Project 620: Case Cooling 201
Sucking out the air that the 4.75" fan brings in
is the job of the Super Slot Cooler, also from AMK Services. The Slot Cooler works really well, and it's quiet too.
Of course, that may be because the other fans are so much louder. The only draw back to
the Super Slot Cooler is that you lose a slot.
 The side of the case holds a 4.75 inch "blow hole" fan. At first
this fan was set to take air out. However I later flipped it to bring air in. I did this
because the fan on the Alpha P125 blew air down onto the heatsink. So if I had the blow
hole blowing out, it creates a vacuum. By having the blow hole blow in, both the Alpha
fans and the 4.75" fan are blowing in the same direction. No more vacuums. A finger
guard was placed in front of the blow hole fan to protect little kids (or big kids) from
sticking their fingers inside.
The In Win case follows the ATX specs to the letter.
This means that its power supply fan blows into the case. Why the ATX spec calls for this
I have no idea. At any rate, I removed the power supply and flip the fan around so the fan
blows out.
The idea behind blowing air in was the CPU was located
directly below the power supply fan in an ATX layout and it seems like a good idea to blow
air at it. This way you might be able to get away with just using a heatsink without a fan
on the CPU, since the air is supply by the power supply fan.
This works well when you first fire up your computer.
However, as the power supply gets hot, it's no longer blowing cool air at the CPU. Blowing
hot air at the CPU is not a good idea, especially when you're running at 620 Mhz.
Reversing the power supply fan to take out hot air that the CPU gives off is a better way
to go.
Removing the power supply only takes a screwdriver.
Just open it up and flip the fan around and put it back together. Note: You must reverse
the entire fan. Reversing the polarity will not work and could even damage the fan. I also
added another fan on top of the power supply to help take air out. Those holes around the
outside of the fan were taped up so air can't come back in.
Next Page: Case Cooling 301
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