Installing an additional fan. (Silencio 652s.)

When I run BF1 max on my PC with the front panel closed it overheats and goes black/hangs. I'm a little lazy I guess and I know it kinda beats the purrpose of a silent case but I tried wrecking the door off of the case and it didn't go too smoothly. (When it's opened normally I keep kicking it closed by accident.) So I'm looking to install an additional fan in the side panel or up top.

I'm guessing I should put one in the side panel because that is right where the GPU sits and I think that's what's overheating. Plus the air intake is the big problem, not so much the out...take.

So I found the Aerocooler Silent Master (but apparently not very silent but that's ok) 200mm and it seems like it should fit. I had to pick this one because all other fans I found were thicker and they would probably get in the way of my CPU cooler. XD

So I just screw the fan to the panel, and plug it into the motherboard's 4 pin fan header and I'm done? Is it that easy?

Don't think, use HW Monitor and see what temps you get! Maybe your CPU is overheating, in which case you could try and undervolt it. Another option (if your case supports it) is to swap the front fans with 140 mm ones, they move a lot more air than 120 mm, and add a top exhaust fan. A 200 mm fan on a side panel might cause vibrations or rattling, I wouldn't want that in my PC.

Don't overload the fan header. Now unless this is a crappy 2000+++ rpm fan that won't be a problem I believe.

@horgen: Right. Overloading the fan header. That's exactly the type of stuff I was looking for because I would never think of that. I'll look into it, thanks horgen.

And if it has a 4 pin connector it's better than a 3 pin, right? Because then it can control the speed?

Yes, but it's not that important for case fans, if you set them up correctly you can have a quiet case and good airflow.

Ok guys, thank you. I think I have enough information. I will check out the temperatures to be sure of what is happening there. That program you recommended is pretty neat. Sadly 120mm is the max up front or I would have replaced those first. If it rattles on the side panel I can still mount it on top as an exhaust fan.

I didn't expect fan installation to be so simple but really... I suppose not everything has to be complicated. Still glad I asked before going at it.

I just let it run BF1 until crash:
min. 0.....5....10....15....20
CPU 35C 50C 53C 55C 55C (4790k)
GPU 35C 65C 62C 70C 72C (msi 780ti)

And then it crashed at around 23 min. mark with a BSOD (clock_watchdog_timeout) which is a CPU error not so much GPU but I've seen other errors happen so I'm not sure it's at the heart of the problem. And usually the screen goes black (with sound hanging, unresponsive) or it even shuts down. The case fans all went to full eventually and seem to work. The temps don't seem too crazy that time. Maybe building up a little too fast on the GPU side of things.

Thing is... if I leave the front panel open it never crashes and when it's closed it always crashes when doing this, so I figure it has to be a heat related issue. BF1 is the only game I got that causes it to happen. It also runs the hottest/gets the loudest while playing BF1 of all the games that I played. Either way I'm curious to see what happens when I put in the extra mega fan.

Try reducing CPU and GPU overclock, or if you didn't overclock anything try undervolting it. It worked for me, it was BF1 open beta and TW3 that got me to undervolt my GPU and both CPU and GPU temps went down, and with less noise of course. I didn't really lose any fps since my FX-6300 is a bottleneck.

Those temperatures don't seem to be all that high. Especially if you're letting BF1 run while monitoring the temps and your CPU/GPU are under load. While heat can cause a "Clock_watchdog_timeout" error, they can also be caused by driver issues or USB device errors, or other motherboard related problems that are keeping your CPU from talking to all the other parts on your motherboard correctly. Make sure all your Windows Updates are...up to date. Update your BIOS. Do a bit of cable management to improve air flow in your case (if they are a bit untidy). Make sure and blow out any dust that may be collecting in your case, heat sinks, etc. Maybe it's time to replace the thermal paste on your CPU. Again, a temp of 55C under a load isn't really that high. But if you're noticing that you've got improved performance with the front lid off, then it may just be heat. When you say that BF1 causes your computer to get loud, can you tell if it's the video card fans spinning up, or is it the CPU fans? Again, see if there is an excess build up of dust in either your GPU or CPU's heat sinks and try to blow it out. Also, make sure you've got your fans faced in a direction that ensures air is being moved through your case to help with cooling. Make sure that at least one of them is sucking air in, while another is blowing it out. It doesn't have to blow this way, but it's a good example to follow to make sure your system is getting rid of heat efficiently.

Thanks guys I'm giving it some driver tlc and I'll place it on the operating table for an intimate dusting. I'm pretty sure I already updated BIOS and every driver when I first had this issue but I'll double check. Was going to clean it anyway to install that fan.

And the funny thing is that the issue is 100% replicable by opening/closing the front panel. Before I figured out that that was part of the problem I must have let it crash close to 10 times consistently, and with the panel open I must have played the game extensively with no problems over 50 times easily. And when it would crash at times I'd look at the panel and I had forgotten to open it/kicked it closed, every time it crashed.

I don't notice any difference in in-game performance though. So it's not like it's noticeably throttling at all, despite the issue being well... apparently airflow related. CPU has no OC at the moment, and GPU I think is factory OC'ed. I'll look into that too. The numbers on the PSU all seem to be fine. 12v rails seem fine. I'll post one more time tonight to give results. I got a feeling that the silly fan is going to solve everything.

My theory is that, even though the temperatures didn't seem that high, it got real high in the last 3 minutes before it BSOD'd. If I look inside the case the GPU is so big it practically separates my case in two. That plus very chocked air intake through the front panel means that the GPU can't draw in enough air to blow out the back end. When it sets its fans to full throttle that won't really do much of anything to help cool it and it'll steadily grow warmer, and warmer. I'll do one more heat test where I'll keep the temperatures on screen at all times to be sure. But I don't like letting it crash XD

It's annoying that my upper drive bay (that I don't use) is impossible to remove and it obstructs air flow in combination with the GPU. But I do see my two SSD's are placed very poorly for the airflow to the CPU so I'll lower them down a bit for the bottom front intake to deal with.

Ok so I updated the graphics driver. Everything else was up to date even BIOS. I licked it all clean and re-positioned the SSD's and removed the upper half of the HDD bays. Which freed up the back of one and a half front fan. Awesome. That will definitely help with airflow.

I did another test run but still didn't see crazy temperatures before it stopped working again (with front panel closed). It did take like 20 minutes longer to crash. No idea. I wanted to install the new fan up top at first but the cable it came with is not long enough so I put it in the side panel and uhm... well let's call it a tight fit with the CPU cooler. At least it won't cause vibrations hahaha

Anyway I just played BF1 for two hours and it's working so far. Temps are CPU 30C and GPU 28C while idle and on load the CPU gets 50-60C and GPU never got above 70C which I think should be absolutely fine? Either way it seems to be solved this way.

I am a little confused that HWMonitor seems to only see 3 of the 4 system fans since I fiddled around inside the case. But they all seem to be working so job's done. Thanks for helping me out <3

@KungfuKitten:

under 80C is good for a gpu.

Honestly, don't worry about it unless you want to use jet engine fans.