[darsunt]

My computer came stock with a single case fan with modest airflow. There were rather small holes in the case that forced what air that was drawn in to flow over the bottom of the hard drive and the sides of the two optical drives.

Now I plan to drill some holes and install a fan in the side removable panel to push air in. This would improve air movement in the box immensely. But it would also mean the original airflow drawn in over HD and optical drives might stop.

Is this something to worry about? Or will the extra air movement be worth it?

[Ethereal_Dragon]

Shouldn't be a problem for the optical drives & HDD's. If you only have a single intake fan now, you might also want to look into 1 or 2 exhaust fans. It is good practice that intake and exhaust volume's are about equal, to get the air moving through the case. If you are worried about the amount of noise from the fan, look for a queit 120mm fan that pushes alot of air.

Good luck!

[bmxfreakrider]

just make sure that those built in fan grills on the case are not restricting airflow (like mine, 92mm hole, but holes about as big as the inside part of a bic pen spaced about 1cm apart. if you got this happening just cut the grill out with a jigsaw/dremil/tinsnips and that should help. also, try to keep intake air going from the bottom front of the case, and exhaust at the top back part of it, because heat rises.

[darsunt]

I plan to cut holes for the fan on the lower right side of the removable panel, as close to the front as I can. It will be blowing on the lower part of the motherboard, and plenty of fresh air should move up to the motherboard heat sink and the cpu heat sink.

Hopefully the material is not too hard to drill. Why make a removable panel very hard?

Per above advice I won't worry about the optical drive and the hard drive.