helps. If not, I'm going to take a hammer and nail and punching holes into the side panel????????????

Or previously in the PC-X500:

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1034181851&postcount=16

There really should be no reason for the temperature spike since the mobo is located in an isolated chamber with 2x120mm fans directly in front of the CPU & GPU areas moving fresh air into this area. Granted the increase was "only" 6 to 8*C in this case but still very noticeable.
 
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looks nice and clean to me. I'm sure its fine, but only because I can't see it you may want to ensure the rearmost fan of your push-pull setup is oriented correctly.

My only real thought is that you appear to only have 1 true intake fan (on the lower chamber). I am not a mechanical engineer (aka no real knowledge of thermo-dynamics), but thats a lot of air movement to satisfy (4x 120mm fans + 2 geforces) without a large supply of outside air. If the intake side of the fans are starved for fresh air they will pull from the path of least resistance. In this case (no pun intended), especially since you have an off-angle central fan it is very possible you are getting an air swirling affect inside of the case itself.

Remember fans themselves really don't cool anything: much like a room with a fan the ambient temp remains the same. A fan can make us feel cooler, because our bodies are significantly above ambient temperature. As our bodies (or in this case our computer components) warm the air directly around us, a fan moves that air away and replaces it with cooler air that is in turn warmed.

Hope this helps.
 
For the last two CPU's (i7 920 C0/C1 followed by the current 920 D0), the idle temps have been low to mid 40's *C with the panel off. As soon as I put the panel on, the temps start to rise immediately and level of in the low to mid 50's *C!!!
Two things:

1) Idle temps don't matter a single bit due to inaccuracies in the sensors Intel uses in their CPUs. This is by design; the sensors are designed to accurately measure temperatures near Tjmax, and not for anything more than that.

2) It doesn't even matter if your CPU runs 10C hotter. It will not cause any harm to the chip, and the only time you'd ever really have to worry about that kind of a jump is if you're going from 85C under load to 95C under load or something to that effect.

I know this doesn't really address the experience you're having, but you should at least understand that in the long run, it's really not a big deal at all.
 
Airflow design isn't really good, there's only one intake and then three exhaust fans (+graphics cards) are fighting for that air with the foremost top fan drawing airflow to everywhere else than over components needing airflow.
You have to remember than number of fans doesn't count if they don't work to increase airflow over components needing cooling... might work better with foremost top fan as intake.

PC-V1010B
Dual chamber design compartmentalises only intake airflow to elsewhere than where heat production is.
"Wasting" three 5.25" bays for intake should definitely give some help.
 
The PC-X500 has a terrible front panel design as far as air flow is concerned, it's really quite restrictive. So there's no surprise there that your temps dropped with the side panel off. All cases I've worked with have some air flow issue involved with the design, some pretty minor, some pretty serious, you really have to test each case you're working with. Case manufacturers need to get their design teams in order :p
 
Having an equal balance of fan intake and exhuast in combination with good air flow design is critical to lower temperatures. Like others have said, you're lacking adequate intake and the components in the case are starved of air. With the TJ09, im achieving 36c Idle, 70c load. GPU is at 44c idle, 60c load.
 
im not suprised you have idle temps that high with those graphics cards in there lol, only thing you can do really is stick some fans on a speed controller and pump up the speed...... or watercool all of it :D

i was running tri-sli in a tiny pc-65b you shoulda seen my idle temps in that !! i was on the phone to the guy from BFG to make sure i was ok with the temps, and he was like 'dude you need to just take the side panel off till you get a new case, its like an oven in there' lol.
 
Having an equal balance of fan intake and exhuast in combination with good air flow design is critical to lower temperatures. Like others have said, you're lacking adequate intake and the components in the case are starved of air. With the TJ09, im achieving 36c Idle, 70c load. GPU is at 44c idle, 60c load.

I used the TJ09 for over a year - and the issue is the CPU temps with the side panel on vs. off. I had the same rise in CPU temps as soon as I put the side panel on. So unless you set up the fans in the TJ09 differently than the stock configuration, you should notice the same type of increase in temps.

As for your idle & load temps, while they're good, you're comparing apples and oranges b/c you're running a lga 775 quad and I've got a hotter running i7 920.

Do you have any intake fan?

Ummm, yes? What halfway decent case doesn't have an intake fan? The question is how well the intake fan(s) work(s).

Of the cases I've recently used, the current LL PC-V1010B has the least effective intake because it essentially has one 140mm intake on the lower chamber where the HDD's and PSU are. The closest thing it has to an intake fan on the upper chamber is the 120mm mounted on the GPU stabilizer bar - but that fan is a good 6-8 inches away from the meshed front 5.25" drive grills.

The previous case (LL PC-X500) has two 120mm intakes directly in front of the CPU/GPU area. These intake fans also have unobstructed flow directly to the motherboard in the smallish lower chamber so in theory they should provide good cooling. But as someone else said above, the design features that prevented them from performing up to their potential is a very restrictive mesh cover immediately in front of the fans PLUS another metal grill on the front panel. This case still had the smallest delta in temps with side panel on vs. off. If I had this case still, I would run it with the removeable mesh cover removed.

The case before the that was the TJ09 - which only has the one 120mm intake in front of the GPU's. Increase with side panel on was about 6-8*C.


im not suprised you have idle temps that high with those graphics cards in there lol, only thing you can do really is stick some fans on a speed controller and pump up the speed...... or watercool all of it :D

i was running tri-sli in a tiny pc-65b you shoulda seen my idle temps in that !! i was on the phone to the guy from BFG to make sure i was ok with the temps, and he was like 'dude you need to just take the side panel off till you get a new case, its like an oven in there' lol.

I'm not unhappy with my idle temps - an i7 920 at 4.2GHz idling in the low 40's is pretty decent - even with a quad-SLI setup. Now if only I can retain something even in the mid 40's with the side panel on, I'd be ecstatic. So again, the idle temps are not the issue in themselves - it's their noticeable increase with the side panel on that irks me.

Anyways, I'm not in love with the V1010B and will be moving out of it next week. Hopefully the next candidate will cool better with the panel on.
 
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IMO I would just remove the side panel, dump all the fans aside from the one in the PSU and on the HSF, then buy a big fan and blow air inside it.
 
IMO I would just remove the side panel, dump all the fans aside from the one in the PSU and on the HSF, then buy a big fan and blow air inside it.

Awesome! There's nothing ghetto-fabulous about that idea at all!!!! ;)
 
IMO I would just remove the side panel, dump all the fans aside from the one in the PSU and on the HSF, then buy a big fan and blow air inside it.

Awesome! There's nothing ghetto-fabulous about that idea at all!!!! ;)

Actually this is how I run my case, and I can attest to the low-class but purposeful look. Just don't spill anything!

There's nothing quite like dropping a cheeto into rotating fan blades aimed at the unprotected interior of your running computer. :D
 
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