Can I ditch my front intake fan?

System:

Athlon 64 3000 ( NOT overlocked )
Zalman CNPS 7000A-CU Cooler
Zalman ZM400B-APS 400W PSU
9600SE heatsinked Graphics card
200GB Maxtor SATA
Coolermaster Alluminium case
1 SilenX intake fan, 1 SilenX exhaust

I'm close to almost having a silent PC. The case is lined with acoustipack
damping foam(works great) and the HDD is placed in a SilentMaxx
silencer(wors great too). The noisiest thing in my case now and the two
SilenX fans, if you can believe that, cosidering these are highly rated
quiet performers. I'm not sure whether they are generating some case rattle,
the rear one does for sure but it's hard to tell with the front intake
fan...

My system never seems to get hot, and so far have had no problems with
heating issues. Which leads me to wondering whether or not I can safely
remove the front intake fan and not be paranoid about overheating inside the
case? If I could remove the fron intake fan and deal with the slighlty
screw/case rattling of the rear fan I'm down to Xbox levels of ommited noise

 

I'll just correct that. Just turned on the Xbox(outside the tv cabinet) for
side by side comparison and the PC is way quieter!

 

Just get a fan controller and knock them fans down to 7volts, problem
solved and you will still have airflow to keep your pc cool , well
thats what i did.


My pc is quiet and i have a 120mm front,side,top and two rear 80mm
fans all running at 7 volts, i can barely notice my pc is going.


And with my Zalman 7000a Cu cpu cooler its bliss

 

Just get a fan controller and knock them fans down to 7volts, problem

I too use the Zalman Flower cooler. No need to buy a voltage regulator -
just swap the 12v pin with the 5v (yellow and red) in one of your spare HD
power connectors and plug the fans into that - hey presto a 12v fan down to
a silent 5v. Just make sure they start properly - some older fans won't
start at 5v - they need a little help to get going, but fine once they have
some momentum and are spinning.

 

IMO you can ditch it, if you just have 1 in & 1 out then you will still have
the same airflow just by
having the one out as long as you leave the front vents open.

 

The quick answer is try it and see. There are some that believe front
intake fans are vital because otherwise you end up sucking too much air,
and dust, through the floppy and rom drives. The only difference I've
seen is noise: more of it with front fans.

Cheers,

Ari


--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. To jump to the end
of the story, as a result of this I need a bone marrow transplant. Many
people around the world are waiting for a marrow transplant, too. Please
volunteer to be a marrow donor:
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http://www.marrow.org/

 

One more thing: you might want to consider cutting off the inbuilt
'grilles' that are part of the case and replacing them with regular fan
grilles. This usually cuts down on noise, too.


--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. To jump to the end
of the story, as a result of this I need a bone marrow transplant. Many
people around the world are waiting for a marrow transplant, too. Please
volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

Ditto

 

Intake and exhaust will always balance, otherwise the PC would ultimately
implode or explode. Eliminating an exhaust fan (and covering the hole) below
the PSU typically results in a significant increase in CPU operating
temperature. This seems to be particularly true when there is a high power
graphics card in the AGP slot.

Alex

 

My point was that following your suggestion would probably increase CPU
temperature significantly. I made no comment about leaving the hole
uncovered, but that's not good either.

Alex

 

Me too, they're great.

One thing - don't _swap_ the yellow and red, pull the yellow 12v and
tape it up, then put the red 5V in the 12v hole and use your new 5v
connector to run the fans.

I blew up a CDRW by accidentally using the modified connector when
fumbling around (I only wanted to eject the disk I'd accidentally left
in the drive, too). Don't be as dim as me, kids.

Cheers - Jaimie