increased airflow by cutting the case

I have an Aquagate Mini R80, and after three months the CPU block decided to start overheating. I cleaned out a bit of dust, but the CPU still gets to insane temps, enough to shut the computer off or at least freeze Windows (for those who saw my other post in Hardware, this was the problem).
I talked to the guys on the Coolermaster forum, and after a bunch of "give up and get another cooling kit" remarks, someone suggested cutting a hole in the back of the case where the radiator fan is (the place with a round honeycomb of holes just under the PSU) because otherwise there's not nearly as much airflow (or, as he said it, in my case 10CFM as opposed to the advertised 50CFM).
I don't mean to doubt the guy, but I'm kind of hesitant to cut up my case. I might end up getting a Mini R120 (since the guy said the R80 was a bit small for my X2 5000+ CPU to begin with), but I want to try what I can before going out and buying another kit.

What I was wondering is, has anyone else cut the back of the case and seen a huge difference in airflow?

 

Yeah, I've done that before. Works a charm, I must say. Just be careful of dust - I had to put a filter on the fan on my machine (i'm aircooled).

 

I was also thinking of a filter for the radiator fan.
Do you think it would increase the airflow enough to reduce the CPU block temp by, say, 20-30C while on full load?

 

Perhaps not that much, 10-15C is more what you're looking at. With a blowhole on the top (to get rid of trapped air in the top of the case), more like 20C.

 

Adding a rear or top exhaust fan will definitely help overall temps to come down and should be done if air flow is insufficient. Cutting a neat 80mm hole in the case is not as easy as you might think tho. You will need a 80-mm hole saw kit or a dremel tool to do that.

I don't think that it will drop your CPU temps as much as you are expecting.

The best way to drop CPU temps is to use an aftermarket thermal paste like Artic Silver 5 and get rid of the factory heat-sink paste if that's what you used.

Once you add the additional fan you should get an aftermarket cooler like a Zalman combined with the Artic Silver thermal paste should drop temps dramatically.

 

I didn't use anything, it came prebuilt.
To make the hole, tin snips were suggested. For future reference, how good are those?

I'm using an Aspire Turbo X-Dreamer case, so I've got a side fan (intake) and top fan (exhaust). It didn't come with any fans on the front, and I'm thinking about putting a 80mm fan or two there. I also found that the radiator fan is blowing the wrong way (away from the radiator/in, instead of through the radiator/out), so tonight I'll turn it around check the temps again. So after tonight I'll have one intake (side) and two exhaust (top and radiator). If I'm still having problems I'll try a front fan.

 

I agree with Estima8tor, I dont think the real problem lies in the case cooling, why was it all right for a while? I think you need to pull the cpu and redo the thermal paste. ed

 

A bit of info on the Aquagate Mini R80 -

Universal retention module for Intel® Pentium® 4 (Socket 478/LGA 775), Xeon® (Socket 603/604),Celeron® (Socket 478), Celeron® D Socket 478/LGA775), AMD Sempron™ (Socket A/754), Athlon™ XP (Socket A), and Athlon™ 64 (Socket 754/939/940) processors.

So although your water cooling block is compatible with your socket it is aimed at single core older CPU's. I notice it does'nt mention Dual Core on the list though...

All that said if it was fine for a while then I would check a couple of things -

1) Water flow. Is the water in the cooler moving quickly? Is does the water level need topping up?

2) Is the CPU heatsink attached properly? Could be that the CPU block has moved and isn't making contact properly anymore. I agree with the suggestions above, reseat the heatsink first.

Once you've checked those I'd boot up, run the PC idle for 1/2 hour to see what temps you get then. If that's OK then run Prime95 or some other torture test and see what the temps do when your CPU is working hard.

If the temperature goes above 55C before stabalising (best to run this for a few hours to see that it doesn't keep creeping up) you may well find that the 12cm fan version of your cooler would be better.

 

I might've found the problem. The radiator fan was facing inside, not outside (as mentioned above). No wonder why the case temp was higher when the fan was on. .
When I took out the radiator and blew into it a huge dust cloud came out. I spent a good ten minutes blowing out dust before I put it back on the case and turned the fan around (so it's blowing out, not in). I had left the fan off for a while, and how the CPU didn't overheat then I don't know. Apparently in that time the radiator clogged up with that much dust, which might've been the culprit in this situation.
I just turned the computer on, so in an hour or so I'll try playing Oblivion or something for a while and see how hot it gets.
As a side note, though, it was the CPU block that got hot, defeating the purpose of cooling. If the block is fine but the CPU keeps overheating, then I'll look into the seating issue.

 

If your cpu block is getting hot and the radiator isnt you may have a water flow problem ie. the pump or an air bubble,both the radiator and the CPU block should be roughly the same temperature if you have airflow blockage