If at all possible, he should upgrade to a full tower.

If this is not possible, and the case allows for the addition of
secondary/tertiary fans, add them (assuming he has adequate power
supply/connectors).  There should already be three present (power supply,
cpu, and primary-case).  Make sure that within your combination of case
fans, you are recycling the air, i.e.:  have 1-2 fans blowing air INTO the
case and at least one blowing air OUT of the case.

Leaving the case off is a very controversial issue.  I would like to see a
study on the merits of case-on/case-off in regard to individual component
temps.  Anyway, if he does leave the case off and ESPECIALLY if he has a box
fan blowing into the case, he had better spray out (for dust) the componts
at LEAST once a week.  Leave a fan running for a week or so and see what
starts to develop on the blades and grill...they are dust magnets and while
they do benefit cooling, the dust is an important factor to consider...I
would opt for the bigger case, even if it cost $150 or so, that is better
than replace 2 hard drives and a cpu...

Brad Boutwell
BDB Design
Tulsa, OK

*******************

Please advise me with this case:
A client has a PIII computer with 7 cards pluged in (1 AGP, 5 PCI, 1 ISA, so
he used all space on the mobo), also he has CD-ROM and CD-R next to each
other
('cos the case has 3 5" bay, but the lowest one is unusable because the size
of Abit mobo), 2 harddisks in a normal size ATX tower case. Now he's runnig
the computer w/o case and use a fan to blow ait to the computer. That was
the
only idea I could give him to run the computer without overheat and change
to
a fulltower case. (one thing I don't understand is he knew the danger of
overheat, but still refuse to use a bigger case and put these much things
in.)

Could you tell me how to run this computer with case on? I ran out of idea
how
to make the way. Many thanks!

J Qian

PS: last summer, the only way to run my own computer in home (without
overheat
problem)  was to left the case on (at that time, I didn't have an extra fan
for the case). I personaly disagree with the "case off will rise up temp"
issue.

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