Building Your Own Graphics Workstation, Part Two
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Start with the installation of the Enermax power supply. It slides in pretty much to match up with the holes in the back. One of its fans blows out, but it has a fan on its underside that will suck air up and out of the case. This fan's gold grill gets slightly in the way of two fins on the metal seat in the case, so use a pair of pliers to bend the fins back (toward the front of the case so as not to block the air intake of that fan) and down a half inch or so, and the power supply will seat rather nicely in there. Screw the power supply into the back panel and you're all set. There are only two types of component screws typically; use the wider threaded kind for the supply. If they don't work, the finer thread screws will.[an error occurred while processing this directive]
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In the case, you'll notice two purple fan brackets in the back (unless you're color blind in which case they'll be gray) below the power supply, and a vent for a 92mm fan one above the power supply. Make sure you have the fans pointed to blow out and snap them into their respective brackets. These Vantec fans have an arrow on the side to indicate airflow, but most fans blow toward the side where you see the red and yellow power wires. Next, take the 92mm fan and screw it in at the vent hole above the power supply. You might want to invest in a couple packs of rubber grommets to go between the fan and the case. These help reduce the vibration caused by the fans, and help reduce noise. You can get them at directron.com or pcmods.com for a couple bucks for a set of four. Or send me an email, and I'll send you two "very special" rubber grommets for $800. And by "very special" I mean completely ordinary, perhaps even broken. There is a bracket in the front, at the bottom of the case, so snap a 80mm fan into that one to blow into the case. Above that are two removable metal drive cages. Take those both out, and you'll notice a 80mm fan bracket at their ends. Snap in the other two 80mm fans to blow in and with their power cords going through and out the other side of the cage. If you don't have this particular case, first panic, and then weep, preferably on the phone to your mother. The preparation procedure with other cases is basically the same: Stick fans in the front to blow in and fans in the rear to blow out. Some cases have snap-in brackets, but most don't. For those that don't you'll need to screw them in using the screws that came with the fans. If this is the case, you should get more rubber grommets. It's not a necessity by any means, but why pass up a chance to spend a few more dollars?
All that remains is the fan in the side panel door. This will sit right over the video card, which is good. We'd want it to blow into the case, over the video card's heatsink when the card is running hot. I suppose you could have it blow out, too, but then you'd be a weirdo. The case came with a fan installed (blowing in), but I wanted to replace it with one of my quieter fans. Since Zalman was nice enough to send me a bunch of their cooling stuff, including an 80mm fan, I decided to use theirs. It has basically the same dB(A) rating as the Vantec; both would be a bit quieter than the stock fan that came with the case.
Once I remove the stock fan's plastic rivets, I take the fan off, and put in the Zalman. I put rubber grommets between the fan and the case and put the plastic rivets back in to secure it in place. Be careful, though, these rivets will break without too much effort, and there are no extras that come with the case. On second thought, why did I even bother to replace this one? Control freak.
Now that the fans are all in, the case is good to go!
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