Cutting a hole!

[Gurky]

I have a HP ProDesk 600 G5 as my plex sever. Great little thing but runs a little warm, can I cut a hole above the fan , smooth it out add some mesh and this will aid cooling and air flow or does it use pressure from pulling in the front? I know some small PCs use the pulling of air through to help with this. I guess option B is is cut a hole near the front instead? See images form my babbling. 

 

I know holes won't drop it massive % boot maybe a few enough to help boost a little more since long load not always hitting full and also sound full tilt love some noise sucking that air in.

 

A would be hold above cooler, B would be front hole.

 

EDIT: One thing I got wrong was the fan is actually under the slow B area! So maybe doesn't use as much pressure as I thought for cooling.

[Applefreak]

8 minutes ago, Gurky said:

I have a HP ProDesk 600 G5 as my plex sever. Great little thing but runs a little warm, can I cut a hole above the fan , smooth it out add some mesh and this will aid cooling and air flow or does it use pressure from pulling in the front? I know some small PCs use the pulling of air through to help with this. I guess option B is is cut a hole near the front instead? See images form my babbling. 

 

I know holes won't drop it massive % boot maybe a few enough to help boost a little more since long load not always hitting full and also sound full tilt love some noise sucking that air in.

 

A would be hold above cooler, B would be front hole.

Your PC uses a laptop style fan. I'd bet it is meant to draw air across the board so messing with that could be even worse on some components but you can try it out. Something less dramatic would be to replace the thermal compound. That machine is a few years old and stock thermal paste is mediocre at best so that should give you a bit more headroom (3-5 C). It may not be enough to sustain higher loads though without dropping clocks.

 

What would I do, well.... I'd open the Box up even further (bigger hole). Place a regular fan on top of it and have it pull air out (pull because the case was meant for air to be drawn in). Aside from cutting into the case, you will also need to find a way to power that fan. There are no regular fan headers on that board. You can either cut the wires of the stock fan or get a 5V rated fan and a USB to fan adapter and run it that way. Noctua makes 5V fans that should work for example. Now the size and thickness of the fan you use is up to you and a choice of aesthetics. I'd go for a slim 120 mm fan, but that is up to you. Remember that you won't be able to use the PWM signal to control the fan speed so you need to rely on resistors to regulate it's speed. Regular 25 mm thick fans are more powerful at lower speeds than the slim ones. Something you can play around with. 

 

Something to try out, run the system open, without the top part, if that's possible, and observe the temperatures. If the difference is huge, chances are that tiny fan is not up to the task. You could theoretically also replace that one but they only get louder and not much better.

[jaslion]

Short asnwer: NO.

 

Whilst the cpu will run cooler all the other components will start cooking as the fan of the hp is mean to provise cooling and airflow over all other parts.

 

Disrupting this is a bad idea

 

If you really wanna do it. Just remove the top case, make a frame from like eggcrate or 3d print something and then put a 120 or 140mm fan on it that blows air down (you can use controllable usb to 3pin/4pin fan connectors for that). Far better option than cutting holes as it keeps the system in tact and working as intended if you want to transform it back to normal and it will work better than a random hole in the case

[Gurky]

1 hour ago, Applefreak said:

Your PC uses a laptop style fan. I'd bet it is meant to draw air across the board so messing with that could be even worse on some components but you can try it out. Something less dramatic would be to replace the thermal compound. That machine is a few years old and stock thermal paste is mediocre at best so that should give you a bit more headroom (3-5 C). It may not be enough to sustain higher loads though without dropping clocks.

 

What would I do, well.... I'd open the Box up even further (bigger hole). Place a regular fan on top of it and have it pull air out (pull because the case was meant for air to be drawn in). Aside from cutting into the case, you will also need to find a way to power that fan. There are no regular fan headers on that board. You can either cut the wires of the stock fan or get a 5V rated fan and a USB to fan adapter and run it that way. Noctua makes 5V fans that should work for example. Now the size and thickness of the fan you use is up to you and a choice of aesthetics. I'd go for a slim 120 mm fan, but that is up to you. Remember that you won't be able to use the PWM signal to control the fan speed so you need to rely on resistors to regulate it's speed. Regular 25 mm thick fans are more powerful at lower speeds than the slim ones. Something you can play around with. 

 

Something to try out, run the system open, without the top part, if that's possible, and observe the temperatures. If the difference is huge, chances are that tiny fan is not up to the task. You could theoretically also replace that one but they only get louder and not much better.

Awesome yeah Laptop fan love it! yeah the Fan is further forward than I thought so maybe doesn't use the pressure as much as I thought it had. I have used PWM to USB before for a steady fan freeze I know I'd get something better with a 5v and a adapter like the other comment said. I'm currently running Cinabench with Lid was max 84c and without is 80c. but sits at 78 vs sitting at 82 so 4c difference plus some paste maybe a goo team. thermal paste is a good shout too, its an ex office PC so maybe was always on drying out.