SENTRY: Console-sized gaming PC case project

It is up!!



PS: Hardwarecanucks reviews are probably the best out there, if you analyze its picture and video quality. Linus doesn't hold a candle in that regard.
 
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Just for the record - we've just shipped the laptop bag that we've stumbled upon recently and it's a perfect fit for the Sentry, but that doesn't mean we're going to add this as an option.

It looks like this when packed:
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This bag costs around $10 including shipment in Poland...

Additionally here's how the tool-less vertical stand locking system works:
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Additionally here's how the tool-less vertical stand locking system works:
LwxDPaB.gif

That's quite clever! I wonder how well that will be usable in actual use, but either way it's a very cool way of solving the problem. How do you prevent the stand from sliding, though? Do you have register pins that are sorting that out? Because otherwise you might aswell just have a hole instead of a slot in the stand and then press and slide the whole stand instead of just the screw.
 
There are screws on that side of the cover where the stand is attached and the stand has holes for those screws.

We've had that exact problem of sliding the case off the stand with earlier locking system working just the way you've described until we've figured that out in the current way.

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kinda disappointed after seeing the the hardwarecanucks review. power cables aint sleeved. things broke off before even using.
 
The power cable standing out of internal power cord is not sleeved because it's grounding cable, it's not supposed to go together with the rest of cables. Anyway whole cable is properly isolated.

If sleeving of the power switch cable is really important for you guys then we might talk to the subcontractor making those for us.

As for the internal piece - we'll investigate that when the broken cover will arrive. It's the only unit out of 25 having that problem and from what Dmitry shown us with photos it looks like welding may not been properly set up.

Usually you'll need whole lot of force to break down such weld spot and the metal will bend all around. And as the photos shown in review, just 2 spots holding the front "tooth" can sustain quite a lot of force like the weight of ~10kg monitor. We've tested all of remaining prototype units for this.

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Already tested covers are laying on the floor. The monitor hangs on a cable

In this one every weld spot out of 6 broke off cleanly which looks really like a manufacturing error and we'll be talking about this with our subcontractor making metal parts. We'll also reinforce this metal part with two additional welding points.

If this happened in the production run then you'd be obviously eligible to get a replacement part, which with the shipping costs all around the world would become really dangerous for us if it was notorious. We have to resolve it before launching the sales.
 
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Personally the internal power cable not begin sleeved isn't a huge issue; it's not like it's really visible when the case is assembled.

Even if it's unlikely to happen with the production versions, it's really great seeing you guys are testing things and making sure they work before doing mass production. Keep up the good work!

Will there be an email on the newsletter signup when the indiegogo page goes live? I'm very ready to throw some money at this case :)
 
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Ditto, I like the additional grounding cable. If random Joe wants to sleeve it he can. As an average pc builder, why bother sleeveing on a case with no window? Keep up the good work gentlemen and let us know when the indiegogo is up so I can be amount the first to back!!
 
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Ditto, I like the additional grounding cable. If random Joe wants to sleeve it he can. As an average pc builder, why bother sleeveing on a case with no window?

In industrial standards there is no situation, where You just "have to believe" in something. For example, grounding cable can't be sleeved. When you open your electric device, you immediately need to know that your device is safe. Grounding cable is one of those points, which assures you about the safety of your device. There was some reason why someone in the past decided the grounding cable needs to be in yellow and green colours (for sure not to be sleeved). We of course could leave it, and just don't add this grounding cable like every pc-case manufacturer does, but you know... we're not like every pc-case manufacturer.
 
Can't wait for kickstarting campaign to start, look at my saddiest core i7-6700k =( , she have to live in shoebox, waiting for Sentry to protect her. Full rig with m.2 ssd (to hot to run without proper cooler, connection with Sentry via thermal pad will be ok, also 1070 and others stuff) is ready for action. My finger is on "pay" button of Sentry order. "Ready" and "steady" are already called. Now it's Your turn to say "GO!"
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Awe man, it took him 3 minutes to close up the case after his build? This is a non-starter for me. If building a complete system using this case includes a 3 minute activity, you might as well scrap this whole project. What a failure. /s
 
Awe man, it took him 3 minutes to close up the case after his build? This is a non-starter for me. If building a complete system using this case includes a 3 minute activity, you might as well scrap this whole project. What a failure. /s
Awe man, just buy a big toolless case than. Any other console-size is 3min-to-close too, because screws are good and secure, but it tales some time to assemble. For most of the people it's a "close it for next 3 years", anyway there is no other option.
 
I really don't understand those people. Yep, it's community project and blah-blah, but they found it, they post something like "i don't like that case, make it about 30 liters and it's ok" asking for complete remake of a project. Why just don't skip it and find something you will like?
 
Hi! I am from the Philippines, and I am very interested in the Sentry. I just finished my node 202 build and was not really satisfied with it. So I went to look for a similar itx case, and this got my attention.

So I have a few questions
1. Can I mount 2 slim fans underneath the GPU, if yes, then that is very good, if no, what is the reason for the Sentry not having this feature?
2. Why doesn't the sentry just have holes above the GPU so that hot air can escape?

I just recently discovered this product so please bear with me, and also I am only interested in the horizontal orientation, as I wanted to put this under my desk. Thanks a lot!
 
1) There is literally no space below the gpu - gpu has ~1cm of space below and above and 120mm fans start from 12mm thickness. Moving gpu position up or down would be problematic for structural integrity of the chassis corner where the gpu is held with screws.

2) We have tested that and there are few reasons not to do this:
- it doesn't really do much unless the perforation is like a swiss cheese all above the gpu, which isn't really what we want
- it would increase the cost a bit (hence the perforation is significant cost chunk of metal sheets manufacturing) and
- it'd make the case look not so good, we even tried different looks of these vents and made polls about them and in the end those weren't looking good.

By the way if You're going to put it under the desk do You also want to attach it underneath like we've shown in the manual? Because if You do that the case will be upside down and the hot air above the gpu problem will disappear.
 
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Ok I get it, thanks for the explanation. I have a rx 480 (non reference) inside my node and the top of the case when lying down is quite hot! That's why I questioned it not having holes at the top, and you have a similar design.

Anyways I am really looking forward to testing out your case. Thanks and I will be patiently waiting.
 
Can't wait for kickstarting campaign to start, look at my saddiest core i7-6700k =( , she have to live in shoebox, waiting for Sentry to protect her. Full rig with m.2 ssd (to hot to run without proper cooler, connection with Sentry via thermal pad will be ok, also 1070 and others stuff) is ready for action. My finger is on "pay" button of Sentry order. "Ready" and "steady" are already called. Now it's Your turn to say "GO!"
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I bought all of my computer parts (mini-ITX motherboard, SFX power supply, low profile CPU coolers, M.2 SSD) in preparation for a Steam Machine prototype clone case since 2014. My tiny computer parts are still in a 35L case and it is still looks funny and sad. My finger is on the pay button since the first time I saw the Steam Machine prototype (back in 2013). I would have and I still would happily pay 300USD for a case like that or even more. But I am still just waiting and checking this forum at least once every week hoping to see a release date. I've been doing this for years now. I think that it is very sad that we have to wait more than 3 years for a simple metal box. :~(

I think that you guys lost a lot of momentum by not releasing this product earlier. You lost all of the customers who would have mainly bought this case because of the performance difference between a laptop and a desktop, because now you can get the same performance with the new pascal mobile GPUs as their desktop counterparts. The performance difference was a key selling point. The only advantage left is the upgradeability and the potential quieter operation, but sacrificing portability and standalone operation. So your market is much smaller than it was even half a year ago. I think you made a big mistake, by not releasing this earlier.

An advice: Use the black model for marketing purposes, because the white model looks very bad compared to the black one.
 
Thanks for your input on this matter, however there's few things You have to note:

1) It's not like we're sitting on finished product and waiting for this exact moment to release it just to make You wait more and be more impatient. We always stated that we don't want to launch before we're ready, like all those kickstarting one-product-companies who then either fail to deliver or let their supporters wait whole year to get the product.

The biggest problem to understand here is that there's a thin line between having a working prototype and production capabilities. The most of the rushed crowdfunded projects failed to understand that - You can have your prototypes made by many eager subcontractors, but when You think You're ready to launch, they can get cold feet when they understand the risks coming from your quality requirements. You just have prepare to reduce and manage quality loss risks by design of the product, before You get to the point where You've taken the money from campaign supporters and noone wants to manufacture Your product.

2) We haven't taken Your money yet and we're developing this on our own budget so You have to understand that we're splitting our focus between this and our daily jobs, however most of the delays to the project were due to the fact that we were a small client while prototyping for our subcontractors and thus we couldn't really rush things with them.

3) We understand that we're going slowly with this project and that there's always going to be people who'll loose interest because they'll simply need to build their next rig earlier and we can't do anything about that. If making this product was supposed to be a race against time, then there'd most likely be a lot more contenders on the market and You'd have more options already, obviously apart from all those mass produced 10L+ cases.

4) This project changed it target dramatically over first year:

Initially, I just wanted to design metal parts for quick manufacturing and launch small campaign for ~100+ people to manufacture in our local for $50 ~ $100 which was quite reasonable price range for bare metal box sold like NFC's S4 Mini. The more I went into the project however, the more I realised we can't have repeatability and bend quality in such small shops (stating however they do before doing the prototypes) required to make hundred units. Additionally more and more people wanted both complete package over bare metal DIY kit because of possible sourcing problems for essential components.

Additionally after spending so much time and feeling that there simply has to be such product on the market to move the concept of steam machine again, We simply cannot fail and deliver the case with half-measures.

5) As for the GTX1060 in laptops - it's still a laptop made by big players and You just cannot simply choose the parts You want - You're left out to pick something configured to increase the price in SKU's that have such selling point.
 
I like the look. It matches my Steel Series keyboard and should work just fine with a stock 6700 and 1070FE.

Does the m.2 on the back get fairly hot with the insertion panel?
 
Insertion panel is above GPU not on the motherboard back side. M.2 should fit since it's requirements are within ATX form factor specification and we have made clearances below according to that spec, but we haven't tested M.2 on the backside of motherboard.
 
Good luck with the campaign. I hope this goes so well you expand into other kinds of cases. I'm also in the market for a home server.
 
I bought all of my computer parts (mini-ITX motherboard, SFX power supply, low profile CPU coolers, M.2 SSD) in preparation for a Steam Machine prototype clone case since 2014. My tiny computer parts are still in a 35L case and it is still looks funny and sad. My finger is on the pay button since the first time I saw the Steam Machine prototype (back in 2013). I would have and I still would happily pay 300USD for a case like that or even more. But I am still just waiting and checking this forum at least once every week hoping to see a release date. I've been doing this for years now. I think that it is very sad that we have to wait more than 3 years for a simple metal box. :~(

That's a sad story. If I were you, i'd bought a Fractal Node 202 or Raven02 like a midstep. Honestly, I love that case, but if it will be too late, I will buy raven or node while waiting. I've planned a build for my brother so I gonna use second case anyway. Or you can just sell it. As SaperPL said, thay don't have your money (sadly, when you gonna take my money, guys??) so they can make it as long as they want.

I like the look. It matches my Steel Series keyboard and should work just fine with a stock 6700 and 1070FE.
Does the m.2 on the back get fairly hot with the insertion panel?

Let me answer. m.2 is hot anyway. No, it's HOT. 80+C throttle open air is usual. BUT Sentry have an advantage. Because case is metal and there is no window at backside of the MoBo, you can use thermal pads to cool it. When I get my Sentry (i said WHEN not IF, guys, we're waiting), I will post a build log, and m.2 will be covered aussi. I will post here which size of thermal pad you need to properly cool it, and hov effective it will be.

And you build will be fine.
 
That's a sad story. If I were you, i'd bought a Fractal Node 202 or Raven02 like a midstep. Honestly, I love that case, but if it will be too late, I will buy raven or node while waiting. I've planned a build for my brother so I gonna use second case anyway. Or you can just sell it. As SaperPL said, thay don't have your money (sadly, when you gonna take my money, guys??) so they can make it as long as they want.



Let me answer. m.2 is hot anyway. No, it's HOT. 80+C throttle open air is usual. BUT Sentry have an advantage. Because case is metal and there is no window at backside of the MoBo, you can use thermal pads to cool it. When I get my Sentry (i said WHEN not IF, guys, we're waiting), I will post a build log, and m.2 will be covered aussi. I will post here which size of thermal pad you need to properly cool it, and hov effective it will be.

And you build will be fine.

I plan on doing the same including the back plate of my cpu socket and the back plate of my 1080FE. I've used these and they're alright. You may find some with higher thermal conductivity but usually not this thick.
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/2...50mm_-_2_Pack_AK-TT300-02.html?tl=g8c487s2246

I plan for Sentry to be a giant heat sink if possible
 
I plan on doing the same including the back plate of my cpu socket and the back plate of my 1080FE. I've used these and they're alright. You may find some with higher thermal conductivity but usually not this thick.
I plan for Sentry to be a giant heat sink if possible

I don't think I can find that thermal pad, i'll chose from what i have in store. And if it is possible, can you make a test, because i don't think that gonna decrease temps higher than two degrees. Backplate of gpu is usually not so hot, because of poor connection to the card itself. And there is a gap between Cpu and socket (where the pins are). Maybe cooling VRMs this way will help, but you need to remove backplate on gpu to have any difference imo. Why m.2 than? Cause it is under the MoBo, it's close to the case (don't need a thick tp), all chips are naked and it's pretty hot.
 
I don't think I can find that thermal pad, i'll chose from what i have in store. And if it is possible, can you make a test, because i don't think that gonna decrease temps higher than two degrees. Backplate of gpu is usually not so hot, because of poor connection to the card itself. And there is a gap between Cpu and socket (where the pins are). Maybe cooling VRMs this way will help, but you need to remove backplate on gpu to have any difference imo. Why m.2 than? Cause it is under the MoBo, it's close to the case (don't need a thick tp), all chips are naked and it's pretty hot.

Agreed. It won't make more than ~2C difference. But it never hurts. If everything is 2C cooler than can make a pretty big difference in fan speeds and thermal headroom. I don't have any m.2 nvme ssd's, just plain old sata ssd's, but some of the lengthy reviews on Anandtech definitely suggest thermal throttling is an issue with m.2 drives.
 
I plan on doing the same including the back plate of my cpu socket and the back plate of my 1080FE. I've used these and they're alright. You may find some with higher thermal conductivity but usually not this thick.
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/2...50mm_-_2_Pack_AK-TT300-02.html?tl=g8c487s2246

I plan for Sentry to be a giant heat sink if possible

I don't think this will work. As far as I can remember steel has a thermal conductivity of 30 W/(m*K) or something around there, aluminium has about 200 W/(m*K) in comparison and copper has about 350 K/(m*K). (given that I remember it correctly)
Since this case is made out of steel and it also has some nice paint on it it won't conduct even nearly as good as aluminium or copper.

Therefore it would probably be a better solution to install some small copper or aluminium heatsinks. Best would be to have a heatsink with some air flowing over it. this would actually decrease the temperature. Another option would be to install it without air flowing over it, in this situation the temperature won't really decrease but it would reduce the temperature spikes a bit (temperature will be better spread out and there is some extra material which can sink some energy).
 
I don't think this will work. As far as I can remember steel has a thermal conductivity of 30 W/(m*K) or something around there, aluminium has about 200 W/(m*K) in comparison and copper has about 350 K/(m*K). (given that I remember it correctly)
Since this case is made out of steel and it also has some nice paint on it it won't conduct even nearly as good as aluminium or copper.

You're right, but even 30-50 W/(m*K) of steel is more than air or thermal compound anyway. Like you're using aluminium heatsinks only for low-tdp chips, steel case-heatsink will be enough for m.2 ssd's of vrm's chips.
 
You're right, but even 30-50 W/(m*K) of steel is more than air or thermal compound anyway. Like you're using aluminium heatsinks only for low-tdp chips, steel case-heatsink will be enough for m.2 ssd's of vrm's chips.

Please remember that, ATX standard says there should be at least 6,35mm clearance between the motherboard and the case. We have 8mm gap there, so it should be possible to install something like 3-4 mm heatsink/aluminium pad between m.2 ssd and the internal surface of the case.


(sadly, when you gonna take my money, guys??)
(i said WHEN not IF, guys, we're waiting)

We are really doing our best mate. We are so close to the finish line, but paper work is killing us.

For example (to give you some view at our problems atm): I had to fill several documents for customs services. In Poland we need to send those document through online system. Guess what... it's a new web-based software and it's offline for about 90% of time. And when it's online it's still working like it's offline :( Even my 3 trips (only last week) to the local customs office finished with the phone call from the other side of the country (central customs office) to fill those papers online ("this is a new software, please be patient" (c) nice lady through the phone....). And those custom's papers are only a tip of the iceberg. We have many other administration offices to fight with, and most of them also needs filling online documents...through the same online system.

As You can see, we are fighting. We are getting many emails with question, when we will give You guys Your SENTRY, but we have to make everything legally. We are at the stage when almost everything depends on our country's administration, and there is a reason why Poland is at 107th place in the world in ranking for "starting a business".
Just keep fingers crossed and be patient :)
 
Glad to hear Your answer! I'm very familiar with bureaucracy like that. Hope You will break through this. Additional question. As far as I know, Poland post pretty good, but rupost is like a meme, terrible as f**k. How good a package will be? Drops from 0.5 meters are often here, so I hope you will put a lot of paper of foam to prevent any damage. I really want to get it in one piece (he-he, I know it will be disassembled, just a joke). I had 2 order from GE last month (they ships to us computer part w/o VAT), can send You a photo how they deal with it (spoiler alert, a LOT of paper).
 
Glad to hear Your answer! I'm very familiar with bureaucracy like that. Hope You will break through this. Additional question. As far as I know, Poland post pretty good, but rupost is like a meme, terrible as f**k. How good a package will be? Drops from 0.5 meters are often here, so I hope you will put a lot of paper of foam to prevent any damage. I really want to get it in one piece (he-he, I know it will be disassembled, just a joke). I had 2 order from GE last month (they ships to us computer part w/o VAT), can send You a photo how they deal with it (spoiler alert, a LOT of paper).

For our reviewers we sent packages with bubble-wrap. It was ok, but we think, for packaging in mass production we will use some kind of foam (something like marshmallows), to speed up the whole process. Between the transport-box and the sentry-carton-box, there will be a 3-4 cm gap filled with this foam. We are thinking about adding some internal foam or additional bubble-wrap just for the purpose of transport, but we didn't decide if it is really needed.
 
For our reviewers we sent packages with bubble-wrap. It was ok, but we think, for packaging in mass production we will use some kind of foam (something like marshmallows), to speed up the whole process. Between the transport-box and the sentry-carton-box, there will be a 3-4 cm gap filled with this foam. We are thinking about adding some internal foam or additional bubble-wrap just for the purpose of transport, but we didn't decide if it is really needed.
There is only one important thing for me - there must be no moving parts inside the sentry box, to prevent any scratches (cause of parts hitting one each-other). Crumpled paper will be a cheap option, will send you a picture at the evening. And marshmallows ofc
 
Most of the accessories and removable parts are shipped in separate compartment along with vertical stand. Some cables may be pre-installed and fastened to the central rail. No metal parts are going to be shipped freely inside the chassis body - both GPU bracket and case cover are going to be fastened together with base for shipping.

The box you can see on the Hardware Canucks review is the internal shipping box that tightly keeps chassis metal body and separate accessories in two compartments. Shipping carton will be quite a bit bigger.
 
Most of the accessories and removable parts are shipped in separate compartment along with vertical stand. Some cables may be pre-installed and fastened to the central rail. No metal parts are going to be shipped freely inside the chassis body - both GPU bracket and case cover are going to be fastened together with base for shipping.

The box you can see on the Hardware Canucks review is the internal shipping box that tightly keeps chassis metal body and separate accessories in two compartments. Shipping carton will be quite a bit bigger.
Oh, that's good. Good luck with papers and docs, guys.
 
So back to the M.2 SSD cooling. Adding just a small set of copper/aluminum heatsinks will reduce the thermal throttling. Also this doesn't just apply to the M.2 SSD, it can also be added to the motherboard VRM chips as well. Here are a couple sites that have benches/results of adding a heatsink to a M.2 SSD and what improvements it can do.

First one's from reddit with a few pictures that display no more throttling.

Second one's from AnandTech, granted this one used larger heatsinks that wouldn't really be able to translate to the SSD being under the motherboard; however, it's very informative in that just by adding a piece of scrap aluminum delayed and reduced thermal throttling effects.

Even with little to no airflow, just by adding a heatsink helps. With and you're golden. When SENTRY comes out I'll be adding some of these little guys to my mobo and M.2 SSD.
 
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1) There is literally no space below the gpu - gpu has ~1cm of space below and above and 120mm fans start from 12mm thickness. Moving gpu position up or down would be problematic for structural integrity of the chassis corner where the gpu is held with screws.

2) We have tested that and there are few reasons not to do this:
- it doesn't really do much unless the perforation is like a swiss cheese all above the gpu, which isn't really what we want
- it would increase the cost a bit (hence the perforation is significant cost chunk of metal sheets manufacturing) and
- it'd make the case look not so good, we even tried different looks of these vents and made polls about them and in the end those weren't looking good.

By the way if You're going to put it under the desk do You also want to attach it underneath like we've shown in the manual? Because if You do that the case will be upside down and the hot air above the gpu problem will disappear.

Great work so far, hoping to pick this case up for a wife build. Like the earlier poster I was hoping to improve ventilation in the case and had a thought. Assuming the blower GPU is mostly pulling its own input, would it be possible to section off a shroud around the CPU heatsink?

Here's my plan - using a SFX-L PSU, swap the 120mm PSU fan for a high CFM high SP model (San Ace comes to mind)
Then duct all the PSU airflow through the shroud and across the CPU heatsink
If there's a few mm of room at all over the CPU, this might allow the use of a higher profile cooler (Noctua L9x65 minus 14mm fan - 51mm height)

Using a L9x65 with a San Ace *should* allow for use of a moderately overclocked 6600K CPU with reasonable temps. There would be a higher minimum RPM required to keep pressure but overall the noise should still be as good or better than a loaded GPU.
 
You won't fit close te case with 51mm radiator - there's around 48mm of space so we're stating that we support 47mm like the intel box cooler which already is really close to the cover.

That's pretty interesting plan, I'm not sure how effective though, but I'll think about it.

I wouldn't mod a SFX-L psu like that - those are pretty expensive and I wouldn't recommend voiding your warranty. Also high CFM fan may be a bit thicker than what fits inside SFX-L in comparison to normal ATX power supplies.
 
Not to mention the sound level you'll get with no guarantee it'll be better than utilizing a C7 from the beginning. I like the thinking though, out-side the box like, could still be a fun mod if you find the right cooler to fit without a fan on top of it (47'sih mm).
 
Great work so far, hoping to pick this case up for a wife build. Like the earlier poster I was hoping to improve ventilation in the case and had a thought. Assuming the blower GPU is mostly pulling its own input, would it be possible to section off a shroud around the CPU heatsink?

Here's my plan - using a SFX-L PSU, swap the 120mm PSU fan for a high CFM high SP model (San Ace comes to mind)
Then duct all the PSU airflow through the shroud and across the CPU heatsink
If there's a few mm of room at all over the CPU, this might allow the use of a higher profile cooler (Noctua L9x65 minus 14mm fan - 51mm height)

Using a L9x65 with a San Ace *should* allow for use of a moderately overclocked 6600K CPU with reasonable temps. There would be a higher minimum RPM required to keep pressure but overall the noise should still be as good or better than a loaded GPU.

I plan on shrouding most vents myself as well with 0.6mm black ABS plastic. Leaving only spaces open over the cpu fan and psu fan. Then adding foam rubber weatherstripping to seal the cpu fan to the case vent so it can only draw in cool exterior air. This lowers the cpu exhaust air temperature, lowering the temperature of case air. This also creates a very high pressure case that pushes warm air out any remaining holes (probably the side vents). It creates directed airflow that is forced to flow over the motherboard rather than recirculating indiscriminately within the case. This worked extremely well in my lian li pc q12 and Silverstone pt13b.
 
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