Last week I was noticing that my computer was getting very much hotter than usual while I played games, specially after adding the agp card and RAM. Few days ago a plumber came to fix the pump, and I got some holes drilled into the side of my cabinet by him. I am suprised to notice how much cooler the whole computer is right now. Nothing heats up anywhere near as it used to earlier. The air blown out from the back of the psu is just warm, not hot at all. I just thought that if anyone has done the same to their cabinets, it would be interesting to share. I guess most modern cabinets do have vents in the side to eject the hot air, but I have seen this only in the last few years. Anyone have any comments, it will be very interesting to hear. Sarosh

Idealy a case should be designed for proper airflow. Adding holes or vents can make things worse. If the air coming out of the back of the case is hot, that is a good thing because you know that the hot air inthe case is being extracted. If the air is cold, then you coud have a pocket of hot air somewhere in the case that is not being expelled. The rule of themb is that air should come in from the front bottom of the case and be expelled out the top rear. If the direction of any of the fans is incorrect it could cause problems. Michael J

We did try to give some thought into where to drill the holes. What I noticed was that the read end of the cabinet would heat up the most. The area near the power supply would get extremely hot. We drilled 5 rows x 5 coloms of circular holes right adjacent to where the psu is, and that area is always very cool now. I dont think that will hamper air flow because there is no fan in that area and the holes will just facilitate the mixing of the interior hot air with the outside cool air. What do you think about that? Next, I drilled 3 rows of 7 holes right adjacant to my vedio card. I know that my card got a radial fan and ejects warm air horizantally outward, and the holes are placed exactly where the the air would want to escape out from the cabinet. I hope there are not pockets of hot air inside. I dont think there are any because no matter where I feel the case, it is no where as hot as it used to be. Without the holes, the whole rear half of the cabinet would get very hot, now I only find the centre are of the cabinet mildly warm. I guess this is because the vedio card fan ejects the air radialy inward towards the front of the cabinet too. If you have any comments I will be very interested to hear. Sarosh

Do you have any case fans? You don't mention them. That might have been your problem all along. The holes along the top were a good idea. heat rises so any holes at the top would help to extract heat. the ones ont he side - I don't know. but if you have fan(s) at the bottom front of the case drawing cool air in and fan(s) at the top back of the case extracting the hot air you would be good. the airflow it would create would also pick up the hot air coming off the video card and push it out the back. Your inprovised design could work fine too. To make sure I would see if your motherboard vendor provides any monitoring software. It should allow you see the temp of your processor at the very least. Michael J

Drilling holes near the PSU might not have been a good idea. The PSU fan not only cools the PSU, but it acts as an exhaust fan for the entire case...now that the holes are there, the PSU itself may run cooler because you've provided a source of fresh air, but the case cooling may suffer. If holes in that area were a good idea, case manufacturers would have done it a long time ago. http://www.iceteks.com/articles.php/casecooling/1 http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/142 This space for rent

Hi, I have drilled 25 circular holes in the cabinet, not the psu. The holes are placed right adjacant to the psu. This area would always heat up the most, and after 20 mins of any game, the entier rear portion of the cabinet would be extremely hot. Now the rear portion of my cabinet is always cool. These few holes have made a lot of difference. I dont have a fan at the front of my cabinet, however, there are two vertical passages at the front from which cool air can be sucked in. I have total of 4 fans, one on the cpu, pus, vedio card, and one fan placed at the rear, center of my cabinet midway up the cabinet height, below the psu. This system blows air outward, which is the way it is meant to be, as I have learnt here. I think drilling the holes near the gpu too has helped a bit, because the gpu fan blows air horizantally outward, and at the very least the holes could allow the mixin of the hot inside air with the cool room air. I dont have any software installed currently to check the temperatures of the components, but I am sure it is making a lot of difference, because earlier I used to play any game for 30 mins and the whole side of the cabinet would get really hot, and the area of the cabinet adjacant to the psu would be really very hot. Now this area is just always absolutely cool, and only the center area of the cabinet is mildly warm. I am suprised to see that just a few circular holes can make so much of a difference. I must thank my plumber though, he impressed me with is knowledge. He even suggested that I cut a big circular hole in the cabinet and use a "net" made of fiber that will prevent dust from going in, but will allow air to freely flow in. I am glad I got this all done for free, because I was beginning to worry about the hot case temperatures. Sarosh

I didn't think you drilled holes IN the PSU, I said NEAR the PSU. And if you looked at & read the links I provided (especially the 1st one), I think you would have better understood what I meant. Whatever...as long as you're happy with it Hellz Yea!