I'm swapping to an Arctic Cooling Pro 64 to see how much I can lower my temps. Stock cooler keeps me at 34 C @ idle and about 42 C @ load. My question is this. I've got 3hdd with an 80mm intake blowing across them. I've got another 120mm above them for intakeof cool air, but the heat from the hdd is still blowing past the processor to the exhaust. Would it make any sense to reverse my air flow and let it exhaust out of the front? Three hdd produce considerable heat. Hdd coolers only move the heat from the hdd to the case. If I take the highest heat source and make it the last thing to be cooled, would that not reduce case temps? Just a thought! I may do another mod and add a fan on one side, and exhaust out the other side across the hdd bay. Seal the bay from the case interior and do away with those temps all together.

Your processor is your largest heat source, apart from a videocard if you have one. If you reverse the flow of air to blow across your harddrives and out the front, the warm air will be cooling the HDDs, not fresh air from the front... so technically your drives will run a tad hotter.

I personally wouldn't, cuz you likely won't see a big difference.

Jobistober is exactly right. You need your intake coming from the front and exhausting out the back to achieve the most effective cooling.

Quote: Just a thought! I may do another mod and add a fan on one side, and exhaust out the other side across the hdd bay. Seal the bay from the case interior and do away with those temps all together.

Something like this could work quite well, imho... basically you create 2 diifferent "compartmens" with their own intake & exhaust....... that is, if you execute it right... you have to seperate these different "paths of air"
quite well... no leaks.... which can be difficult with cabling & such....

I once saw a guy at a lan party... he had a 'modded minitower housing all his hardware, except, his drives...
He built a seperate housing for those... this was a couple of years ago and all of the drives were P-ATA,
so make it look 'decent, he made his own P-ATA & Molex Extension cabling...

Something like this would be MUCH easier to pull off nowadays...., imho...

TDR

Thanks for the response. I think I'll work toward the separate hard drive compartment. It'll be different anyway! Thanks again.