Front fan and HDD temps

[Alejandro Loayza]

So hello again tom's hardware folks. In here again for you knowledge.

I have a cooler master elite 430 case, is a good case for the price. I have 4 fans. 3 exhaust at the rear and top of the case and 1 intake on the front bottom.
I noticed some loud noise from the case. At first I was thinking it was my gtx 970 but disconnecting the fans one by one I found that the front one was making the loud noise. I replace it but it was the same. So I search and found that some fan grill make more noise that others (I have a honeycomb one but instead of hexagon I have circles).

So I tried the following:

1- Make my own dust filter: this reduce the noise by a almost a half.
2- I remove the fan: goodbye noise but my gtx 970 temp raise to 38ºc on iddle (was 30) and my HDD raise max to 35ºc.
3. Installed the fan in the outer side of the case (don´t worry, the front panel covers the fan): this make my gpu down to 31º and my HDD max to 33º (with the fan in the inner side it was max 31-32) and most important the noise was reduced like 3/4. It´s not a turbine jet anymore.

So my questions are: this temps are good? 33ºc max are good for my main HDD (here is my os and file), there are any drawbacks for installing the fan the way I did?

 

[iceblitzed]

temps are good. cant say if there are any drawbacks.

 

[SortNVF]

Other than the possibility of bumping into things and maybe bypassing your filter (depending on what you did with it) No problem atall.

Matter of fact you can cut a hole most anywhere in the cabinet and put a fan on the ouside, without hurting a thing. Other than possibly taking in some dust.

I had a miditower that was choking the old abused machine inside, so i cut a hole in the side cover for a 240mm fan then covered the outside of the fan with "loudspeaker cloth" for basic filtering.

Your temps dont sound horrible even without the fan thou.

 

[Alejandro Loayza]

I cut the grill on the front fant. It makes noise but not a buzzing noise. I can live with that noise. Also I removed one top exhaust fan (the one above the ram) and the result are really good:
CPU with CM hyper 103 is 59ºc-60ºc on load.
GPU 60ºc-62ºc on load.
HDD 31ºc-32ºc.
And the case is barely warm.

 

[SortNVF]

Most any surface with air traveling over it will make noise. You just took your first step.

Im drawing up a fanless watercooled system trying to figure out cooler surface area according to spent watts. But heh your just a few years from where i am.