Not to take anything away from maestro and his amazing Frankensteinian G4 in a new body project, I have some questions. I'm not really a modder. That said, I've actually tried to do some of the things I've read here and elsewhere. I've read the "Blow hole" mod, and it makes sense but I'm not ready for that yet. I have a QS G4 with added drives, and new proc.

I cut out the PS fan finger gaurd and removed the speaker. I zipped tied some screen door mesh on the backside of the speaker hole to keep the large dust bunnies and moths out. And I took out the main fan housing and put some cloth type double sided electricians tape on the parts that contact the case to reduce noise.

I downloaded "Temp.Monitor" a couple of days ago and the only sensor readings I get are from the original IBM drive that came with my machine. Currently it's bouncing back and fourth between 39C and 38C, but I know three nights ago it got up to 42C.

By the way, is a fan kicking in to cause the updown of the temps? And are those temps generally OK? Is there a way to check the temps on the other items without buying some gaget? The only other thing I can check is the general air temp comming out of the PS fan with a digital thermometer.

I have a Sonnet Duet dual with it's own heat sink fan, and three other drives (two of which are in a SATA raid).

I was thinking of adding a new, beefier and hopefully quieter Main fan. I think its the 120. But I'm not sure if I need to.

Brainman, Even though I am bringing an article on this subject, I suggest you do this. Buy a Panaflo 120mm fan for your case fan. The cpu fan is a different story. I do not know what size it is. You could use either Panaflo or Sunon for that one. I would forego the blow hole. If you are feeling adventurous, you could remove the cpu heatsink and use arctic silver 5 compound on the cpus. It really does work. Check for a mod guide here and elsewhere. Wow, thats one hot hard drive. You can purchase hard drive heatsink fan combos for that. I have used them before and that will help. The are cheap too, like $10. You can also try drilling out the pci slot covers with holes. This is about all you can do that I can think of short of buying a new case for it.
-maestro

Post edited by: maestro, at: 2005/09/16 17:33

Heres what I have done with most of my PCs and my B&W system that now has a home in a ATX case.

120mm and a 80mm fan on the front of the case. The 80mm sits on the buttom front of the case while I have taken out the extra drivebay covers and made a special cover out of metal or even cardboard that has the 120mm fan. They both suck air in. On the back of the system I have anywhere from one to two fans 40mm or 80mm blowing the air out. This keeps a rapid flow of cool air going though the case.If you don't mind noise you can wire the fans to use 12v instead of 5v. This way the fans will run faster but ywt they will be more noise.You can always also buy a Harddrive cooler for like 10 bucks or even cheaper if you know where to locate one. I'm not talking about the big clunky ones that the drive sits in. I'm talking about the one that is a heatsink that has two small 20mm fans. Also you might want to get a bigger heatsink for your videocard. Also you can modify DDR memory heatsinks to work on SDRAM if you use SDRAM. If the system becomes too loud you can always add quark around the case to make it quiet. Oh and also round ribbon cables will help better air flow.

Round ata cables are a great idea that I forgot. Ramsinks will fit sdr or ddr ram. Those and the smaller hard drive coolers can be found at http://www.newegg.com. They are great and shipping is super fast.
-maestro

Thanks guys:
I rearranged my drives to clear airflow around the one with the working sensor. No improvement. I even opened up my case so it had about an inch and a half gap at the top of the case. I let it sit like that for 15-20 minutes. Still no improvement. I guess heat sinks and fans are the way to go.

I've got a sill mountable air conditioner, that cost me $110. Maybe I'll just build a box for it and run air hoses to my computer. It might be just as easy and in the end cost about the same. Noiser, sure. But I'll just pretend I'm living in 1965 in the Soviet Union.

Maestro, when you write your next article, maybe you could tell me how to get the sensors on your raid, CPU, and drives to show up in Temp. Monitor. It's probably all about the firmware, but still I'm curious.

The A/C idea is one I thought about too, but it wont work in the winter! LOL. Anyway, you need drives that send sensor info to get the numbers. Most newer drives have it. You can try hardware monitor too. I needed a newer version of the software to get all of my drives to show up. Go with the Panaflos, you will not be sorry. Oh, and keep the case closed. It is designed to work its best then. When my G4 was in the mdd case, I went as far as drilling holes in the bottom of my desk's pc area to help airflow. Oh, and you can get a fan controller that fits a pci slot so you don have to mod your case if you do not want to.
-maestro

Maestro;
Yeah, I figured opening the case ruined the flow. Anyway, I spent the day doing something goofy. I had an old room fan - sort of a gizzmo to take cigarette smoke out of the air. It has a little eight inch fan in a plastic box. To make a long story short I created a flexible hose setup with a 4inch dryer hose with the fan box at the end, to such air out the back. Looks sort of like a limp submarine snorkle. It's sucking a lot of air but only dropped the drive senor temp a degree or two (C). My drive is 36-37C now. It makes me think thats about all I will get from anew case fan. Heat sinks, etc, are also needed.
I'm beginning to appreciate the valuable experience you all have from the combined approaches you have all journaled on these pages.

Oh, I forgot. On the AC, idea, I was thinking of putting the whole AC in a box and then put the box on castors. It would need a drip pan in the bottom for the condensed water comming off the coolant tubes in the back. In the summer putting it outside is best because it puts out a lot of heat. In the winter you could roll it inside, but it's as noisey as a freight train compared to computer fans. But if you owned your own house you could do a little creative remodeling and run it from a closet or basement.
Actually, what makes more sense is to buy one of those little office beverage refridgerators. Drill some holes for all the cables and wires and leave the computer inside the fridge. Just open the door to turn it on/off and load CD/DVD's. Hmmm?

The flea market would be useful for a small fridge. Theres tons of mod guides on the net that cover fridges and PCs. Heck you can always try ebay and get a old SGI server case and put your Apple in it and the AC unit and build like a cardboard or even a fiberglass vent to vent the hot air from the AC compresser to outside.

Post edited by: TCPMeta, at: 2005/09/18 07:21

As for the fans, your large fan is a good idea, but its only going one way, besides Im sure its pretty noisy. The case may be getting over pressurized, which actually looses cooling effectiveness. There is always watercooling. I haven't heard of the fridge idea, but thats interesting, Im gonna look into that.
SIlence is golden, and man's greatest invention is A/C.
-maestro