80mm vs. 120mm Fan

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pcrosley

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Geek

#29156 26-Dec-2008 16:41

I'm in the part ordering phase of my HTPC project and have some concerns about what I originally planned case-wise.

I'm planning a Gigabyte GA-G33M-DS2R motherboard with Intel Core 2 Duo E8500, Corsair 450W psu, Hauppauge HVR-2200 and 3 Samsung 500Gb HDD in Raid 5 (also making it a NAS) and an extra 32Gb HDD for the OS.

Now I was thinking about cannibalising my old Dell Dimension Pro XPS case because it's already here and it's pretty compact. But it only has 1 80mm fan and I am concerned that may not be enough. Question is, should I be looking for 2 fans (or more) and should they be 120mm. Can you ream out the fan duct to convert 80mm to 120mm?

I know 120mm run quieter, etc. (been reading many threads).

Thanks for any advice!

eXDee

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#186189 26-Dec-2008 20:05

Depends where it is. My HTPC case only just fits in the wooden cabinet and sticks out a bit, it has dual 80mm intakes, as well as dual 80mm exhausts, and a vent right by the CPU. Its a tight fit but seems to cool well enough, heaps of hot air coming out the back but inside temps seem to remain fine.

eXDee

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#186190 26-Dec-2008 20:07

Depends where it is. My HTPC case only just fits in the wooden cabinet and sticks out a bit, it has dual 80mm intakes, as well as dual 80mm exhausts (3cm from back wall), and a vent right by the CPU. Its a tight fit but seems to cool well enough, heaps of hot air coming out the back but inside temps seem okay.

1gkar

722 posts

Ultimate Geek

#186192 26-Dec-2008 20:07

HTPC-specific cases often have one 80mm input fan with dual 50/65mm output fans, especially Silverstone models.

If you are planning on modding the desktop case, then you can do what ever pleases. Is the fan in your old case quiet? Be aware that different make fans also have different methods of measuring decibel ratings, so certain brands are renowned for silence. Check for reviews of fans, here's good place to start.

Silverstone LC14 HTPC Case/Intel E4600 CPU/GA-EP35-DS3 MOBO/Asus EN9500GT graphics/2GB RAM/total 2TB HDD space/HVR-2200 & 2X 150MCE tuner cards/LG GGC-H20L BD Drive/MCE2005/Mediaportal/TVServer 1.1.0Final/LG 55"3D LED-TV/Denon AVR-1803 receiver/X1 projector

ajst2duk

170 posts

Master Geek

#187693 6-Jan-2009 08:02

Those three drives in your raid config will be generating a load of heat? are these inside the case? if so, you might want to consider a single 1.5TB drive?

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pcrosley

49 posts

Geek

#187701 6-Jan-2009 08:37

ajst2duk: Those three drives in your raid config will be generating a load of heat? are these inside the case? if so, you might want to consider a single 1.5TB drive?

Well, I want to avoid a single point of failure for all that storage. The Samsungs are rated pretty well for power/heat/noise and they won't be getting that heavy a workout.

That being said, I'll have a look at the larger option as it would save me the trouble of setting up a RAID with non-RAID OS drive.

BTW, how do you like your Gigabyte mobo and HVR-2200? I'm ordering the same pieces, just with the Intel E8500 and 4Gb.

sbiddle

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#187709 6-Jan-2009 09:00

I would still opt for a single drive for the OS and standalone drive(s) for the storage. If you ever need to reinstall the OS from scratch and have this on the same drive as your data then you face the dilemma of dealing with this.

Backing up data on a typical PC HDD isn't an issue as many people might only have a few hundred GB. When you're dealing with a PVR it's easy to chew through a TB or two when Freeview|HD recordings for example are around 4GB per hour. I'm upgrading my PVR this week and looking at moving towards 3 x 750GB drives in RAID5 or maybe a couple of 1TB drives in RAID, I'm just undecided what exactly I'll do. Data loss of TV shows isn't a big loss however I need to ensure all my DVD rips are backed up as I'd hate to have to go through the process of ripping them again.

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ajst2duk

170 posts

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#187733 6-Jan-2009 10:50

pcrosley:
ajst2duk: Those three drives in your raid config will be generating a load of heat? are these inside the case? if so, you might want to consider a single 1.5TB drive?

Well, I want to avoid a single point of failure for all that storage. The Samsungs are rated pretty well for power/heat/noise and they won't be getting that heavy a workout.

That being said, I'll have a look at the larger option as it would save me the trouble of setting up a RAID with non-RAID OS drive.

BTW, how do you like your Gigabyte mobo and HVR-2200? I'm ordering the same pieces, just with the Intel E8500 and 4Gb.

Love em, rock solid, no problems at all - would recommend this board for stability. Only small gripe is the setup of the I/O slots, with effective use limited to one PCI & 1 PCI-E with a two slot vid card.

Regs

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Snowflake

#187914 7-Jan-2009 00:22

pcrosley:
ajst2duk: Those three drives in your raid config will be generating a load of heat? are these inside the case? if so, you might want to consider a single 1.5TB drive?

Well, I want to avoid a single point of failure for all that storage. The Samsungs are rated pretty well for power/heat/noise and they won't be getting that heavy a workout.

That being said, I'll have a look at the larger option as it would save me the trouble of setting up a RAID with non-RAID OS drive.

BTW, how do you like your Gigabyte mobo and HVR-2200? I'm ordering the same pieces, just with the Intel E8500 and 4Gb.

i have three samsung spinpoint 250gb hdd's and they generate quite a lot of heat...! they are definately quieter than the seagate disks though. if i was to do it again (or update...) i would remove the hdd's completely from the htpc and drop in an SSD disk with the bulk of the storage on a windows home server, or i might look at an iscsi server and just have the HTPC do a network boot from iscsi thus having no HDDs in it at all.

4GB ram is also going to generate extra heat.... i would suggest to drop it down to 2GB if this is only going to be an HTPC

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rphenix

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#188011 7-Jan-2009 13:48

I've been busy replacing all 80mm fans from my cases to 120MM (including HSF) makes a big different from a noise perspective its worth paying a bit more for a nice silent 120mm fan I'm suing silenx myself but theres this 4 120mm fans for $34

pcrosley

49 posts

Geek

#188022 7-Jan-2009 14:26

rphenix: I've been busy replacing all 80mm fans from my cases to 120MM (including HSF) makes a big different from a noise perspective its worth paying a bit more for a nice silent 120mm fan I'm suing silenx myself but theres this 4 120mm fans for $34

Well it's looking like I really should go 120mm, I just like the unobtrusive size of my old Dell Dimension (440 x 440 x 170) but I don't think I can mod it for a 120mm. I'm looking at the Antec P182 and it looks pretty good and rated well by silentpc.

Anyone using that case have any feedback?

BTW Regs, my use of this box is a combo NAS/HTPC and I may use it as my desktop PC since my desk is next to the tele and it will far surpass the capabilities of my laptop!

rphenix

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#188043 7-Jan-2009 16:58

I havent used the P182 although read the review and considered replacing my Thermaltake Soprano with that, in the end I decided no more front doors as the hinges always seem to snap at least for me

I'm interested in others recommendations for a quiet midi-tower style case.