Neill Birss wrote in message ...

>I'm having a heating problem in a miditower case (called cabinet in some
>places) because of the heat from my video gear. One suggestion to me has
>to be to change to a Pentium II style case and motherboard that fits, as
>these cases have a fan blowing down on the processor. Has anyone
>experienced heat problems from one of these cases? My local computer
>supplier advises against additional fans: he reckons I would have to wear
>ear muffs. Does anyone know of a source of real-quiet fans please?

If your CPU is running too hot, your drives may be running WAY too hot!
When I installed two 9-gig 7200rpm IBM SCSI's, I started installing extra
fans immediately (and I have an ATX case where the supply fan blows in on
the CPU). I have tried a few schemes, without complete success in keeping
both the drives comfortably cool to touch their tops, and also keeping the
computer case interior as cool as I would like. Best so far (mid-tower
case) was installing the two full-height drives spaced in three bay spaces
with a standard 3 1/4" computer fan (about $8-12 each) mounted on the
blank front panels blowing directly on the drives with MANY 1/4" holes
drilled in the panels. This raised the case interior temperature too high
(though it keeps the drives cool), but doubling the case exhaust fan at
the bottom front (and drilling a lot more holes in front of these
paralleled fans) almost solved this (I am about to add an exhaust fan
on the case side to further lower the case interior temperature...).
Since the supply fan vents inward, I want to be careful not to raise the
interior air pressure enough to prevent good cooling of the supply - and
reversing fan directions kept the interior cool, but left the drives too
warm...). The noise is not excessive, if you use good fans (5 now, soon
to be 6-7 total...). I suspect that adequate cooling is often overlooked.
--
David Ruether
http://www.fcinet.com/ruether
ruether@fcinet.com