Short version of the question, any elegant ways to block off unwanted holes in the case? My currently inelegant solution is to use painter's tape, the kind that comes off easily without sticking (usually blue).
Long version of the question. Well being single and alone in a house about eight years ago I decided to run some experiments. This was before I had purchased window AC, and I kept the house cooled/ventilated in the summer by mounting fans in at least one window in each room. Some engineering friends had told me to think of air as a fluid so I arranged it such that the upstairs fans were all doing intake, creating a high pressure zone which forced air down the staircase, and the downstairs fans were all turned to do exhaust.
When they were all on you could stand at the stair case and feel a satisfying breeze blowing from upstairs.
Again, you can only do these things when you're divorced or single, I did an experiment with a quarter cup of olive oil to see how efficient the exhaust system was because I was at once studying the house and also doing my first build and working on the theory of case ventilation. So I created a vast quantity of smoke on a hot frying pan and realized that a teaspoon of oil would have been sufficient. But to the point:
All right, now, I did another experiment (this time using groups of three matches which I blew out to make small smoke trails) where I had a fan set up in one window and then another window in the room also open. This can be done to create a local ventilation system but the fact is it is very inefficient from the point of view of moving air through the house. And, one of the worst things you can do is, if you have the fan in one window, to open the window next to it. Because the path of least resistance is for the air to come in the window that is open and has no fan, traverse the thirty inches over to the other window with the fan, and go back out again. You don't get any ventilation that way.
But in our case builds it seems to me that we leave a lot of holes open which greatly reduce the ability of the fans to maintain a flow. In my case:
So on my last build I went through and covered the open holes. The philosophy that governs the design of this case is that one needs to have lots of extra holes. But the extra holes actually subvert the intention of creating a strong air flow through the case. (On the positive side, all these holes seems to make for a quieter build). Anyhow when building this new pc I remvoed all the blue tape and threw it out and as I near completion and get ready to put this PC back in its spot, I am again faced with the issue of how to block the unused ventilation spots.
The idea being that maybe there's an option out there that is more aesthetically pleasing than gobs of blue painter's tape.
So I would take suggestions. And comments. Perhaps there is a view that I'm very much on the wrong track.
thanks
Greg N
Long version of the question. Well being single and alone in a house about eight years ago I decided to run some experiments. This was before I had purchased window AC, and I kept the house cooled/ventilated in the summer by mounting fans in at least one window in each room. Some engineering friends had told me to think of air as a fluid so I arranged it such that the upstairs fans were all doing intake, creating a high pressure zone which forced air down the staircase, and the downstairs fans were all turned to do exhaust.
When they were all on you could stand at the stair case and feel a satisfying breeze blowing from upstairs.
Again, you can only do these things when you're divorced or single, I did an experiment with a quarter cup of olive oil to see how efficient the exhaust system was because I was at once studying the house and also doing my first build and working on the theory of case ventilation. So I created a vast quantity of smoke on a hot frying pan and realized that a teaspoon of oil would have been sufficient. But to the point:
- The fan system got the smoke out with incredible efficiency.
- I resolved never to do the experiment again, as there were vast billowing clouds of smoke in my and my neighbor's yard and I was worried that someone would call the fire department and that any excuse I had to offer would sound pretty lame.
All right, now, I did another experiment (this time using groups of three matches which I blew out to make small smoke trails) where I had a fan set up in one window and then another window in the room also open. This can be done to create a local ventilation system but the fact is it is very inefficient from the point of view of moving air through the house. And, one of the worst things you can do is, if you have the fan in one window, to open the window next to it. Because the path of least resistance is for the air to come in the window that is open and has no fan, traverse the thirty inches over to the other window with the fan, and go back out again. You don't get any ventilation that way.
But in our case builds it seems to me that we leave a lot of holes open which greatly reduce the ability of the fans to maintain a flow. In my case:
- The power supply does not completely cover the vent that it sits on top of. The uncovered part of the bottom vent creates a path to the rear exhaust fan that is much shorter than the path from the intake fan in the front, and so, by itself it reduces the efficiency of the air transfer.
- The worst offender is the rear slots for the gpu and all the other stuff, usb, etc. . These are even closer to the rear exhaust fan than the psu vent at the bottom. I may cleverly set up my case to have a horizontal flow from front to rear but the fact is that most of the air movement is in through the slots and up to the fan and out again. The pathway is not front to rear horizontally, which would be optimal for maintaining a horizontal flow over the mobo.
- There are spacer thingies that cover the unused front slots and they too have holes in them and they too are sabotaging the work of the six inch intake fan.
So on my last build I went through and covered the open holes. The philosophy that governs the design of this case is that one needs to have lots of extra holes. But the extra holes actually subvert the intention of creating a strong air flow through the case. (On the positive side, all these holes seems to make for a quieter build). Anyhow when building this new pc I remvoed all the blue tape and threw it out and as I near completion and get ready to put this PC back in its spot, I am again faced with the issue of how to block the unused ventilation spots.
The idea being that maybe there's an option out there that is more aesthetically pleasing than gobs of blue painter's tape.
So I would take suggestions. And comments. Perhaps there is a view that I'm very much on the wrong track.
thanks
Greg N
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