Question Wanting to add fans to my PC

[Jobathan]

I have a XPS 8930 as my PC and it serves me well, the only issue is it has only one case fan (top exhaust) and it gets hot and loud so i want to add two intake fans at the front and possibly an additional exhaust at the bottom as so:

now as you can see below and above the front panel has these holes all around the sides:

What i want to know is whether that would be sufficient for good airflow or should I look for a better solution? One thing I thought I could do was cut a big rectangular hole into the front panel and install a mesh layer like this:

That way I'll be getting rid of the Dell logo as well so that's two birds with one stone.
I'd love to hear what you guys think of this, thanks in advance.

 

[alceryes]

Those side vents on the front plastic bezel are not sufficient for good airflow.
Unless it's machined very nicely, just leaving the front panel off will probably look better than cutting through the plastic. A bottom fan in the area indicated wouldn't do well.

Also note that motherboard fan headers on OEM systems are sometimes non-standard (or non-existent). Make sure you get fans that will work with that motherboard. If you have to use standard 4-pin molex those fans will just run at max RPM all the time and probably be noisy.

 

[Jobathan]

Those side vents on the front plastic bezel are not sufficient for good airflow.
Unless it's machined very nicely, just leaving the front panel off will probably look better than cutting through the plastic. A bottom fan in the area indicated wouldn't do well.

Also note that motherboard fan headers on OEM systems are sometimes non-standard (or non-existent). Make sure you get fans that will work with that motherboard. If you have to use standard 4-pin molex those fans will just run at max RPM all the time and probably be noisy.

Thanks for the response, I believe I could make it looks nice by drilling holes all around the marked area, cutting off the excess with a dremel, finishing with some high grit sandpaper and installing a mesh layer from the inside using super glue, as for the bottom fan there really is no where for the air to go from there so I might go with a rear fan instead although it would have to pretty small (probably 80-100mm) since the GPU doesn't leave all that much space(the bottom left HDD bracket can be removed with two screws).
The thing with the fan header on my motherboard is it is a standard PWM supported header but there is no way to actually control the speed or the curve because Dell, which means adding more fans might only make it louder since the default curve is calculated for a 1 case fan configuration and because the only 3rd party fan controllers I found are either not controlled by a software(manually with physical potentiometers) or expensive I thought I'll program my own using an Arduino that will define the speed according to temp readings from the OS.

 

[alceryes]

Ok. Yeah, sounds like you've got a plan of action here. As far as how much it helps temps goes, well, you may end up with only slightly lower temps and slightly quieter (with controlled fans).

Another thing to consider is doing a repaste of the TIM on the CPU and/or GPU.

 

[Jobathan]

Ok. Yeah, sounds like you've got a plan of action here. As far as how much it helps temps goes, well, you may end up with only slightly lower temps and slightly quieter (with controlled fans).

Another thing to consider is doing a repaste of the TIM on the CPU and/or GPU.

Appreciate the input, definitely will repaste CPU and GPU soon.

 

[stonecarver]

May I make a suggestion dust it out. I bet the CPU and the GPU heatsinks are covered by a blanket of dust adding to things getting toasty. At the very least use a soft paint brush to loosen dust than and a blow dryer on cool and blow it out.

Don't let any fans spin when hit by air gently hold them still. Also unplug the PC and do the dusting outside.

The CPU heatsink is hard to really see the layer of dust between the fan and the top of heatsink. Look good.

 

[Gururu]

Consider that the intakes should move fresh air directly over the chips and that hot air rises. Having output fans on bottom would be pulling all that fresh air away from chips. Does it have a rear output fan? Also, the lower front fan will pull air from the sides, that is how mine is, however I would not put a very powerful fan, just something to move air since the vents are bottlenecking. For the front top, I used the space from two old floppy drive bays to add some small server fans, which are loud but powerful. That will be your best source for flushing the case with fresh air so if you can make some clean cuts it will look nice and be effective. Just think about how you want to direct that large source of air. I am guessing that you won’t have a drive in that bay.

 

[Jobathan]

May I make a suggestion dust it out. I bet the CPU and the GPU heatsinks are covered by a blanket of dust adding to things getting toasty. At the very least use a soft paint brush to loosen dust than and a blow dryer on cool and blow it out.

Don't let any fans spin when hit by air gently hold them still. Also unplug the PC and do the dusting outside.

The CPU heatsink is hard to really see the layer of dust between the fan and the top of heatsink. Look good.

Oh definitely, this pc is long overdue for a good cleanup, might even bust out the old compressor and really hit it with some power.

 

[Jobathan]

Consider that the intakes should move fresh air directly over the chips and that hot air rises. Having output fans on bottom would be pulling all that fresh air away from chips. Does it have a rear output fan? Also, the lower front fan will pull air from the sides, that is how mine is, however I would not put a very powerful fan, just something to move air since the vents are bottlenecking. For the front top, I used the space from two old floppy drive bays to add some small server fans, which are loud but powerful. That will be your best source for flushing the case with fresh air so if you can make some clean cuts it will look nice and be effective. Just think about how you want to direct that large source of air. I am guessing that you won’t have a drive in that bay.

Good input, it does not have a rear fan but I was thinking of adding one instead of a bottom fan just under where the PSU is seated, although it would have to be pretty small since the GPU doesn't leave much space (probably 80 or 100mm). Fortunately the drive bracket is removable with 2 screws.

 

[stonecarver]

might even bust out the old compressor and really hit it with some power.

Not recommended over muscling the blow out. Just trying to prevent a future post from you after cleaning PC now won't boot.

And just an FYI the reason I suggested not letting the fans spin while cleaning is you can over spin and they become a little energy generator and back flow voltage INTO motherboard and cause issues or motherboard death.

 

[Jobathan]

Not recommended over muscling the blow out. Just trying to prevent a future post from you after cleaning PC now won't boot.

And just an FYI the reason I suggested not letting the fans spin while cleaning is you can over spin and they become a little energy generator and back flow voltage INTO motherboard and cause issues or motherboard death.

You're probably right, don't wanna tear a capacitor off the mobo. Yeah I saw a video of some guy cleaning out his PC with compressed air and the whole thing caught on fire, must have been some short circuit caused by the fans igniting dust, not good.

 

[PiersPlowman]

That's a real 90's style hand shredder case you've got there. I advise stocking up on band aids before working on this. I'd give it a good clean and tidy up those cables as far as possible before modifying anything. You might find your PC cooler and quieter after a spring clean.