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Newbie Question - PC Case or no Case?
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Loki:
I think I would go without a case... mount everything on a removable board. It's lighter and cheaper. You also won't use case coolers so it's even more quiet.
Use some big fans in the cab itself and hook them up on a fan speed controller. They can move more air with less sound. :)
clockwork:
This article suggests it's better to leave the case on: http://www.pcguide.com/care/care/gen/coolAir-c.html

Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but I'd say if you're not having heat issues, just leave it in the case.
SavannahLion:

--- Quote from: Moose13 on February 19, 2007, 12:28:11 pm ---Is this Faraday cage thing a specific problem. I sounds like NO ONE else has had this problem.

--- End quote ---

Just a mention, I don't know exactly why it's like this. I suspect something burned out and errant EMI exasperates the problem.

I have a BH6 with a classic Celery that I ran overclocked for about four years. It was so rock solid that the fan failed at one point and melted the plastic clips for the CPU and melted the VRAM a bit. Swapped the vcard out put a new fan in and the board was back up and running. That happened a year into the boards life. On year five, I started getting intermittent crashes in Windows and some of the files were corrupted. I swapped out every component I could but I kept having problems. I ran memtest86 and found pages of botched RAM. I swapped the modules around and out and it still failed. IIRC, if I had RAM in just slot 1, it passed. If slot 1 & 2 were filled, both failed. If slot 1, 2 and 3 was filled, slot 1 would fail. slot 1 & 3 would make 3 fail. If I put everything in a case, all the test results would change. All the components were tested with a different motherboard (except CPU) and everything passed. I declocked the board and everything passed again. As near as I can figure, something burned out or EMI (from the board itself?) is playing some wicked role. I finally retired the motherboard and scavanged the parts but I still have the board because it bugs me that I can't figure out what's wrong with it   :dunno
Loki:

--- Quote ---Keep the Cover On: Many people think that running the system with the case cover removed will improve cooling since the components are exposed to the outside air. In fact, this usually makes cooling worse (unless you have something silly like a big external fan blowing right onto the system unit, which is impractical, to say the least). When you remove the case, the air that the power supply fan is pushing out the back of the case is replaced by air drawn from the room instead of being drawn across the components. As a result, many components will sit in stagnant air and get little cooling.
--- End quote ---

I don't think this is true.
In my normal pc there is no way the power supply fan is giving enough airflow to make it cooler in my cab.
Last summer it was very hot here and my pc rebooted all the time cuz of the heat. When I removed the side of my case the temperature went down with 10 degrees Celsius.
Now I have to add the airflow sucks in my cab because I don't have any case coolers.

Anyway, what needs to be cooled is the CPU, GPU and chipset. It all gets cooled by it's own cooler, this warm air it produces needs to go out of the cab so it won't get "cooled" by hot air that stays in the case.
If there isn't a case, there isn't any hot air development ^^
leapinlew:

--- Quote from: Loki on February 19, 2007, 02:47:26 pm ---
--- Quote ---Keep the Cover On: Many people think that running the system with the case cover removed will improve cooling since the components are exposed to the outside air. In fact, this usually makes cooling worse (unless you have something silly like a big external fan blowing right onto the system unit, which is impractical, to say the least). When you remove the case, the air that the power supply fan is pushing out the back of the case is replaced by air drawn from the room instead of being drawn across the components. As a result, many components will sit in stagnant air and get little cooling.
--- End quote ---

I don't think this is true.
In my normal pc there is no way the power supply fan is giving enough airflow to make it cooler in my cab.
Last summer it was very hot here and my pc rebooted all the time cuz of the heat. When I removed the side of my case the temperature went down with 10 degrees Celsius.
Now I have to add the airflow sucks in my cab because I don't have any case coolers.

Anyway, what needs to be cooled is the CPU, GPU and chipset. It all gets cooled by it's own cooler, this warm air it produces needs to go out of the cab so it won't get "cooled" by hot air that stays in the case.
If there isn't a case, there isn't any hot air development ^^

--- End quote ---

It's true...

Computers that are built by a company like Dell or Apple take air flow into consideration and design the cases to work best with the cover on and air being drawn in and exhausted where it's supposed to be. It may not be true with your computer you built yourself because you probably didn't handle the air flow correctly.

As a computer gets older and the airflow is decreased due to failing equipment or dust, the computer may run cooler with the case off but thats more of a work around than a fix. You should replace the fans and clean the airflow path.

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