Silent Base 801 Airflow mod!

[Mortenhoe]

So. I bought the Silent Base 801 because it was invertible. I wanted my PC on the left side. This case also looks nice.

But it got pretty hot. Especially with a 360 front rad.

Just by feeling the top of case by hand, you can tell whats wrong. Lack of airflow in top of case.

This case wasnt really made for having fans placed in top plate, so I had to carefully measure fan placement or the side panel releasing mechanics would not work anymore.

It turned out to be a very tight fit! Everything touches slightly but side panels can be clicked in.

Overall this mod gave me an 10-11C drop on GPU. I came from 71C sometimes even more in GPU heavy games, to a 60C MAX now. (2070 Strix)

I could have kept the fans in the original tray and just left the fan grill in top as is, but I decided the extra clearance would make less tug of war with the GPU fans.

 

I hope this can inspire or help people who like this case, but battle with temperatures.

 

The build:

 

The Cutting:

 

The tray I removed:

 

 

Fans are a pretty tight fit:

 

 

3 x 140mm Be Quiet Silent Wings 3 PWM:

[Alinul27]

Great job, i have the same case and i was thinking about doing the same thing as you did. Where can i find that top grille?

[Beijing]

I found this mod before I started building my custom loop and never thought it really was this bad. But it is.

I have a 360 radiator in the front (fans blowing in) and one on the top tray (fans blowing towards the top).

The top of the case just does not have enough holes. Even worse: due to the open space beside the radiator on the top tray the hot air is blown back inside the case.

I stopped at 40 Celsius water temp and removed the top, which sucks because then your side panels can't be secured by the mechanism.

 

I am doing the exact same thing to my Silent Base 801. The top grill is a "Fan Grill 3x140" by German company Watercool (at least it looks the same).

 

Are the mounting pins of the Silent Wings 3 tight enough to hold e.g. during transportation?

 

Thanks for posting your mod, well done!

[dhs87888]

Thanks a lot man, I am going through the cases for my new pc, Silent Base 801 was on the top of the list.

 

Your sharing have saved me from a terrible decision. Thanks again

 

[Beijing]

@dhs87888bequiet recently released the successor to the 801 - the 802 which comes with replaceable front and top cover for better airflow.

They also announced (I also asked their support) that top cover and front of the 802 fit on the 801 and should be available for purchase beginning of next year.

[ScrappyDvG]

When will they release the 802 top and front covers i've googled for an hour with no results.

[Mortenhoe]

Wow, sorry guys. Didnt get any email notifications that this thread had any activity!

Yes, this is the 420 fangrill from Watercool. Any 420 grill will do though.

I remembered this thread, because I just saw the new 802 case. There are a couple of sellers in germany that has the new front grill - I will definitly be getting that!

My top grill mod kinda solved all my troubles so I forgot all about this thread!

[Realer]

On 12/19/2020 at 5:03 PM, Beijing said:

@dhs87888bequiet recently released the successor to the 801 - the 802 which comes with replaceable front and top cover for better airflow.

They also announced (I also asked their support) that top cover and front of the 802 fit on the 801 and should be available for purchase beginning of next year.

I have a Silent Base 801 and recently upgraded my system with a beQuiet Silent loop 2 AIO cooler and Sapphire Toxic RX 6900 XT, als with AIO cooling.
To improve airflow i bought the airflow front panel which looked a lot better dan just leaving the original panel out and definitely helped airflow in the front,
but  with a 240 rad in front and a 360 rad on top, the lack of airflow on top has become very apparant.

(I can't fry an egg on the top cover but it gets pretty hot...)


This week i found this thread and got very excited about @Beijing's post about the top cover of the 802 also coming available for purchase.
However i could find no trace of it being for sale anywhere, so i send an email to beQuiet asking about the compatibility, availability and price.

This was their inital answer:

 

"Unfortunately we can´t offer the top cover for upgradeing 801 cases. It will be released in retail and can be used to upgrade the top cover."

I then asked if they knew when it would become available: 

"unfortunately, it is not yet known when the top cover will appear in stores. Please be patient and keep yourself up to date on our homepage."

So almost a year has passed and still no indication of when the top cover might become available. Seems like i have to start cutting myself (great job btw @Mortenhoe)
or maybe buy a used 802 case as a donor..
 

 

[Mortenhoe]

It's not easy to take off the case top - which is why, I suspect, it is not in sales yet.

Front cover is snap and go, but top cover is fiddling and screws.

Anyways. If you know someone who knows which end of an angle grinder has to go into the metal, get some painters tape and any 420 grill on the market.

Remove top. Tape it up with painters tape. Draw the grill with a pencil and then proceed to cut out material with the angle grinder.

I painted the metal end with a black sharpie, but you cant really see them because of the grill, so it wasnt really relevant.

[Beijing]

Just noticed I had this tab still open

 

I finished my top modification in September 2020: https://imgur.com/a/gCvuyH7

Using a Dremel it took me quite some time because the material is steel.

 

In June 2021 after nagging the bequiet Support for some months I finally could order the mesh front directly from them.

[Mortenhoe]

Nice to see. Great job. I'm from Denmark, and I found a german seller for the front, so I also have that now. This makes this case how it should have been all along