PSU as an exhaust in a htpc?

[Stonerboy779]

Putting together a new htpc/nas and was looking for opinions on using the PSU (Silverstone Strider 600watt) as an exhaust for the case.

Will be using a mildly modded Silverstone LC10-E Black.
Mods will be mainly or really entirely for additional cooling for the HDDs that will make up the NAS component of the build.

An Asus GTX 560 DC-II TOP will at some point end up in this build and that is where I wonder if it would or would not be better to keep it separate from the PSU or use the PSU to get better cooling throughout the normal 24/7 use where the 560 will be inactive due to switchable gfx with the i3 2100

Opinions wanted, always good to run thoughts by others

[slaveofconvention]

My HTPC is in a Thermaltake DH102 case which isn't hugely different to the LC10-E in size and the PSU is my only exhaust fan (I disconnected then removed the two 60mm fans as they were too whiny even after I replaced them with Akasa Amber quiet fans) and I've never had any problems. Having said that, I'm only running a Dual Core Athlon with no dedicated graphics at all and a single hard disk so the heat output is probably somewhat lower - on top of that, the Noctua HSF I reviewed here is also installed and that draws loads of cool air into the case which may well make a big difference....

[Aldersan]

What about having separate fan hooked up to a switch, so when you switch to dedicated graphics you can just turn on the fan, and when you're not using it, you can turn it off and let the psu be the exhaust fan? Saves energy and noise when you don't need it

[Stonerboy779]

Thanks Slave, I looked at the C14 it is next to useless in my case due to design, no top exhaust I am however going to put the NH-U9B in for cooling the CPU.
Saw your review when I was looking at good quiet low profile coolers, nicely put together.

Then also I will have two 80mm NF-R8 fans as the front intakes, could put a larger fan but this is better quality in terms of noise, cfm and pressure to other fans available to me.
Two more NF-R8s as a rear exhaust and one as an intake on the left.
the make up mounts on the rear of the HDD 3.5" bays for two NF-P12 fans to just help the air though better.

Then the fun starts with creative ducting.

I am not worried too much about the heat in the case but I do see it as better to use the PSU to vent the air as it would enable me to duct across the mobo and properly cool it. Did consider getting a PSU in which I could replace the PSU fan (cant do it unless I get real creative with the strider's 135mm fan.

I do suppose with all the ducting I may as well make a dedicated duct from one of the NF-P12s to a shroud taking one expansion slot in front of the fans of the GTX560 and force it to vent entirely out the rear... Opinions?

Edit: Alder cant fit anything else in the case haha would love to.
7 HDDs, OP Drive, ATX mobo, GPU and Sound Card 7 fans when there are only 5 spots. only problem I find in design is a lack of exhaust otherwise case is damn solid.

[Aldersan]

Actually, now that I think about it, the fans on the 560 actually INTAKE air, and blow it out the 2nd PCI slot, if I'm not mistaken, so unless you wanted to create a duct from the intake side of the case to the GPU, I wouldn't worry about doing anything fancy with it.

[Stonerboy779]

I have two of them in my current build and they are poorly designed in that it exhausts part of its heat back into the case. However they do cool amazingly and one will get dumped in this htpc/nas so light gaming can be done at console levels of quality with my spare controller.

They are the Asus DC-II TOPs only one will go into the htpc and the exhausting into the case has me not so sure about feeding it through the PSU.

However considering I am going to do a lo of ducting elsewhere it wouldn't hurt to take the time and do the 560 too. Just so that I don't feed 50-60C heat through the PSU.

[Wordbiker]

I've been thinking along these lines lately myself.

I'm not familiar with the Silverstone PSU, but does the fan run at full speed all the time? My Gold Certified 80-Plus doesn't run unless there's enough load/heat, and frankly I've never heard it run yet. I suppose if one carefully matched a PSU like that to the load, when temps went up with discrete GPU usage, so would load and the fan would follow.

[Stonerboy779]

I've been thinking along these lines lately myself.

I'm not familiar with the Silverstone PSU, but does the fan run at full speed all the time? My Gold Certified 80-Plus doesn't run unless there's enough load/heat, and frankly I've never heard it run yet. I suppose if one carefully matched a PSU like that to the load, when temps went up with discrete GPU usage, so would load and the fan would follow.

It doesn't turn on unless it is hot enough and will ramp up slowly as temps increase, if they increase.

I have since modified my build list (which I am purchasing next week) and I will be modding a PSU with a 120mm fan to take a Noctura P12 which will run at 7v the whole time as an exhaust.