New Silverstone FT02

sxr71 said:
Did you read the study that Google did on the reliability of HDDs and temperature? It's funny but they reported the lowest failure rate with drives operating in 40s. Google it. If anyone should have a decent sample size of HDDs it would be Google. Unexpected result, but now I put my Home Server in a cupboard and the drives are at 41-43C and I'm not losing a wink of sleep over it.
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Well I would add two things.

1. Those temps are when the drives were idle; it will be a different story when they are under a load.

2. The main reason for swapping cases was the fact that I need two hot-swap bays in the case which I can access through the 5.25 bays. I was only able to find one type that would fit in the FT02 but the drives reached 56c in them which is likely because they have no fan (the drives tested in the screenshots were not in hotswap bays but were instead drives in the plastic cadge in the FT02 and behind the 120mm fans in the PC-P50). Going with the PC-P50 has allowed me a much wider range of choices when it comes to hot-swap bays and the one I am currently using likely keeps the drives a lot cooler. I will post some results later this week when my sas cable arrives so that I can connect it to my LSI card.
 
Kiger, if youre there; what do you think on replacing exhaust stock fan wit SCYTHE S-FLEX™ "E" 120mm 1200 rpm?

Since you thought on them for replacing 180mm bottom fans, why dont replace the exhaust fan with it, being this one of the same diameter and more convenient for replacing?

Im thinking on it before ordering the magnetic filters.
 
baco80 said:
Kiger, if youre there; what do you think on replacing exhaust stock fan wit SCYTHE S-FLEX™ "E" 120mm 1200 rpm?

Since you thought on them for replacing 180mm bottom fans, why dont replace the exhaust fan with it, being this one of the same diameter and more convenient for replacing?

Im thinking on it before ordering the magnetic filters.
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I did replace the exhaust with a Scythe "E". I don't see what this has to do with the filters. You obviously don't want a filter on the exhaust.
 
I thought you had just replaced the 180mm stock fans with the scytheE, not the exhaust.

It has nothing to do, just wanted to be sure with all the things I need before ordering all together to performance pcs.

Dont know if you relized that rear filter, its exact the same quality as bottom filters.
 
You should go back a few pages and read as to why I replaced the bottom filters. There is nothing wrong with the filters themselves. Rather, the way in which the bottom three filters are applied is very poor. I explained all of this a few pages back. The rear filter for the power supply is perfectly fine and there is no reason to do anything to that.

If you want to emulate what I did, then buy three magnetic filters, four scythe "e" fans, and three 140mm to 120mm adapters. Then go to the hardware store and get some very flat screws and nuts.
 
Just want to emulate on the filters replacement/adition and the exhaust fan, but not the 180mm stock fans; maybe I would replace those ones if scythe made 180mm fans, but they dont.

I thought by what I read from you, the goal on magnetic filters, was becouse its performance on dust filtering over the originals. Aside, where is best to place the magnetic filters, underneath the case, or remove the original stock filters and place there the magnetic ones? Or let both, adding the magnetic underneath the case and let the stock filters at its place living all together?

Another thing I still dont get... whats the purpose of the grills over the 2 180mm fans? i mean, wouldn't the airflow be better without them? Have the grills any reason or functional point, beyond cosmetics?
 
WorldExclusive said:
The grills assist the airflow to move vertically.
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Yep. Also, the problem I had with the filters was the fact there were inside the case, as opposed to outside of the case. Not only are they inside, but they are 1" from the bottom of the case in that gap created by the stands. Thus, the dust and crap will float around in there and it will be a complete pain to clean. In addition, if you take out the filters, the act of pulling them out will scrape a lot of the dust off into the case. It was for these two reasons that I went with the magnetic filters on the bottom outside the case.

In all honesty, my tests have shown that the stock 180mm fans cool better. The only reason to switch to 120mm fans is for more room. If anyone wants to merely contain dust better, just buy some of the magnetic filters and slap them on the bottom of the case and leave the 180mm fans in place. Simple.

On a different note, what Silverstone should do is ditch the filters in the case and actually create two looooong filters for each side at the bottom of the case. If you guys follow what I'm getting at, wouldn't that be the best solution? It would be so easy to clean because you just take out the removable side panel filters. No need to align anything under the case and no half-ass job with the filters in the case. If I were keeping the case I would simply go to home depot or lowes and buy something to do this. It would not be hard to whip something together.
 
kiger said:
On a different note, what Silverstone should do is ditch the filters in the case and actually create two looooong filters for each side at the bottom of the case. If you guys follow what I'm getting at, wouldn't that be the best solution? It would be so easy to clean because you just take out the removable side panel filters. No need to align anything under the case and no half-ass job with the filters in the case. If I were keeping the case I would simply go to home depot or lowes and buy something to do this. It would not be hard to whip something together.
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Now I have the case and a clearer idea about how its design, I guess you mean 2 long filter strips for each side at the botom of the case, where air intakes. the only way I think I can get this, ir ordering custom size made filter strips directly through DEMCiflex at South Africa. If you went with this case and filters adding, would you kept original filters inside the case, or would you removed them? I guess for airflow wold be better to keep just the demciflex ones at the underneath the case.

Aside, I've benn thinking on improving Noctua NH-D14 even more, removing 120mm fan and replacing it with the 140mm since it fits on both 120 and 140mm mounting, and getting this Noiseblocker NB-BlackSilentPro PK-2 140mm x 25mm Ultra Quiet Fan on the 140mm initial place. Two good 140mm fans better than one, ain't it?
 
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I'm looking at replacing the bottom 180mm fans with FN181-BL fans with the blue leds in them as per zc1's post.

I was looking at the internals of the case this morning though and it appears that the fan controller at the top that controls the three 180mm fans is directly wired into the current FN181 fans? If this is so that would mean that I lose the ability to control the FN181-BL replacements with the top "High-Low" switches unless I work out a way to solder them in?

Is zc1 or anyone else that has replaced the fans able to confirm this for me? I would rather just use the built in controls rather than having to get a third party fan controller.

Cheers.
 
baco80 said:
Aside, I've benn thinking on improving Noctua NH-D14 even more, removing 120mm fan and replacing it with the 140mm since it fits on both 120 and 140mm mounting, and getting this Noiseblocker NB-BlackSilentPro PK-2 140mm x 25mm Ultra Quiet Fan on the 140mm initial place. Two good 140mm fans better than one, ain't it?
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Your question is invalid. You are not replacing one 140mm with two 140mm. You are talking about replacing one 140mm and one 120mm with two 140mm. Plus, NoiseBlocker fans are horrible in all of the reviews I have read. There is no decent 140mm fan aside from Noctua. Unless you want to upgrade your Noctua 120mm fan to a San Ace and wire it yourself, stick with what you have; it will be fine.

Using the NH-D14, my i7-920 runs at 4ghz and 67c with HT enabled. If I disable HT, the chip doesn't get any hotter than about 56c at 4ghz. Whatever you choose to do, 4ghz is nothing to scoff at and anything beyond that is merely bragging rights. So buy the NH-D14 and a i7-920 D0 stepping, and be done with it.
 
@baco80

Just to show you what you can do with the stock NH-D14 fans, right now I'm at 4.2ghz with HT off on my i7-920. The chip is at 1.275v and 60c under full load.

Let's see how high we can go :D

EDIT:

Okay, I am capped either by my motherboard or ram at 4.3ghz and 1.3v. Under load I'm hitting 62c with HT off. Anyway, enough about the off-topic discussion about fans. If in doubt, go read some reviews on the fans. They are out there, you just need to find them. Enjoy your FT02.

EDIT2:

Nevermind that. After tweaking some settings I'm at 4.4ghz and 1.35v with HT off and hitting 69c under full load.
 
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JimmyC said:
Is zc1 or anyone else that has replaced the fans able to confirm this for me? I would rather just use the built in controls rather than having to get a third party fan controller.

Cheers.
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Hi JimmyC. You're correct. Each fan has one set of wires going to the switch and another to the power supply. The replacement fans don't come with a switch. If you use them just plugged into your motherboard they'll run at full, unless you set your motherboard to control the speed(s). The other option is to use a fan controller, which is what I did.

kiger said:
@baco80

Nevermind that. After tweaking some settings I'm at 4.4ghz and 1.35v with HT off and hitting 69c under full load.
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Great OC.
 
zc1 said:
Hi JimmyC. You're correct. Each fan has one set of wires going to the switch and another to the power supply. The replacement fans don't come with a switch. If you use them just plugged into your motherboard they'll run at full, unless you set your motherboard to control the speed(s). The other option is to use a fan controller, which is what I did.
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OK next stupid question. Removing the stock fans if everything is soldered to the controller requires either removing the controller or snipping off the cables?
 
kiger said:
Your question is invalid. You are not replacing one 140mm with two 140mm. You are talking about replacing one 140mm and one 120mm with two 140mm. Plus, NoiseBlocker fans are horrible in all of the reviews I have read. There is no decent 140mm fan aside from Noctua. Unless you want to upgrade your Noctua 120mm fan to a San Ace and wire it yourself, stick with what you have; it will be fine.
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And what about 2 same Noctua NF-P14? Im not saying original fabric consturctions wont be enough, but what if you can get even more airflow at the same noise. I computer world, the cooler, the better.
 
JimmyC said:
OK next stupid question. Removing the stock fans if everything is soldered to the controller requires either removing the controller or snipping off the cables?
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The switches come out with 2 screws, each. I didn't cut anything.
 
Besides Kiger, how is eeveryone else HDD temps?

There are a few others complaining about this on other forums also.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but Kiger was only really complaining about his 2.5" HDD in the 5.25" bay. Please see note above about googles server reliabilty stats. People worry about a lot of things, but HDD at 40C shouldn't be one of them. There is often a big disconnect between people's beliefs and what data shows, I think this may be one of those cases.
 
Vonteme said:
27c

here is a question to anyone:

how is the Noctua NH-D14 in FT02? any pictures?
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Go one page back in the thread. My system has it, but with CM fans in place of the Noctua ones. If you go a few pages back you can see it with the stock Noctua fans as well.
 
My new Seagates (2 x 500 GB) sit around 30-33C. The old one sits at 40-42C.
 
zc1 said:
Go one page back in the thread. My system has it, but with CM fans in place of the Noctua ones. If you go a few pages back you can see it with the stock Noctua fans as well.
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looks neat. :)

one thing i hate about this chase is the back of it. its so damn small and crowdy. you really need to spread out the cables to make the surface even, so the lid doesn't bend when its attached.

if you have time and patience, you can accomplish this.

also the upper lid can be annoying to remove sometimes.
 
My guess is that the ft02 will perform very well when 3 or fewer hdds are placed in the cage, but if a user loads up all 5 slots and uses them for a more demanding task like video editing, then cooling might be a problem depending on what temps you consider acceptable. Users loading up all 5 slots but not doing heavy I/O should be fine as well.

sxr71 said:
Did you read the study that Google did on the reliability of HDDs and temperature? It's funny but they reported the lowest failure rate with drives operating in 40s. Google it. If anyone should have a decent sample size of HDDs it would be Google. Unexpected result, but now I put my Home Server in a cupboard and the drives are at 41-43C and I'm not losing a wink of sleep over it.
Click to expand...

Trigeminal said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but Kiger was only really complaining about his 2.5" HDD in the 5.25" bay. Please see note above about googles server reliabilty stats. People worry about a lot of things, but HDD at 40C shouldn't be one of them. There is often a big disconnect between people's beliefs and what data shows, I think this may be one of those cases.
Click to expand...

I'm glad you guys brought up the google hdd report because I never saw it when originally released. But I've read it now and ya'll are conflating one dataset into the full spectrum of Google's testing. Fact is, running your hdds at 40c increases their failure rate unless you replace your hdds every ~2 years. From the Google abstract:

What stands out are the 3 and 4-year old drives, where the trend for higher failures with higher temperature is much more constant and also more pronounced.

Overall our experiments can confirm previously reported temperature effects only for the high end of our temperature range and especially for older drives. In the lower and middle temperature ranges, higher temperatures are not associated with higher failure rates. This is a fairly surprising result, which could indicate that datacenter or server designers have more freedom than previously thought when setting operating temperatures for equipment that contains disk drives.
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In summary, the report tells us a few things about hdd temps:
  • most hdds fail in the first 3 months (a mere ~3%), or after 2 years. Basically, users either get a lemon or need to abuse their hdd to cause failure in the long term.
  • from 6 months to the 2 year mark, sub-45c temps have little impact on reliability.
  • temps below 30c are ~3-5% more prone to failure in the first 3 months of ownership, and fail about as often as 30-35c hdds over a 3 year span (~5% failure rate).
  • after 3 years, hdds running at 40c (or greater) average ~11-14% failure rate vs ~5-6% for drives running in the 30-35c range.
  • Google's data shows keeping hdds at a consistent 30-35c is the optimal operating temp. However, this is based on hdds in a datacenter with strict environmental controls, not in an off-the-shelf PC. The data however should still show some correlation for individual PCs.

My guess for the <30c hdds having a more pronounced failure rate would be the constant, and wide, variance in temps. It's pretty common for mechanical components like linear actuators or the eject mechanism in a snowy climate car stereo to suffer reliability when experiencing a lot of fluctuation in operating temps. The high rpms of hdds certainly can't help the situation.
 
In the RV02, front intakes can be installed to further cool the HDDs. I saw one person in another forum do a mock up of this.
The case had two 120mm intake fans in the front of a RV02. I'll try to find the photo again.
 
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One other thing to note is that data center hard drives have a completely different usage rate. They're hit hard all the time, whereas average home users will be using the hard drive at a much lower rate. The findings from Google may be completely irrelevant for the home user.
 
I've got 2 x 500gb samsungs and 1 x 250gb WD in mine all using hot swap cables in slots 1,3,5, they all run around 35c on a warm/hot day.

Was thinking, if your only using a couple of the bay slots and your worried about the temp of the drives, you could add heatsinks to the top of your drives so that air from the fan blows up between the fins:)
 
Vonteme said:
you really need to spread out the cables to make the surface even, so the lid doesn't bend when its attached.
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I don't have this problem. Very simple to feed the accessory cables through the hole and out the back without the top not fitting correctly.

The only issue I've had with the top is that the aluminum grill seems to block the RF from my Logitech Wave wireless combo, so I have the receiver stuck on a USB extension cord dangling off the back of my desk.
 
WorldExclusive said:
In the RV02, front intakes can be installed to further cool the HDDs. I saw one person in another forum do a mock up of this.
The case had two 120mm intake fans in the front of a RV02. I'll try to find the photo again.
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Maybe you're thinking of nascasho's post from earlier in the thread? If I purchase an ft02, this is the route I plan on taking except I'll only use a single 12/14cm fan. It'll almost assuredly raise the dB level, too, but a quality low-rpm fan from Noctua/Scythe/etc could minimize the increased noise.
 
zero2dash said:
I don't have this problem. Very simple to feed the accessory cables through the hole and out the back without the top not fitting correctly.
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i'm sorry.
i was referring to the lid which is back of the motherboard, the space about 0.8 inches wide.
 
Be very careful if you go to brush off any dust that is on the window of this case.

Just used a soft bristle paint brush to dust off the window inside and out as i do with all of my computer gear and now the window is scratched to buggery:(

The perspex or whatever it is must be that soft to scratch from soft bristles.

Anyone know how to take out scratches easily with making things worse?
 
thanks, been reading about the Novus #1 and #2 and it may do the trick.
Picking some up later in the week to try.
If it doesn't work, i'll look at getting a new window made up and just have to get some soft microfibre cloths for dusting in the future.

Just knowing that the window has all of these fine scratches (brush strokes) on it is annoying me:(
 
DNX said:
Be very careful if you go to brush off any dust that is on the window of this case.

Just used a soft bristle paint brush to dust off the window inside and out as i do with all of my computer gear and now the window is scratched to buggery:(

The perspex or whatever it is must be that soft to scratch from soft bristles.

Anyone know how to take out scratches easily with making things worse?
Click to expand...

Leave it alone, trust me. Buy a new window.

Mine was scratched, I sent Silverstone an email, got an RMA, filled everything out...at least a month has passed, I haven't received squat. I just wanted the piece of plastic. :rolleyes: :mad: I just sent them another message a minute ago, I'm sure I won't hear anything back though. :rolleyes:

I saw reports to use Brasso from scratched iPod users....didn't do anything. The act of trying to remove the scratches seems to have scuffed mine up more. They must have used the most jank cheap plastic they could have found...I'm thoroughly ticked off about it too. :mad: My Lian Li windowed cases were practically scratch proof. This really puts a bad mark on Silverstone for me....this will be the first+last case of theirs I ever buy.

I ended up rotating my window so the scratch is at the bottom instead of the top where it's not as noticeable, but yeah I agree...knowing that it's there really ticks me off. :mad:
 
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Hi,
Sent an email to Silverstone.TW and Silverstone.US, got a reply back from TW asking for my Location to forward to branch office to service me.

I'll see what happens.

If no reply from them, i'll look at getting a new window made up.

Still can't believe that a soft bristled paintbrush left all of the scratch strokes over the window, as you said my Lian-Li never had a problem with it scratching.
 
I just wanted to thank everyone who contributed to this thread.
I picked up this case NIB from another member and all I can say is its amazing! My CPU temps under Linx and Prime have dropped about 10 degrees compared to my Antec 902.
 
Does anyone have a SLi setup in here with either 280s or 285s? I'm curious about the idle/load temps with default fan settings (on the cards)...
 
I have 260's in SLI with fans @ 60% and they're both idling at 37c. I'm running prime now, but I'll post with max temps sometime tomorrow morning.
Oh, I have one open slot between cards, just in case you were curious.
 
DNX said:
Hi,
Sent an email to Silverstone.TW and Silverstone.US, got a reply back from TW asking for my Location to forward to branch office to service me.

I'll see what happens.

If no reply from them, i'll look at getting a new window made up.

Still can't believe that a soft bristled paintbrush left all of the scratch strokes over the window, as you said my Lian-Li never had a problem with it scratching.
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Good luck. They haven't responded to me at all which is pathetic for a quote unquote reputable company to do.

Big fat F for customer support for Silverstone in my book. :mad:
 
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