Case Cooling

[redoXan]

Anyone got any opinions on cutting a hole out of front base of a case for an intake fan?
Presumably the case will need to be on legs for adequate air supply and noise prevention.
Any concerns about weakening the case (aluminium) or angle of the fan?

On a different thought, wondering whether creating guides inside the case would be beneficial, giving the air a set path...
Obviously be problems getting around drive bay etc, but if you used a flexible enough material, you could take into account HS and drives?
So basically imagine a your case as a box with an "S" inside with the front of your case to the left.
Suck air in the bottom front, past, gpu, them cpu the drives and out the psu?


Or even "different" air for different components,
gpu, cpu, drives + psu?
Like a case divided into 3 horizontal sections
(A square with an E inside )
intake at front and blowout fan at rear for each section?
just use a free drive bay for the top intakes?

Anywho, feel free to poke holes in, and fun at my ideas! (",)

 

[error_911]

cutting a hole in the front base of the case is fine - but don't use a fan that is too powerfull as there won't be enough intake for it to work efficiently... it will not weaken the structure, and you can cut it out with a holesaw, a jig-saw or even a dremel rotary cutter.

having a guide is a great idea - intel does it for their demo systems, and i believe there are a couple of rackmount and server manufacturers that do include these in their systems, but having an "s" shape in there wouldn't work very well - air doesn't turn corners very well, and you'd end-up with something overly loud and underly cooled.. having "different" air, as you put it, would be great - if you could create individual, fairly straight linear guides that would have either a common or individual intakes, and again common or individual exhausts... the trick is, it takes a lot of work, and the cooling benefits would, in my opinion, not be worth it. better you make a shroud around the cpu's heatsink to vent out the air, do the same for the gpu, and then cut a hole behind the mobo tray and vent out that air too - ttthhhhheeeennnnnnnn you'd have a well cooled case... its not all about linear airflow through the case - its about venting the hot air the fastest

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