Today I received the cooling fans I ordered from Newegg.com and have installed the 40mm fans in the case. As mentioned previously the 60mm fans did not get used in the build.
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| 40mm super-high airflow fans (left), and 80mm high flow fans (right) |
Before installing them, I tested the 40mm fans, and I have to say for such a small unit they pack one hell of a punch!. Despite being very noisy (The spec sheet lists them as 54.5dba), they move an amazing 24 Cubic feet per minute. I couldn't find the specs on the original case fan, but the model up from it that draws more current and therefore has a higher rotation speed and CFM, is rated at 8.6CFM. Therefore the airflow capability has been increased by a factor of 2.79.
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| Upgraded 40mm fan (left) next to the fan that came supplied with the case (right) |
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| Upgraded fan (left), and factory fitted fan (right) |
I have no doubt that these fans will provide surplus cooling capabilities to the PC. However, it comes at a price. As I mentioned earlier the fans are very noisy (They rotate at an impressive 13,000RPM or 1361.36 Radians/Sec for any physics/mechanics buffs out there) and emit a shrill buzzing sound, not ideal for situations when the PC will be used in quiet conditions (eg running as a FM radio when the car is parked). In order to reduce the noise level, I plan to fit a software/hardware solution to reduce the fan speed and therefore the noise. More on that in the coming posts.
I have made a final improvement to the PC's cooling system; I noticed the heat-sink for the MOSFETS was very loose and upon further inspection I realized that it was held on with two spring loaded screws, which were being compressed by the motherboard tray in such a way that the only thing facilitating thermal transfer between the MOSFETs and heat sink was a measly strip of thermal tape. This wouldn't do. I removed the heat sink and thermal tape and applied thermal adhesive to the MOSFETS (being careful not to apply too much) before replacing the heatsink and allowing time for it to set.
That's it for this post, I'll write a new one as the project progresses. Thanks for reading.
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