Guide Improve fan effectiveness with wire clippers!

Improve fan effectiveness with wire clippers!

I recently cut the rear fan grill off my PC case with a pair of wire clippers to allow for better air flow. The grill was replaced with the one that came with my silent Papst fan. Silent fans won’t work if you have the standard grill choking any air flow. This is a good way to quieten your box! Have a look –







I also attached a black foam sheet to the inside of my case. This cuts out any high pitched sound made by the small CPU heatsink fan. The only sound I can hear is the air rushing out of the back of my box.



I hope someone finds this useful.

 

ive done the fan grille mod already, but the foam looks interesting. Is the the foam out of a motherboard box? If so ill try it later.

 

I used nail clippers for that job on my old Enlight case. They weren't so hot at cutting nails afterwards...

 

Yes. the sheet of foam is from an old mobo box. don't expect a miracle but it does cut out high pitched whining of small fans quite well.

 

i tried the foam and it didnt make any difference for me

 

looks good but those edges around the fan could need some molding

 

why is there grass inside the case?! (2nd pic)

 

What kind of grass do you have over there in Canada

 

I'm also a silent and airflow freak.
But I used a saw blade and I holded it in my hand with some rags.

 

LOL! no grass in the case, looks like there is from the front side

 

Grass .... No , it's some kind of filter material . He blocked off opening to prevent metal bits from getting into case and on motherboard ( something anyone who does this should take note of )
DB

 

Too bad my 120mm fan doesnt fit in its 120mm slot..it has a adapter. Stupid casemakers at Comp USA

 

well depending the case design (on how the paneling closes the case) you can slightly cut out a bigger hole

not sure on the measurements on that, but many better cases (full towers) use 80mm but have a huge overplay with space between the rear control panel and the side panel

 

Grass? I did the modding in my back garden but there was never any of the lawn in my case. Perhaps it would dampen the sound but there isn't much light for the grass to grow inside a PC case...

DB was right. The hole was covered on the inside of the case. I taped some cling film (or saran wrap if you are in the US) to the inside of the case to prevent anything falling into the case. I'm glad I did that because I found a lot of metal fillings after doing a bit of sanding. I couldn't be bothered to strip the case and use a proper saw. OK, so it looks ugly but this just a bog standard case - I'm not worried about aesthetics.

Clarkey - the foam is fairly useless unless your case is near silent. I have Q-fan to slow my cpu fan down to 3000 rpm which makes it inaudible apart from a very quite high pitched whine. The foam cut that sound out but it won't be effective for any reasonable amount of noise.

 

Cool little guide! Definatley a nice and cheap easy thing to do for me to make my case a bit quieter, and make that exhaust fan actually DO somthing!

 

do this it helps no end i did it with both intakes and both exhausts and it doubled my airflow and cut down on noise!!!

deano.

 

Dust Mites suck

Great idea on air flow man, but, I'm worried about doing that for fear that dust and other junk would get in there.

 

I dont really think much dust would get in there through an exhaust fan, as it blows out

That is the first thing I did to my raidmax case and I have no problems with dust.

 

Problems with dust?
Clean your case every 3 or 6 months.

It's worth the airflow and silence improvement

 

Just a note: The holes are way too big on the grill to have any effect on keeping dust out ... cut it out to get proper air flow. If your worried about dust , then get/make a filter ( I hear Pantyhose works well )
DB