Glue case fan to a case instead of screw?

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pstar008

362 posts

Ultimate Geek

#78338 3-Mar-2011 10:56

Hi, anyone tried to glue a couple of case fans instead of screw them?

I got a IBM OEM case to work on, and is not likely that I can drill holes for screw, it is a layer of aluminum bezel and another layer of plastic bezel and I don't have drilling tools as well.

I am planing to glue those fans using heavy duty double side tape, ideally could absorb some vibrations as
well. Or some super glue with absorbing rubber layer are better? How about 3M modeling tape? It is a small project, but I don't have much material to work with yet, and don't want buying wrong stuff and found out it didn't working as expected.

Zeon

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#445105 3-Mar-2011 11:14

Yea that should work fine. The only concern I have would be your ability to remove the fan later unless you use really strong glue (I don't think weak glue or tape would work as there isn't much surface area on the fan)

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robjg63

4096 posts

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#445106 3-Mar-2011 11:19

Some silicon sealer would probably work really well - takes a wee while to cure though. Ideally stick the fan on and leave it to set for up to 24hrs.
It would help absorb vibration as well.

They stick all sorts of things together with that stuff these days - its really strong.
You would have to cut it off if you ever wanted to remove it. Probably just need a blob in each corner of the fan.

Tape may heat up and let go after a while - depending on the heat and the quality of the glue.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

pstar008

362 posts

Ultimate Geek

#445395 4-Mar-2011 09:03

Got a 3M heavy-duty mounting tape and seems working well. I only need about one square centimeter for each corners of the fan and it stick well without the need to worry about how to get ride off them latter.

The problem though is that I decided to get ride of the 4-wire molex for my new case fan and re-wire them to my existing 3-wire molex in the motherboard to take advantage of fan-speed regulation and the fan runs for a second when power on and then stopped. Seems I need get a multimeter and probably a soldering tools. Small project, hum?

Niel

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#445570 4-Mar-2011 16:25

Hot melt "glue" (actually it moulds thing together). I use a gas powered one extensively, I don't bother with mains powered ones they are rubbish. If you need to remove it you just drip some IPA (alcohol) on it and it acts like a releasing agent. Comes off clean, even from things like MDF.

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Regs

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Snowflake

#445580 4-Mar-2011 16:39

i used araldite to glue mine to a machined aluminium case. no problems at all. Its a two-pack epoxy resin glue.

i'm not sure i'd be able to remove it easily though :p so i like the hot glue option :)

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pstar008

362 posts

Ultimate Geek

#445581 4-Mar-2011 16:40

Niel: Hot melt "glue" (actually it moulds thing together). I use a gas powered one extensively, I don't bother with mains powered ones they are rubbish. If you need to remove it you just drip some IPA (alcohol) on it and it acts like a releasing agent. Comes off clean, even from things like MDF.

I actually saw one of this on sale in Bunnings Wareshouse yesterday, pretty cool I'd say, but going
for the tape route because it is much cheaper.

pstar008

362 posts

Ultimate Geek

#446187 7-Mar-2011 09:09

The fan didn't helped much about the CPU temperature, the temperature for the Celeron Prescott still minimum at 65 C, when the old fan is running, it used to be extreme loud, now I can hardly hear it even after CPU running full for half hour.

As I now have an extra fan laying around, I decided to glue this extra fan inside the case to help exhaust the hot air out. As I can see that the other fans are used to suck cold air in but didn't seem have efficient air flow for exhaust. After I simply stick an fan on top of a MB chip, close to the back panel; as expected, the CPU temperature didn't seems been affected much. But because of the better airflow, hard drive temperature was improved a lot, now it will rang from 36 to 42 degree, coming from 48 degree which I mentioned in a previous post. And in fact it is even better than the hdds in my main desktop (a mini tower), which will be on 38 one 40 in open air, not bad for a small form factor.

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robjg63

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#446192 7-Mar-2011 09:24

pstar008: The fan didn't helped much about the CPU temperature, the temperature for the Celeron Prescott still minimum at 65 C, when the old fan is running, it used to be extreme loud, now I can hardly hear it even after CPU running full for half hour.

As I now have an extra fan laying around, I decided to glue this extra fan inside the case to help exhaust the hot air out. As I can see that the other fans are used to suck cold air in but didn't seem have efficient air flow for exhaust. After I simply stick an fan on top of a MB chip, close to the back panel; as expected, the CPU temperature didn't seems been affected much. But because of the better airflow, hard drive temperature was improved a lot, now it will rang from 36 to 42 degree, coming from 48 degree which I mentioned in a previous post. And in fact it is even better than the hdds in my main desktop (a mini tower), which will be on 38 one 40 in open air, not bad for a small form factor.

Did you take the heatsink off the processor and make sure it has some nice thermal paste coating?
I have never done it myself, but have seen a lot of people get good results doing that. Seems the factories are a bit rough and ready with it some times. The thermal paste isnt terribly expensive from jaycar or DSE.

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself - A. H. Weiler

pstar008

362 posts

Ultimate Geek

#446236 7-Mar-2011 11:44

robjg63:
pstar008: The fan didn't helped much about the CPU temperature, the temperature for the Celeron Prescott still minimum at 65 C, when the old fan is running, it used to be extreme loud, now I can hardly hear it even after CPU running full for half hour.

As I now have an extra fan laying around, I decided to glue this extra fan inside the case to help exhaust the hot air out. As I can see that the other fans are used to suck cold air in but didn't seem have efficient air flow for exhaust. After I simply stick an fan on top of a MB chip, close to the back panel; as expected, the CPU temperature didn't seems been affected much. But because of the better airflow, hard drive temperature was improved a lot, now it will rang from 36 to 42 degree, coming from 48 degree which I mentioned in a previous post. And in fact it is even better than the hdds in my main desktop (a mini tower), which will be on 38 one 40 in open air, not bad for a small form factor.

Did you take the heatsink off the processor and make sure it has some nice thermal paste coating?
I have never done it myself, but have seen a lot of people get good results doing that. Seems the factories are a bit rough and ready with it some times. The thermal paste isnt terribly expensive from jaycar or DSE.

Did it the first instance I got this machine (ex-leased), and did it again a few days before I decided to change the case fan altogether. I am using Arctic Silver 5, which generally considered good, but not sure I did it in a optimized way.

Apparently, I've got one of the hottest CPU Intel ever produced, As a successor of Northwood, Prescott is smaller in die size, has a larger L2 cache, but are hotter (about 10 degree) and in same clock speed, are general considered slower!

This baby is hot :D