Antec NSK1300 120mm Mod

[mr saturn]

A couple months ago I built an HTPC box:

Antec NSK1300
AM2 X2 3800+ (stock cooling)
Asus M2NPV-VM (using onboard 6150)
Two 512 corsair value
Seagate 160gb mounted in the main HDD 'bay'
Seagate 500gb mounted on the side opposite the PSU
Coolermaster 120mm blue led fan
Pioneer DVR-110D

It worked great but my temps idled way too high for my liking. My hard drives sat at around 32-35, and spiked under stress all the way up to 40 and above at points . Processor would idle at 40-45 and easily hit 50-55 under moderate load, with the stock fan just squealing.

I tried mounting the 120 directly above the cpu fan, but the temp changes just barely kept my system runnable.

I decided to chop a 120mm hole in the panel closest to the PSU and mount the fan in there. This required a pretty severe fan mod as I had to chop off one set of flanges so the fan could slide through the panel (not enough room for the fan to site entirely in the case).

I used a 127mm holesaw and chopped right through it, slid the fan in and 'naturally' mounted it (it kinda just sits in there, but has nowhere to move).

My cpu dropped around 10 degrees, and my hard drives 5ish. I'm going to experiment with moving the 2nd hard drive to the other side and see what effect it has on the temps (it's the one I'm most worried about). I'd like to change the cpu cooler but I don't know what will fit and what won't. I have an 7000Alcu but it doesn't have an AM2 mounting bracket :/

I'll post later with some pictures; the fan is a little chopped up but it looks fine, especially with the blue LEDs.

 

[sleepeeg3]

Put one on the other side, it fits even easier and the cross flow gives you awesome temps. Only downside is you can not use long peripheral cards in that last slot (i.e. A2, X-Fi)

 

[mr saturn]

I was thinking about doing that, may as well while I've got all the tools out.

 

[crazjayz]

When you start, we wanna see a worklog!