Establishing Bots

[Freddie]

GreatE,

Oh! Let's see, the amperage? Beats me. I have the Enhance Flex-0130B 80+, you can see it here:

http://www.enhanceusa.com/series.php?series_id=27#130

It's a nice little power supply. It handles everything I have installed.

Freddie

 

[GreatEmerald]

Ah, I see, 16 amperes on two rails (the "current" line in output specs table, and obviously on 12V1 they meant 16, not 6), so that almost complies with the requirements for PSU certification (as you can see in the picture I linked to earlier, that PSU has 17A on two rails), so yeap, you should be fine with that for now.

 

[Freddie]

GreatE,

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Also, I may have solved my temperature problem. First a little background: My i7-860 (2.8GHz, and part of the Intel Lynnfield series of processors) includes a feature called Turbo Boost. This feature can automatically ramp up processor speed to as high as 3.8GHz.

Looking through BIOS, I noticed that this Turbo Boost feature was Enabled. I turned it of, and replayed that portion of Unreal 2 where my system had previously blue-screened when the temperature hit about 80 degrees Celsius. This time, I played through that part and beyond and my temps never exceeded 45 Celsius. Time will tell.

I don't overclock because I don't need it. I guess I don't need that Turbo Boost feature either. I don't understand why that feature had caused this problem, if it actually did. Like I say, time will tell.

Freddie

 

[Skillz]

I wonder if you would have enough room to place a 120mm slim case fan or even an 80mm slim case fan somewhere on top of the system. All you'll need is a drill with a circular saw and some tape to drill a perfectly round circle for the fan to push air out.

Case modding is fun. I wish I still had pics of the case I modded a few years ago. It had around ~15 80mm case fans and 2 120mm case fans in that sucker.

 

[Freddie]

Hi Skillz,

Yeah, the case has enough room to place a fan on top of, outside of, the case. No room on the inside though. Such a configuration is possible and worthy of consideration.

Even so, I'm in the process of simply drilling 1/4" ventilation holes on top of the case. I've already drilled 27 of them and I plan on drilling more. I'm thinking that convection will work well with such ventilation. I notice a lot of small form factor cases have such holes already affixed by the factory.

I'm working on the air flow problem. I think I can improve ventilation, but I'm trying to do it the easiest way. Thanks for the idea.

Freddie

 

[Skillz]

Well if you don't have an issue with installing a case fan externally, then I would defiantly get a 120mm slim case fan mounted on top of the unit to suck air out, then setup some holes on the sides of the case to draw fresh/cooler air in. Only reason I suggest 120mm, not just the amount of air it can move, as it usually only moves about the same amount of air as an 80mm fan, but it does it with a lot less RPMs. Less RPMs equals less noise.

 

[Freddie]

Skillz,

I hear ya. I only have room for an 80mm fan on top of the case. The case is very small, and my monitor sitting on top takes up a lot of space, leaving only enough room for the smaller size fan. The case already has plenty of ventilation on its sides. Take a look at my case to see the ventilations on each side:

http://www.e-itx.com/g-alantic-ga610.html

Since I don't have a metal cutting hole saw, I've checked Sears to see what they have for cutting such holes. A set of circular cutting saws that fit in a hand drill costs about $50. That seems like a lot of money for cutting just one hole.

I can wire the fan by routing the wire through a hole in the back of the case. That's not a problem. The cover slips off the main case chassis from the rear (see references site, above). I'd have to unplug the fan to remove the cover (no problem by using a connector).

That's the reason I can't mount a fan on the top inside the case. That is, I wouldn't be able to slide the cover off the chassis. I don't mind putting it on top. It would be located behind my monitor and wouldn't be noticed. I'll think about it. I dunno about the price of the hole cutting set, though.

Freddie

 

[Freddie]

skilz,

I searched on the Intenet and found a cheap metal cutting 79mm hole saw and arbor (needed to connect the hole saw to drill) for $27 delivered. It's cheap, but I only need it to last long enough to cut one hole in the case. That item should do the job. There is no 80mm saw that I could find. I think 79mm is close enough.

I then bought a high quality 80mm case fan by Evermax for $14.98 delivered. That fan moves about 34 cfm of air and produces only 21 dba (according to the specs a newegg). I think I should have a cool system. I'll be case modding!

Freddie