Cooling advice needed.

[amiga4001]

It seems the temperature im my A4000 tower (elbox tower model) is getting to high for my ppc.

As soon as I close the tower the ppc freezes after a minute or 10 while playing wipeout or decoding mp3.
I already removed a 5 1/4 plastic cover on the frontside to let some fresh air in..but this is not enough.

If I close the tower fully even the PSU (antec quite new) blowes out very warm air after a hour or so.
This warming up of the psu has gone away since I removed the plastic cover of a 5 1/4 drive case.

Only if I keep the cover of the tower the ppc side has no problems with wipeout and mp3 decoding on the same time for several hours.
I removed the heatsink on the ppc and cleaned it... put new heatpaste on it(coolermaster paste)
Also the fan on the ppc is a 12V.... quite new.

Should I put a fan on the backplane of the tower to blow fresh air in?
Or should I buy even a better fan for the ppc which is now covered by a normal 12 V fan.
Or perhaps a fan in a 5 1/4 case in the front???

Any advice would be nice.
 

[Robert17]

The best gift you can get for your CSPPC is a new, larger heatsink, the stock cooling is hopelessly inadequate in my opinion, I got a Zalman Northbridge heatsink that clips right on, no more crashes

Robert

[amiga4001]

@robert17

Where did you purchased your heatsink?
Did you also placed a better fan on top of the heatsink?

[tonyvdb]

On my A4000 desktop converted to a tower I placed a fan on the back of the case removing the hot air as well placed a fan on the side of the case located directly across from my Cyberstorm PPC blowing air in directly on it and that keeps my case nice and cool. Seen here(you will need to drill holes in the side pannel and mount the fan to it).
The trick is to have air moving through the case from front to back constantly replacing the warm air with cooler air.

[Amiga4k]

It's easy to cool a tower case. http://www.tigerdirect.com/  has 100+ case fans.  
Front 5.25 - micro single and dual fans, with or without ducts that direct the flow into the case.
Rear expansion slot - exhaust fans that occupy these slots are typically cyclone fans, with an intake spout. Something new is a twin fan with extending ducts similiar to the front fan kit mentioned above.
Special note: read the specifications. Pay heed to the .dbA noise ratings. Read the "reviews", as these are really excellent on the fans. Buy fans that have real ball bearings. Almost twice the life potential (50,0000 hrs), as compared to sleeve bearings (30,000 hrs) when possible.

Do NOT buy the Radio Shack 273-243 Brushless 12vDC fan. It will lockup, and you'll never know it.

[bikersnake]

Hi!
 I have a A1200 towerized into Elbox E/Box Tower.I've throw away the side covers and replaced them with transparent plastic plates,on the right side I've mounted a 120mm LED Cooler Fan by Revoltec wich blows huge amount of fresh air inside.I've also changed all cables inside to "roundies"-they are increasing air-flow and looks really good when I turn on all my cathodes and LED's inside my Amy.Since these modifications I've never spotted any freeze. Case-Modding could be not only cool,but technically useful.

[ricco32097]

In response to Tigerdirect.com. Last year I bought a $2,000 machine from them and when it arrived, all the parts were refurbished. I might just have been unlucky. Just a warning.

[Boot_WB]

Unfortunately if you add a lot (or any in my experience) of tower cooling it starts to get really noisy (100+ case fans - wtf???).  
Any fans tend make the white noise really loud - especially case fans when the ingress/egress is generally just a set of holes drilled into the case  you can get some really nasty frequencies of noise produced.  
Perhaps a good way to accomplish this would be to cut out a circular 70mm hole in the rear of the case, allowing the fan to move the air with less turbulence.  
Personally, I'd experiment a bit before hacking my case apart though.

[Amiga4k]

Leave it to a Brit to slaughter the Queen's English with a "wtf". TigerDirect sells over 100 different fans. The fans I discussed do not use holes drilled into the case. What I suggested were fans that occupied either the front drive slots or rear expansion slots as intake and exhaust ports.

I am in the process of building a SCSI tower from an old PC case. As the drives in this tower are 130 degrees thermal, they require super cooling. I will use the fans discussed.

[amiga4001]

Don't want to cut in the cases actually.
Was looking and there are some holes internal just after the plastic frontcover.
Maybe I'll put a fan there to suck air in.
Replaced the cyberstormppc fan with an adapter from 40mm to 60 mm fan nice..
Also put on a 80 fan on the backplane which sucks air out.
Now maybe the fan on the front and it should be right me think.

[Tenacious]

The drives in my classic Amigas have dying from dust contamination, especially floppies.  I have more fans blowing in and 1 drawing hor air out.  I filter the input fans and it creates a positive air pressure inside the case.  Now I can feel a gentle breeze out of the floppy.  It's worked so far.

[motrucker]

In this case, the case fans (or slot or drive type) are next to useless. Make sure you get a good heatsink/fan setup for the CPU. You could go to water cooled, but the PPC CPUs really don't need this extreme answer in most instances. There are lots of places that sell good cooling answers. www.newegg.com is an excellent place - but there are too many to list.

[patrik]

@amiga4001:

It sounds like the air-intakes at the bottom of the front of your tower are way too small if the PSU gets much colder when the 5 1/4 plate is removed.

If those intakes are too small, it doesnt matter how powerful the psu fan is, air movement through the case will still be very limited. Also, if you just remove a 5 1/4 plate, the air will most likely take a shortcut and not flow over the motherboard/CSPPC and the only thing which will be more cooled is the psu.

With most tower cases there is usually a big hole in the plastic front underneath the bottom of it, which feeds air to the intakes in the metal part of the front, so if you put your computer on a soft carpet or remove its feet, that intake will be severely obstructed.

You should also make sure that the cables in the tower arent a mess, blocking the airflow.


/Patrik