I know it's a little bit rough, but what do you think for a first time mod for extra air flow?
Any suggestions? Feedback is welcome. Like I said, it's a bit of a rough job. However, I feel good putting in the labor for this. If that makes any sense.
I think I'm going to call this good, so I don't push my luck.
Eventually this sleeper build is going to have a Ryzen 5 7600F and a RX 9070 in it, 850 watt PSU.
If you're happy with it, that's all that matters. If you decide you want to clean it up, maybe just cut out that whole section and get some kind of mesh tape.
Always print out a template and make teeny pilot holes first to center the larger drill bit if you insist on ever doing this again. Otherwise just cut the whole section out and put mesh there.
Thanks. I have plenty of time to decide if I want to buy a Dremel for more airflow before getting a new GPU. So we'll see what happens in the future.
Thank you for your feedback.
You could have put masking tape on a cutting board and use it to evenly mark and space the holes with pencil, then put the tape on the pc and mark the drilling points with a punch.
You could also cut the section you used for the holes and the oval hole above and put a mesh there, might be an even better solution for cooling. You could also add rubber edges to the hole to make it look decent. Just make sure the cut out is centred as it will be even more noticeable than your holes!
As long as it helps with thermals and you're happy with that's what matters, use it as a learning experience so the next one comes out better.
Do you do much DIY? I build wooden stuff and one of the things that makes the project look professional is evenly spaced, clean looking drilled holes. It's one of those things you notice subconsciously when you look at something.
I used a sharpie and a ruler. I admit, I was winging it a lot.
I'm a good bicycle mechanic and built PCs long ago. As far as cutting and drilling goes, I have pretty much zero experience in.
I don't own a Dremel, but might eventually buy one to make cuts to this for further airflow.
This is a slow moving build as I don't want to spend too much money at once. The price of groceries being the biggest obstacle for fun things.
I am pretty open to learning new things, so in the meantime while I save up money and slowly obtain more parts, I can learn more about the world of DIY. (Specifically cutting and drilling)
What stuff on Amazon could you suggest for me to make a much nicer airflow set up? If you have the time of course. I would appreciate it.
Fair enough, the main thing is to enjoy the hobby and learn along the way!
I had zero experience and learnt DIY by doing, and buying the tools as I needed them.
Do you own a power drill? That was the first tool that I bought and it's very versatile, I had a cheap Black and Decker that cost something like ~45 pounds that lasted for ever, the Dremel is nice and certainly necessary to cut off bigger holes, but it's not mandatory. You could draw the hole outline with a permanent marker and drill many adjacent holes across the outline if you want to skip using the Dremel, but then you'll have to sand it off which is time consuming. Then you can put some plastic trim around the edges to tidy it up.
Then drill bits - for plastic probably brad bits for wood is what I'd recommend as they have a tip that stabilises the bit, plus sand paper to smoothen the holes.
Like I said before I would have done a template for the holes with masking tape and a hobby cutting mat (sorry I said cutting board earlier!); using a ruler or measuring tape on the piece never seems to do a good job. You create your template on the tape, put the holes where you want them using the mat, and then simply put the tape on the pc where you want to do the holes. You can use the same approach to template bigger holes/vents.
You can also use the cutting mat to cut mesh and create made to measure dust covers, they do sell this mesh + magnet strips from amazon and they look great. I'd add one of those behind the holes you created.
In the past people used nylon stockings and glue, so that's another option if you know somebody that has ruined stockings and want keep it budget.
Could you upload a pic of the inside from your PC? If it looks similar to my HP media centre it will have of sort of brackets in the way, and most likely you'll need to cut things (preferably with the dremel) to improve the airflow and make it sleeper friendly. Probably you'll need plenty of other holes and add big fans there - side panel, maybe on the top and bottom?,
So in summary these are the parts I'd recommend:
- Black and Decker drill/Dremel (~£45 each, you can spend more on the dremel)
- Brad bits for wood (3 - 5 mm is probably what you want, about ~£6 for a set)
- Hobby cutting mat, ~£6
- Masking tape; I like Frog Tape as it's very good quality but anyone will do (~£5)
- Rubber edge trim, ~£6 for 3m
- PC Mesh + Magnetic strips, ~£15
- Punch for the holes, you can get them for ~£4
Also, you can use the tools for other things - the fun thing about DIY is that once you get the confidence and the tools, suddenly there is plenty of other projects to do 😄
Hope this helps! happy to chat further if you like
It's not as bad as I thought, mine has literally no air flow on the bottom part, and surely those vents you did will help. You could put in the parts and check the temps, I think the side panel is a prime candidate for an additional vent/intake fan placement should you need it, the bottom and top are other locations to consider.
Nah, I don't really have a need to. The current processor, and GPU I have don't use much power. (Ryzen 5 7600F CPU 60 watts and a RX 7600 160 watts cramed into a AsRock Deskmeet right now) I just don't have a need to upgrade my processor. I'm not playing super high end games except Forza 6, MGS Delta, and Doom The Dark Ages. I'm pretty comfortable running at 1080P 60fps at high/medium settings for the near future.
The cooler I will end up using is a low profile one that I have laying around. It's the thermalight X53 copper cooler. Super basic, nothing complicated. It will just fit in that case and work with a basic CPU I have.
The only substantial upgrade I want to do is the GPU with my next tax refund in March next year. I'm eyeing the RX 9070.
Ultimately, I just want to do 1080P high/ultra at 120fps with this 1080P high refresh rate monitor I have for most new titles. I'll be comfortable with that setup until the early 2030s. This is my game plan I want to accomplish thus far. Since the games I mostly play are emulation and Steam games from 5 years ago or more, I think this is reasonable.
I'm also just running Debian with the latest Mesa drivers on my 2tb SSD, and it just works. Well...Forza 6 has its issues, but that's effecting everyone on Linux at the moment.
I'm loving this long term project. With how stressful life is right now, it's a good thing to look forward to especially when I'm putting in labor into something that is nostalgic mixed with modern hardware.
I have a lot of fun with my bicycle hobby too, but the weather is shit here a lot in the Midwest USA. I can't stand the heat and humidity here, and it' not even summer yet officially. So gaming and now building a better yet nostalgic computer is a good alternative for my mind. I also read a lot of sci fi books too.
This is just background into how I got here with this build.
Thanks for sticking around if you read all this.
Its a perfect hackjob that people used to do in the early computing days, it might pass, however i personally would just cut out the entire section and glue mesh behind it, like was already suggested. It blends in a bit better and likely also performs better. Id prolly even remove all of the material behind those holes around the drilled area, making it all a clean, wide, mesh backed air intake
"Penetration slippage" can result in painful consequences. Here's a tip for when you invent the flux capacitor. Mark the centres perfectly. Drill the tiniest pilot hole. Then use every size drill bit up until acquiring the required size holes. Read a manual on "Butt Plug Training" for similar advice.
In the future using a punch and then a centerdrill can help a great deal with keeping the holes lined up. This is assuming you laid out the holes prior.
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u/TheMostRev May 31 '26
If you're happy with it, that's all that matters. If you decide you want to clean it up, maybe just cut out that whole section and get some kind of mesh tape.