Adventures in Case Modding #1

From about 2001... Having a free weekend, I decided it was time to do some heavy-duty case modding. The reason I wanted a free weekend was that I knew that I'd have to remove pretty much everything from inside the case. Failure to do so, I knew, would result in one little sliver of metal lodging in something vital. I wasn't ready to buy a whole new system just yet. Here's what I started with...

If you can't tell, I didn't spend a whole lot of time with the planning stage of this project. This was a mistake you all should learn from. Don't try this at home, kids!

Here's a shot behind the front bezel. As you can see, in an ealier modding spree, I'd taped over some of the many holes in the front. The purpose of this was to force more air through the filter I'd also taped into place over the fan hole. The filter was actually a couple of used fabric softener dryer sheets. Not only are these pretty good about stopping dust and decreasing static charges, they make the computer smell Spring fresh! Believe it or not, that dryer sheet was a clean white when I put it on a month or so ago.

Back during my earlier mods, I noticed the rows of holes in the middle of the case, but couldn't figure out their purpose. It was only while I was taking out the harddrive "cage" that I realized that these were for ventilating the harddrives. Maybe I'm lucky, but I've never noticed harddrives being a major source of heat in my systems. I mean, anything I can stick a finger to and not get burned, I don't think needs a cooling fan. Still, I might mount a fan or two in this area during a future mod.

Just in case I didn't already think fan filters were necessary, I had additional evidence when I checked this fan. This fan was attached to the heat sink of my Voodoo3 3500 TV for several months. It started making more noise lately, and just before I started this mod, it began a very ominous buzzing. I checked it out, expecting to find that it was hitting a loose wire or something, but found that the fan was making the noise all on its own. I figured it was time to try it without a fan, especially since I had so much air circulating inside the case anyway.

Here are a couple of shots of some homemade 120mm to 80mm ducts. I made these out of heavy plastic fast food drink cups, thick paneling, and a hot glue gun. I made them a while back, before I was sure I actually wanted to cut new holes in the case. The fans came off a Card Cooler XT set, which I figured I wouldn't need what with the improved airflow through the case. I kept all the pieces, just in case I was wrong and needed to put it back together later.

In my informal tests, by the way, a 120mm fan running at 7V makes less noise and moves more air than an 80mm fan at 12V. I figured 120mm fans running in 120mm holes (as opposed to 80mm through ducts) would move even more air with even less noise. Unfortunately, I have not been able to test this just yet.

Here's the bare nekkid case, which took a lot longer to get to than I thought it would. As I said before, I wanted to make sure that I took out everything that might react badly to metal slivers.

How about a few words on airflow now that we've got things open where we can see them? In this case (pun intended), the fans were placed as follows:

• Lower right, behind front bezel, 120mm (via duct) sucking in.
• Upper right, in 5.25" bay, dual 80mm "bay cooler" blowing out.
• Upper left, over power supply, 120mm (via duct) blowing out.
• Mid left, by motherboard, 80 mm sucking in.
• Power supply fan, in power supply, 80 mm blowing out.

Here's a closeup of where the power supply unit fits. I'd read about "overclocking" the power supply by adding an extra fan. At the time, I thought it was a stupid idea. Fortunately, my brain never forgets any stupid idea.

During various tests, I discovered that the "noise killer" power supply fan was rather loud sometimes. In fact, on hot days, it alone was making as much noise as all the rest of the fans in the case. I figured this was due to the power supply getting too hot, so the fan was running as fast as possible to cool it. I figured adding an extra fan to force more air through would cool it more efficiently. I also figured that the extra fan wouldn't add much to the total noise. After all, it was deep inside the system and not right there at the outside edge like the other fans.

As shown below, I managed to bolt on a new fan with little difficulty. Unfortunately, the fan was too thick to allow the power supply to seat properly. Time to break out the Dremel and the cutting wheels. Of course, I'd never used a Dremel before, but how hard could it be?

After several hours of measuring, cutting, test fitting, cutting, fitting, and cutting, I was very tired. I was also very close to getting the modded power supply back in place. I found I made faster progress by scoring a section of the metal, then bending it back and forth with pliers. I'd then use the Dremel to clean up any jagged edges. In the end, the hole for the new power supply fan was still a little small, but by twisting the power supply just right while installing it, I could get it in there.

I was beginning to gain a new respect for anybody who'd ever cut a blowhole from scratch with a Dremel tool. Enlarging the 80mm fan holes to 120mm suddenly seemed like a much bigger job than I first thought. I decided that just cutting the fan grills open would be enough for today.

The Dremel was still slow going, so I grabbed a set of metal snips. I was able to use the snips to snap most of the metal between the holes in the grills. I used the Dremel to get the rest, then to smooth over some of the sharper edges. It wasn't pretty, but it worked. By that point, I didn't care anymore. I had to drill a few new holes in the front panel to mount the fan, since I'd Dremeled away the couple of holes I had been using. I put the sytem back together, made sure it still booted, and went to bed.

I discovered a problem the next day. The 120mm duct, mounted in the new holes, put pressure on the harddrive IDE cable. I ended up replacing the 120mm fand and duct with a plain 80mm fan.

Plans for the future? Well, I want to at least clean up the new holes. I'd also like to expand a couple of them to 120mm. I also want to put some holes in the front bezel. Finally, I need filters and grills for all the fans. But that's the subject of a future article.