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$6 Walmart Ghetto Fan Cooling!

1745 Views 19 Replies 12 Participants Last post by  Qbert
7
Well, having received such useful and timely advice on this board, I wanted to return and give back a little by sharing my adventure into the ghetto.

If you get bored on the weekend and want to try a cheap and easy cooling experiment, go to Walmart and do what I did (note, this will work best on rigs that have a side vent):

1. Buy a Cool Breeze 6" fan. Actually, I bought 4 and just kept the most silent one (was nice and quite at full speed). The return people loved me by the way.




2. Extract the front grill (need screwdriver) and put little one-sided sticky padded circles (Home Depot) on the top part of the back grill (note the 2 sticking back to back....I initially had just 1 there balancing on the top, but the little bastards
kept falling off so this worked much better).


Note: The dimmer switch (bought at IKEA many moons ago) and lucky guard dragon are optional. The fan has 2 speed settings that will satisfy most, I just like to play with the dimmer switch and see the results. At full speed, this fan is equally loud as all my system fans and at about 80% is completely silent in relation (with just about same results).

3. Take the fan and place it at side vent level (I used my wife's Thesaurus...she never used it once in 7 years and it is just the right height). Next, lean the fan onto your computer case as such:


The legs on this fan are great as they make it lean forward against the case and the little circle pads eliminate any vibration! I also cut out a piece of screen door netting from a roll I had and placed it between the fan and my side vent grill for a little extra dust management.

4. Run your favorite stress test tool on CPU max load setting until you get consistent full load temps.

5. Run your favorite temp monitoring tool, note load temps and then turn on fan. Watch temps drop to consistent low and log difference.

On my rig, the temps dropped by 5-6C on my 2 cores (highest went from 59C to 53C) and CPU. Pictures? We don't need no stinkin pictures! Ok, fine:


Look at the Speedfan graph for the temp curves and effect of the fan.

...and then back to Idle with the fan still on and then off (see little bump back up at end):



What was really interesting is that I slowed the fan down quite a bit (I would think about 75% of max speed) and the temps still stayed the same or only went up 1C sporadically. In my cases case (haha), the fan blows, via a small funnel on the vent, directly onto the CPU HSF, mostly over the Northbridge and a bit over my RAM that is toward the top right side on the mobo.

As for me, I am quite happy with this result. My temps are good, I have on demand cooling (the dimmer switch is sweet man) and I am ready to move onto 3.2ghz this weekend. All this folks for the price of a Big Mac Value meal...and it's healthier for you too!

If anyone tries this trick, or finds a different fan, please report back your temp results.

And please, don't stick your grubby fingers in the fan while it's spinning (it could unbalance the fan of course)!

Cheers.
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wow that's beautiful. congrats on the temp drop!
ummm. Why in the first pic does Everest say that your mobo temp is 121*C??
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Quote:

Originally Posted by Unl33t View Post
ummm. Why in the first pic does Everest say that your mobo temp is 121*C??

Yeah, I looked into this as it caught my attention too!!

Everest (happens on Speedfan too sometimes) does not display certain temps correctly when it cannot match that item to a sensor (depends on the mobo from what I have read at the eVGA forum). In this case, it reports 121C at idle and at load and never changes. I am not concerned with this as the temp never shifts in Everest, the rest of my temp monitors show all is fine and if my mobo (north/southbridge, etc) were at 121C, the computer would have shutdown due to overheating or I would be posting a picture of a nice pile of melted goo as 121C would fry most boards!
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nice idea. i have one of the exact same fans in my room. i should try this
at $6 its cheaper than a 80mm lol

btw qbert, any chance you are on digital gangster forums
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I love seeing mods like this. Sometimes specialized parts for PC's can be overpriced and things like this can work great.
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3
Quote:


Originally Posted by Sreenath
View Post

nice idea. i have one of the exact same fans in my room. i should try this
at $6 its cheaper than a 80mm lol

btw qbert, any chance you are on digital gangster forums


Hey Sreenath,

Yes!!! Please try this, I would love to see your results and see how they relate to what I got. Good luck!!

Not on digital gangster forums but I can check out tonight when I get home from work. Is it an OCer forum and thus do you recommend I post this thread there too? I'm all up for exposure on this experiment as it works!
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Quote:


Originally Posted by Choggs396
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I love seeing mods like this. Sometimes specialized parts for PC's can be overpriced and things like this can work great.


Thanks Choggs, I really like to do experiments like this and log the results (I am such a nerd). Yeah, saves some pennies and works too! I guess if you add the cost of the pads I used for vibration and screen material for dust contol you'd probably end up at around $12 bucks but then again I already had those and only used some of my supply so more like maybe $8 bucks out the door. I think the dimmer switch ran me around $8 at IKEA, but that was a long time ago.

I'm now tempted to get a 2nd fan and run it on the front of my case to see if that helps temps some too....as long as it is not louder than my rig then that will be acceptable to me.
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Progress report:

I OCd to 3.0Ghz and am now seeing a 5C temp drop instead of 6C when I turn on the fan (after 20 mins Orthos load). So it still rocks but looses just a wee bit of effectivenss as we OC:



On a side note, how do you guys think my core0/core1 temps are looking at this OC based on the various monitors shown (with and without fan)?

Can I push it to 3.2Ghz on the Intel HSF or have I reached a limit? Please see my system specs in sig area (note: my vcore is at 1.35v but drops to 1.296v under load).

Thanks!
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2
Quote:


Originally Posted by Qbert
View Post

Progress report:

I OCd to 3.0Ghz and am now seeing a 5C temp drop instead of 6C when I turn on the fan (after 20 mins Orthos load). So it still rocks but looses just a wee bit of effectivenss as we OC:



On a side note, how do you guys think my core0/core1 temps are looking at this OC based on the various monitors shown (with and without fan)?

Can I push it to 3.2Ghz on the Intel HSF or have I reached a limit? Please see my system specs in sig area (note: my vcore is at 1.35v but drops to 1.296v under load).

Thanks!

for max load, those are nice temps.
I think you can oc until you hit 60c max load
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get a new cooler anyways! It will lower temps.... longer life, etc....
[plug] i do have a TT blue orb 2 for sale on the cheap [/plug]
Wow, now thats stylish. A simple and elegant solution. Seams to produce relatively good results as well. I think I might try this! (if I do, Ill be sure to post the results).Yey for cheep and effective!
You should try one of these. 11,000cfm at 20ft!!
Quote:


Originally Posted by kennymester
View Post

You should try one of these. 11,000cfm at 20ft!!

Nah, I'd rather not spend another $50 for enough ear plugs to last me that fan's life.
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We have one of these setup in our store and I would say its not any louder than stock AMD heatsink at full speed. Its amazing how quiet it is.
Quote:

Originally Posted by kennymester View Post
We have one of these setup in our store and I would say its not any louder than stock AMD heatsink at full speed. Its amazing how quiet it is.
Wow, that fan looks cool. May strip the paint off my case though!!

Anyone else have any fan stories?

Cheers!
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Quote:

Originally Posted by Jaryth View Post
Wow, now thats stylish. A simple and elegant solution. Seams to produce relatively good results as well. I think I might try this! (if I do, Ill be sure to post the results).Yey for cheep and effective!
Yes Jaryth, please do and report back your results (pics too if you can please)! Make sure you get a silent one or it may piss you off after a while!
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