Hi. Summer is coming round again and I gotta start worrying about my computers system temps again. I was wondering, which type of case provides the best cooling, a Tower case or one of the flat Desktop cases. Noise is also an issue.

With my current case there is no room for a front fan unless you dont have hard drives (Stupid design) but you can add side fans, rear fans and one in the top as an exhaust. One really annoying thing about this case is that the whole thing is made from perforated steel so every bit of noise gets out and every bit of dust gets in.

I was wondering if a flat desktop case would offer better cooling and reduce noise. This PC will be replaced in about a years time and after that will probably will serve as a media PC so the flat design will be handy later on.

I'm having problems with the south bridge overheating which is apparently a common problem for my motherboard, I've added a heat sink to it but it still gets hot. My video card and hard drives all idle very warm too. The CPU is usually OK, but during the day can idle at about 50*C which is reasonably hot for a socket A Sempron, especially since there is a huge Zalman Copper heatsink cooling it.

Should I leave it and give the system a good clean and a new layer of thermal paste or look into getting a new case?

Any help / Tips appreciated.

Mattwizz3 :

Vista Home Basic
A7N8X-E Deluxe
2.2GHz Sempron
2GB DDR400
GeForce 6800Ultra

"the whole thing is made from perforated steel"

In my opinion that's not good. I would think that it's not conducive to a good air flow pattern. Ideally (for most motherboards) you would want the airflow to go from the bottom front to the top rear.

Towers are MUCH better than desktop cases, side panel fans are disruptive to good front-to-rear airflow & front intake fans are not a necessity.

"Front intake fans have not proven to be a significant benefit for vertical cases."

I suggest your read thru the AMD Builders Guide:

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/con...

EDIT: Here's another article I dug up:

http://icrontic.com/articles/pc_air...

Hi Mattwizz3,

You will probably be better of going with a tower with a front intake/rear exhaust fan system as cooling is a big issue with system stability. If your going to use it as a HTPC I suggest you get into water cooling if you can afford it.

What sort of case is it? Is there a known work-around with the motherboard southbridge overheat issue?

Hope this helps - James.

There is no signature..

Thanks for the replys. Thanks jam, I looked at those sites and I'll just leave one fan in the back. I'll also get myself some black plastic and line the inside of the case with it. That should improve the airflow and hopefully reduce the noise a bit.

I got some pics of the case and what it is made out of to give you an idea of what I've got.

The perforated steel:
http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/...

The actual case:
http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/...

The only solution to the southbridge overheating problem is to add a heatsink, which is what I have already done. The heatsink is doing its job but its still hot to the touch. I think the biggest problem is that there isn't any room for a bigger heatsink because of my graphics card and also the fact my graphics card dumps all the hot air right next to the southbridge instead of out of the case. So its difficult to fix.

Anyways, I'll give it a clean, move the fans and line the sides and see how that all tuns out. Thanks for your help.

Mattwizz3 :

Vista Home Basic
A7N8X-E Deluxe
2.2GHz Sempron
2GB DDR400
GeForce 6800Ultra

ok ive read alot of it and most of the advice i say is spot on.
looking at the pictures try and tidy the cables up a bit so the air can flow round them. try tucking them to the back if that fails gaffer tape them into a round package. lining the door would be a good idea so you have the air traveling from front to back.
i see you have a usb thingy going from the mborad to the back drop that down. try not to crowed the graphics card and that area.

you could mod the heat sink and put a small fan on it so it passes air from the front back. i think collermaster made one for this kind of mobo. i think its for the nothbridge but could be put on the southbridge instead.

the drives look at them to see if you can mount them sticking out inside the case slightly. my cases does that to acomidate fans aslo spread your drives out slightly.

see if its not to expensve to get a thermal exhaust system for the graphics card.

ok quick 101 on heat sinks. they can work both ways. so if the air getting blown on them is hotter than the heat sink it will absorb it and transfer it to the southbridge.
also thermal paste in large amounts can instulate the heat in. you want to spread it thin. really really thin. wafer thin is too much so less than that.

water cooling works well but the thing has majour drawbacks not just the cost. in the long run its cheaper and less hastle to save up and get a new pc.

all text needs typos. There there for the reader to find,to distract them from the total lack of content.
google it! wasnt the answer to the question i asked so dont be dense and give me that repl

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll get stuck into it on the weekend. I might buy some new Western digital hard drives soon to replace my noisy Maxtor and Seagate ones I have at the moment.

Thanks again!

Mattwizz3 :

Vista Home Basic
A7N8X-E Deluxe
2.2GHz Sempron
2GB DDR400
GeForce 6800Ultra