Ongoing Thermaltake Tenor (1 Viewer)

[user_99]

You only use the front fan? Does the fan then suck the air out or blow it in? Normally it blows in and the 2 rears blow out.

Yep, have there 2 HD's running

 

[andinaegnaeg]

I got my Thermaltake Tenor yesterday but the front is broken. Damn! So I have to ship it back and wait till I get the new one.

 

[gxtracker]

I got my Thermaltake Tenor yesterday but the front is broken. Damn! So I have to ship it back and wait till I get the new one.

Thats too bad. When mine came the box looked like someone threw it down a flight of stairs... but the case inside was just fine, not a scratch on it luckily.

as for case fans, I started off using all three, but the noise level was a bit more than I wanted, especially in a quiet living room. So i did some cable and wire management, repositioned components like the hard drive to the bottom support brace, and removed the 3 1/2 cage inside. Air flow inside is so good now that I was able to remove all case fans.

Right now I have:

- replaced the fan cooler on the FX 5200 with a passive cooler, and it is underclocked to 300core, 200mem - no gaming at all, just things like emulators. now the heatsink is cool to the touch after several days operation.

- removed all case fans.

- reversed the heatsink fan on the CPU to blow out the blowhole, instead of suck air into it

- had to reverse the bottom PSU fan to generate negative pressure in the case - helps to draw the cool air in, which then gets blown out hot.

Right now the case is dead silent, and the CPU temp peaked around 48*C on the hottest day under full load. I have the temperature sensor for the cpu set at 55*C just incase it does get too hot, but the alarm has never gone off. Very please with the thermal properties of the case

 

[andinaegnaeg]

* what CPU cooler do you use?

* any special northbridge cooler?

I' gonna go with only one 80mm fan at the former 60 mm rear hole, and the 120mm PSU fan. That's all. But I still need my case!

I'm thinking about the GT-1000 CPU Cooler to run it without extra fan.

Andreas

 

[gxtracker]

* what CPU cooler do you use?

* any special northbridge cooler?

Andreas

Im using the stock CPU cooler. it has a copper core, but i was able to lap the bottom of the heatsink a bit.

The northbridge is the stock heatsink on the A7N8X - passive heatsink with tall fins - again I lapped the bottom of it a bit as well.

Sounds like a good plan. Suprisingly the fans that do come with the case are very good. They move a good amount of air and are pretty quiet. even when I had all the fans in the system in the past, it was still quieter than my desktop system.

I also like those new 120mm fans they've been putting in PSUs reciently. I picked up a new PSU the other day for my desktop, and the PSU is barely audible now.

 

[andinaegnaeg]

I would love to see some pictures of your system! I'm gonna publish some oictures too when I'm ready.

I only have a really small passive Northbridge cooler which was by default on my Gigabyte board. I will see if it stays cool enough when I only use the PSU fan and perhaps one fan on the CPU cooler. I'm also gonna remove all case fans like you did. That should work.

I can't wait to get my case back without broken front. I can't wait to put all the stuff together! 8)

 

[gxtracker]

I would love to see some pictures of your system!

I just finished putting up a small webpage with my HTPC build on it. I have about 20 pictures of the system up, inside and out. Check it out!

http://gxhtpc.atspace.com

Anybody else have pictures of their Tenor?

 

[andinaegnaeg]

I just wrote an report at an german site a few minutes ago. I hope no one minds when I post this link:

http://www.silenthardware.de/forum/index.php?showtopic=13687

Sorry for writing in german, but I'm gonna translate it in the next days so everybody can read it.

There are pictures of my system:

http://www.silenthardware.de/forum/index.php?act=module&module=gallery&cmd=si&img=1329

I love my new box! It's damn silent!!! :twisted:

I also have some improvements for gxtracker!

The power supply uses two 80mm fans which are loud. Use a PSU with one 120mm fan instead. Then you can use a passive CPU-Cooler like the aerocool GT-100. Then you could remove the case fans too. When removing the case fans you have to close all holes except the one on the front. Tha PSU fan gets the air out on the rear.

Very important is actually the hard drive. Take it out of the cage and throw the cage out. Lay the HDD on a foam in front of the front case fan. That decrease noise a lot.

But just read my description if you can read german otherwise wait till I post my translation.

 

[gxtracker]

Im always open to improvements!

I really like your idea for the harddrive. I've been using small rubber grommets on the screws to try to reduce the noise through hard drive vibration. One day this week im going to try your idea and put the hard drive on some foam, see how much quieter it gets.

yes, unfortunatly the PSU has two 80mm fans. thankfully when I got my new PSU, it has a nice 120mm fan and a full meshed back for better air flow - but thats in my main system. You'll notice that in one of my plctures that shows the back of the case, the PSU has a little slider switch. that switch lets you set the fan speed from Low, Medium, or Auto (which pretty much leaves the fans always on) Right now I have the setting on low, so the fans turn at a nice slow RPM.

That GT-100 is huge! I love it!! :lol: I noticed that you had to remove the upper support brace from the case, hehehe.

And I can't read German unfortunatly, so i'll wait patiently until you translate it.

 

[andinaegnaeg]

I just sat down and did a huge translation!! :lol:

There is my review! I did open a new thread in finished HTPC projects:

http://nolanparty.com/mediaportal.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=57980#57980

Hope to hear some comments!