plug off open grill area in case

kbalaz

New member
So I have this open grill area on the back of my case, Bitfenix ghost. It doesn't really serve a purpose as far as I can tell. To create better positive pressure, should this be sealed off? Also there is room around the fans, I have 120mm fans and it can use either 120s or 140s, so with the 120's there is a bit of room around them as well? you can see it the rear photograph between the upper fan and the psu opening on the right http://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/products/chassis/ghost#gallery
 

Attachments

  • 730.jpg
    730.jpg
    48.7 KB · Views: 140
If you mean the vent that is left of the PCI slots, it's meant to be there to aid in cooling PCI devices.
 
Those vents do favour a positive air pressure and can be an invitation to dust if you have negative pressure.

The best method to test for positive or negative air pressure of your case is to take a small piece of paper say about 30mm square and place it up to those vents when your pc is being driven at the various states i.e. idle and at load if you have different fan profiles.

If the piece of paper is drawn toward those vents (i.e sucked) then your case has negative pressure; this is bad as it'll be potentially drawing dust in from there.

If the piece of paper is blown away from those vents then you have positive air pressure; this is a good thing as it's not drawing air in from the unfiltered vent.

If the piece of paper does neither, then your case pressure is balanced. This is better than negative but not as good as positive pressure.
 
thanks guys. I will give the paper test a try. Should be fairly good positive pressure as I have my top fans are running intake and two intake at front of case all 4 are Noctua NF-F12's. Don't collect much dust inside the case and it runs fairly cool with idle temps of 21C. Was just curious if I would get better positive pressure closing these off or not. Thanks for the input.
 
thanks guys. I will give the paper test a try. Should be fairly good positive pressure as I have my top fans are running intake and two intake at front of case all 4 are Noctua NF-F12's. Don't collect much dust inside the case and it runs fairly cool with idle temps of 21C. Was just curious if I would get better positive pressure closing these off or not. Thanks for the input.

I think 4 fans in, with 2 going in basically the wrong direction is a bit weird, it can be done but i think it isn't efficient, personally i would turn the rear fan around so it is an intake and have the top fans be exhaust. Do get a dust filter for the rear intake.

I had closed of such vents before and did see a rise in temperatures on my video cards back then.
 
I think 4 fans in, with 2 going in basically the wrong direction is a bit weird, it can be done but i think it isn't efficient, personally i would turn the rear fan around so it is an intake and have the top fans be exhaust. Do get a dust filter for the rear intake.

I had closed of such vents before and did see a rise in temperatures on my video cards back then.
when I first built it, I had the top as exhaust instead of intake. I saw another builder reverse it in the same case to the configuration I am currently using and I saw an average drop in temperature of 2-3 degrees and after a year hardly any dust inside the case at all. I have considered flipping the top back to exhaust and changing the rear exhaust to an intake, but, with the NH-D14's blowing air towards rear exhaust and intake above the heat sink blowing cool air down over it as well, I find that it became more efficient in this setup. It probably makes a difference that this is in the basement of my house where the ambient temperature is about 15-16C. You having closed off those vents and seeing a rise in GPU temp pretty much answers my question I think. Here is the link to my early gallery pictures that may show it better. http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=60621
 
Last edited:
Ah yes in your setup it seems indeed better, but you know how it goes, heat rises and all that sort of things. Yeah i wouldn't want to close off that breathing port, it helps your gpu fans get a lil bit extra air, and even if you had a blower style cooling on the gpu you want to keep that open for the air to go out, most of those coolers have little vents on the side of the card.
 
Ah yes in your setup it seems indeed better, but you know how it goes, heat rises and all that sort of things. Yeah i wouldn't want to close off that breathing port, it helps your gpu fans get a lil bit extra air, and even if you had a blower style cooling on the gpu you want to keep that open for the air to go out, most of those coolers have little vents on the side of the card.
Done, will leave it as is. Thanks for the input everyone.
 
Back
Top