Does running a desktop with the side panel off make a noticeable difference in CPU and/or GPU temperatures? Any other pros/cons of the idea?

[Bleedingyamato]

I was thinking about taking off the side panel on my main desktop if it would noticeably lower the temperature of my CPU and/or GPU while folding or mining.  

 

I'm wondering if it'll help enough to bother doing and if there's any pro/cons I should be aware of?

 

I've ran my computer with the panel off to check on things briefly but I've never ran for an extended period of time with no side panel on.  

 

(I'm referring to the side panel on the front side of the motherboard of course.)

 

@Ithanul I thought maybe you'd have some input on this though of course anyone is free to respond.  

 

 

@Energycore I wasn't sure where to post this since it concerns multiple sub-topic beyond just air cooling or cases so I thought general was the best fit.

 

Though if you think it should be moved just please tell me where it ends up.

[McHox]

-Dust
-Bad airflow over components like motherboard vrm

[Mooshi]

What case do you have?

[Bleedingyamato]

Just now, McHox said:

-Dust
-Bad airflow over components like motherboard vrm

Dumb question: where are the VRM things on a motherboard?

 

Idk what a VRM is actually...  ?

[Bleedingyamato]

1 minute ago, Mooshi said:

What case do you have?

This:

 

http://www.aerocool.us/pgs/pgs-a/pgs_a_a1000_w.html

 

Aerocool Aero-1000

[Guest]

Just now, Bleedingyamato said:

Dumb question: where are the VRM things on a motherboard?

 

Idk what a VRM is actually...  ?

usually to the top and to the left of the cpu socket

[Gravesnear]

 

1 minute ago, Bleedingyamato said:

Dumb question: where are the VRM things on a motherboard?

 

Idk what a VRM is actually...  ?

Those cubes sticking up around the side of the cpu are your vrm.

 

Watch this:

 

As far as removing side panel it may reduce temps, especially if you have a large fan blowing into it. The dust will be unmanageable though. I've done that exact thing before.

[Mooshi]

7 minutes ago, Bleedingyamato said:

This:

 

http://www.aerocool.us/pgs/pgs-a/pgs_a_a1000_w.html

 

Aerocool Aero-1000

Hmmm..the case seems well ventilated

[DarkBlade2117]

You're better off taking off the front or top panel. That'll increase inflow onto components rather than just having it open

[Cyracus]

if you don't have good airflow into the case, or the rad/heatsink are starved for air then yes it could help, if you stick a box fan in place of a side panel get a window screen or a giant pair of nylons to cover the back end to mitigate dust issues and your temps will drop

[Bleedingyamato]

13 minutes ago, Gravesnear said:

 

Those cubes sticking up around the side of the cpu are your vrm.

 

Watch this:

 

As far as removing side panel it may reduce temps, especially if you have a large fan blowing into it. The dust will be unmanageable though. I've done that exact thing before.

It is a bit dusty in this room.  I'm just trying to find a balance between GPU fan speed and other measures to keep my 1080 ti at as low a temp as I can if it's going to be running at max load for several hours at a time.  

 

11 minutes ago, Mooshi said:

Hmmm..the case seems well ventilated

Yeah but even at 60% fan speed on my FTW3 it still gets to around 66-68C and I've seen it at 71C a few brief times.

 

Increasing the fan speed above 60% makes the fans get too loud for me to stand while near my tower so I was thinking this could be a suitable way to help.

 

 

I'm planning to replace the two 120mm corsair ML120 front intake fans with 2 140mm ML140 fans to in case that might increase airflow into the case and reduce fan noise a bit too while I'm at it.  

 

8 minutes ago, DarkBlade2117 said:

You're better off taking off the front or top panel. That'll increase inflow onto components rather than just having it open

The top doesn't come off I don't think.  As for the front I think that might but I'd lose the filter over the intake fans.  

[SageOfSpice]

I'd just set up some custom fan curves instead. The only time opening up the case improves temps is if you have insufficient airflow in the first place. Custom fan curve, and you can use HWInfo to set up an alarm to activate a shutdown command for your miner if it reaches a certain temp.

[Arika]

[removed]

[manikyath]

if taking the sidepanel off makes a notable difference you need to rethink your fan setup.

 

in fact, some youtuber has done testing on this, and in some cases temperatures are better than they are on an open testbench.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Bleedingyamato said:

I was thinking about taking off the side panel on my main desktop if it would noticeably lower the temperature of my CPU and/or GPU while folding or mining.  

 

I'm wondering if it'll help enough to bother doing and if there's any pro/cons I should be aware of?

 

I've ran my computer with the panel off to check on things briefly but I've never ran for an extended period of time with no side panel on.  

 

(I'm referring to the side panel on the front side of the motherboard of course.)

 

@Ithanul I thought maybe you'd have some input on this though of course anyone is free to respond.  

 

 

@Energycore I wasn't sure where to post this since it concerns multiple sub-topic beyond just air cooling or cases so I thought general was the best fit.

 

Though if you think it should be moved just please tell me where it ends up.

it can help, but thats if your airflow is pretty shitty to begin with. Good cooling systems would beat any open case solution.

[Bleedingyamato]

9 minutes ago, Sierra Fox said:

side panel off will allow a large volume of air into the case, but will be moving slower. it should still bring the temps down more on the CPU and GPU than the panel on depending on how good the ventilation is, but as others said, your VRMs will be hotter because they rely on passive cooling which means you need faster airflow.

 

BUT

Dust, shit loads of it,

Noise, shit loads of it

 

Would the VRMs get a lot hotter or a little?  I mean enough to be worried about?

 

Why shit loads of noise?

 

6 minutes ago, manikyath said:

if taking the sidepanel off makes a notable difference you need to rethink your fan setup.

 

in fact, some youtuber has done testing on this, and in some cases temperatures are better than they are on an open testbench.

You may have a point..  ?

 

I took the panel off a little while ago and afterburner shows the GPU temp is 57C.  It had been around 66-68C before I took the panel off.  

 

Though I have to wonder: the 1080 ti is a high performance card that draws a lot of power so it presumably puts off a lot of heat so it stands to reason that even decent/good cooling might struggle a little to cool it as well as I might like maybe?

 

Also I could turn up the fans on my 1080 ti higher than the 60% they're at currently so I could probably get the temperature lower that way if I didn't care about noise.  

 

4 minutes ago, NovaMan01 said:

it can help, but thats if your airflow is pretty shitty to begin with. Good cooling systems would beat any open case solution.

We're gonna need a bigger boat?  I mean fans.  lol

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Bleedingyamato said:

You may have a point..  ?

 

I took the panel off a little while ago and afterburner shows the GPU temp is 57C.  It had been around 66-68C before I took the panel off.  

 

Though I have to wonder: the 1080 ti is a high performance card that draws a lot of power so it presumably puts off a lot of heat so it stands to reason that even decent/good cooling might struggle a little to cool it as well as I might like maybe?

 

Also I could turn up the fans on my 1080 ti higher than the 60% they're at currently so I could probably get the temperature lower that way if I didn't care about noise.  

think about this without thinking computers.

 

you have a box in which devices produce heat, the box can be opened up, and has the option to install active ventilation (fans).

 

what's the most sensible idea? have the box open when it is creating heat? or making sure its active ventilation can suck out all the hot air efficiently and reliably, delivering cool air in its place?

[Bleedingyamato]

7 minutes ago, manikyath said:

think about this without thinking computers.

 

you have a box in which devices produce heat, the box can be opened up, and has the option to install active ventilation (fans).

 

what's the most sensible idea? have the box open when it is creating heat? or making sure its active ventilation can suck out all the hot air efficiently and reliably, delivering cool air in its place?

The second idea?    But idk why though.  If I did I wouldn't have made a topic asking about all this.  ?

[Arika]

[removed]

[Bleedingyamato]

16 minutes ago, Sierra Fox said:

because the case muffles sound. without a side panel the sound doesn't bounce off anything.

 

if you have a room with a speaker in it playing music, you will notice a difference in sound outside the room if the door is open or closed. Fans in computers aren't exactly the quietest things in the world. you could have anywhere from 4 - 10 fan depending on your case all running at once

 

depends on the ambient temperature and general airflow of the room. you can try it for a few hours and monitor the temps between the panel on and off

There's 3 case fans.  2 intake 1 exhaust all 120mm.  Not counting the 120mm fan on my H7 CPU cooler and the 3 fans on my 1080 ti.  

[DrLingard13]

Jay just did a video talking about this. He talked about why he isn't using his 1800x build because the case's airflow is awlful and has to pull all the panels off. It's more a case by case subject.

[Shreyas1]

23 minutes ago, DrLingard13 said:

Jay just did a video talking about this. He talked about why he isn't using his 1800x build because the case's airflow is awlful and has to pull all the panels off. It's more a case by case subject.

Link (I think):

 

 

[MorganO]

i ran without my sidepanel on, i mine during the during the night

[96Ron69]

I recently put my new build together and ran it with the side off for most of the first week, mostly because I was still waiting on some extra cables etc and I didn't like the idea of taking the glass side panel off again Funnily enough, my tempts actually improved - or, at the very least, stayed the same - once the panel was on. As others have said, dust build up is a massive con. If your fan setup is working as it should, there shouldn't be much of an advantage in leaving it off.

[Bleedingyamato]

1 hour ago, DrLingard13 said:

Jay just did a video talking about this. He talked about why he isn't using his 1800x build because the case's airflow is awlful and has to pull all the panels off. It's more a case by case subject.

I wonder why he wouldn't have noticed the airflow might be bad before building using whatever case and fan setup he chose?

 

57 minutes ago, Shreyas1 said:

Link (I think):

 

 

That case looks bad with the solid panels.  I mean who thought that choking the airflow on the front and top was a good idea?  lol

 

Even opening to have a little gap doesn't fix that and the front panel tilted forward looks silly.  

 

That's nice you can remove the front and top panels but then the case looks slightly iffy because you can tell it wasn't really intended to have the panels off.

 

I made a similar mistake buying a corsair 88R for my secondary desktop.  It only has small intake vents on the sides and bottom of the front panel that is solid on the front surface.  

 

I should've gotten a spec-m2 mATX case like I used for my friend's desktop that I built for her.  It's literally the exact same case but with a much better open design front panel with a nice sized filtered grill over the front fan mounts.  

 

52 minutes ago, KOMTechAndGaming said:

i ran without my sidepanel on, i mine during the during the night

What graphics card do you mine with?

 

Doesn't the noise from your computer disturb your sleep? 

 

6 minutes ago, 96Ron69 said:

I recently put my new build together and ran it with the side off for most of the first week, mostly because I was still waiting on some extra cables etc and I didn't like the idea of taking the glass side panel off again Funnily enough, my tempts actually improved - or, at the very least, stayed the same - once the panel was on. As others have said, dust build up is a massive con. If your fan setup is working as it should, there shouldn't be much of an advantage in leaving it off.

Maybe your airflow is better than mine?

 

I do have the fan curves for my case fans set to "silent" in the bios so that may be contributing to the problem.

 

Either way I'll likely be replacing the front 120mm fans with 140mm fans so hopefully that'll solve the issue.  

 

It's not that I have to have the panel off to get acceptable temps for my GPU but with an approximately 8-10C different by removing the panel it would suggest my cooling setup needs tweaking.  ?