SG13 MITX - case fan or liquid cooler?

Billy86

So I did a build last year with a lot of help on here and it's working perfect, using a GTX 970 and i5 6600K in a tiny SG13 case. Recently though I've come across a bit of an issue...

When I got a 4TB HDD earlier this year it restricted space inside which was fine, but seemed to be leading to a bit of heat buildup when playing games for extended periods. It wasn't too serious, but I've noticed recently (particularly since getting Total War: Warhammer about a fortnight back) that it has hit pretty outrageous heat on a few occasions - upwards of 90c per core. I have reapplied thermal paste but the issue is still persisting, so it doesn't appear to be that. The CPU fan is a Noctua NH-L9I which is well reviewed and was doing excellently early on too, and I just blasted the entire insides with compressed air the other day.

The case also has a GTX 970 but even overclocked it always seems cool enough that you could mistake it for not even being turned on, largely this has to do with a long mesh along the side of the case on the GPU side which is clearly doing an excellent job of immediatley pushing any warm air out. This if I'm correct would mean the CPU is what is generating nearly all of the heat inside of the case.

There's a tiny desk fan I got from Aldi for a fiver when we had that blast of sticky heat and high 20s back May/June, and blowing that directly into the side mesh drops the temperatures back into the 40s within about 2-3 minutes, so it appears to just be warm air (presumably from the CPU) getting stuck in the case itself as opposed to anything being critically wrong with any components - though I am open to correction on that!

Because of the positioning of the HDD I will not be able to go above 120mm in size either way (this isn't my one, but the HDD goes -directly- above where the fan is in this image. Now I'm assuming the case fan is the best idea here to push air out the front and just leave it be but I'm just seeking a few other opinions first to be safe (there is only the one spot available so I cannot do both).

Also am I correct that the fan on a liquid cooler is built in such a way that it only circulates air within itself? E.g. that the fan essentially will not do anything for airflow beyond keeping the... well... liquid cool for the liquid cooler?

K.O.Kiki

Try running it at full power with the top cover off; if it's not toasty anymore, then it's definitely hot air getting trapped inside.

I'd also try flipping the case fan around, to pull hot air out.
And check your BIOS settings, make sure that the CPU Vcore (voltage) wasn't accidentally set high.

If that doesn't help enough/at all, I'd get a push-pull 120mm rad.
Arctic Liquid Freezer 120 has the best reviews AFAIK.

Billy86

Cheers for that! I had heard the Freezer ones were among the best at that end, with Corsair/Kraken being more geared to higher power and larger fan sizes. I've done a check there and I'm on 1.2 for the CPU, though I had forgot when I upgraded my ram to 16GB 3200mhz I had fiddled with some settings there which had the RAM coming to 1.35 via XMP (I had 16GB 2133mhz but was doing to ultra-budget builds as gifts so split one of those sticks into each of those as the two 3200mhz sticks were only £110 on one of those great Amazon flash sales). Have set that back to default now, have the lid off and I'll go give Warhammer a whirl for an hour or so and see how I get on.

One of those builds was also using the more meshy-fronted version of the same case, so I'll nip over to theirs and do a swap if the problem persists as it'll be needed to make the liquid cooler or case fan worthwhile. The solid cover actually looks better in my opinion (I prefer a discreet look since I'm a 'couch and gamepad' type rather than using a desk, monitor etc) but is blocking airflow, while the build I did for them is a G4560/1050TI mini that is used far more often as a HTPC than for gaming.
Meshy front: http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2015/05/silverstone-sugo-sg13-review/sg13_1-1280x1024.jpg
My front: https://static.techspot.com/articles-info/959/images/Image_09S.jpg


So real dummy question here, but can I double check - the fan on that would actively push/pull the air all around the case? As in the fans don't only service the pumps going to the CPU?

K.O.Kiki

Billy86 wrote: »

Cheers for that! I had heard the Freezer ones were among the best at that end, with Corsair/Kraken being more geared to higher power and larger fan sizes. I've done a check there and I'm on 1.2 for the CPU, though I had forgot when I upgraded my ram to 16GB 3200mhz I had fiddled with some settings there which had the RAM coming to 1.35 via XMP (I had 16GB 2133mhz but was doing to ultra-budget builds as gifts so split one of those sticks into each of those as the two 3200mhz sticks were only £110 on one of those great Amazon flash sales). Have set that back to default now, have the lid off and I'll go give Warhammer a whirl for an hour or so and see how I get on.

One of those builds was also using the more meshy-fronted version of the same case, so I'll nip over to theirs and do a swap if the problem persists as it'll be needed to make the liquid cooler or case fan worthwhile. The solid cover actually looks better in my opinion (I prefer a discreet look since I'm a 'couch and gamepad' type rather than using a desk, monitor etc) but is blocking airflow, while the build I did for them is a G4560/1050TI mini that is used far more often as a HTPC than for gaming.
Meshy front: http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2015/05/silverstone-sugo-sg13-review/sg13_1-1280x1024.jpg
My front: https://static.techspot.com/articles-info/959/images/Image_09S.jpg

Your best bet tbh is self-testing.
So real dummy question here, but can I double check - the fan on that would actively push/pull the air all around the case? As in the fans don't only service the pumps going to the CPU?

The fans on an AIO in push-pull are setup so that:
Fan A pushes cold air towards the radiator
Fan B pulls warm air from the radiator

I'd want to exhaust that air outwards, though I guess it doesn't matter too much for an AIO (since it would just be warmed air circulating above the motherboard).

Billy86

Hhhmm, seems I might be hamstrung - I just noticed the Arctic 120 is actually 155mm tall while a ruler measurement tells me I only have about 125-130mm of height to play around with as the 4TB HDD is chunky. I had not noticed it's quite thick also at about 95mm, which in itself would be a right squeeze (the front of the case to the RAM is about 10cm, and the motherboard maybe 85mm). Because of all the mesh, had it fit in the sheer lack of space probably wouldn't have been as issue as air would be getting pushed in and out from all directions but I doubt I would be able to get it in there.
https://www.arctic.ac/eu_en/liquid-freezer-120.html

Mind you it appears that it is just a 'breathing' issue which is a pretty big relief - only one core has gone above 60 on TW:WH after an hour including one particularly big battle (and it only went to 64c at that) and all are running in the low/mid 50s on the highest settings). Carefully putting my fingers inside the case also shows I may have been wrong - the GPU as well as HDD appear to be creating the heat buildup, which is actually fine as they're not particularly hot, just expectedly warm (warm enough to become extremely hot over time). Because of how the case is, the SSD is in a corner directly below the back end of the GPU which is itself directly below the HDD that attaches to a bracket on the roof of the case, with the RAM also very close by, so there is an awful lot going on in that area, both the CPU and PSU fans are on the opposite side of the case pointing up so not assisting airflow and possibly even preventing the hot air from escaping.

I'll give some other CPU demanding games like Witcher or GTA a whirl tomorrow to make sure, but by the looks of it something like the Noctua NF-F12 should do the trick I would think? Cable management is going to be a right prick, even just with that!

TerrorFirmer

That case is like a little oven, very hard to keep things very cool in there. A blower model GPU would probably help a bit albeit a bit noisier. There are no real simple answers to such a tiny case with power hungry components and large hard drives though.

Would you consider putting your 4TB in an external enclosure? That way you could fit a radiator with dual fans on the front. An air cooler in that environment is never going to be brilliant.

You could also use an SFX PSU which would further create some breathing room. Overall though it just is what it is. Warhammer: TW is also a seriously tough CPU workout, more than Witcher 3 or GTA V would be.

Billy86

Well to be honest, low/mid 50s strikes me as being a decent temperature for going for 60+ unit battles on TW:WH on the highest settings, the external enclosure might not be a bad call. I've played Civ VI on very large maps with 20+ civilizations and tonnes of city states in it (which I imagine would be very demanding also) without any heat problems; I could also double side sticky tape that to the top as I have with the receivers for the wireless Xbox controller receiver and wireless headset (without interrupting the mesh).

I'm just thinking if a pretty useless and tiny €5 desk fan blowing in through a small mesh gap for 2-3 minutes was able to blow all of the heat out and get the CPU temp down by 40-50 degrees, would a well reviewed case fan like the Noctua above also do the trick? While it's a tiny case the mesh on both sides and top as well as that same tiny size means it should only need a little push to get the warm air in motion. Curious because I've never used case fans before so don't know how useful they are or are not. Worse case scenario if I buy from Amazon and it doesn't help I guess I could use their excellent returns policy and use the refund + more money on an enclosure and liquid system?

The PSU I have is SFX, Silverstone 500 Gold+ fully modular by the way so that base is already covered - https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01GCSCMW2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

K.O.Kiki

Noctua have a lineup of quiet, small (92/80/60/40mm) fans
http://noctua.at/en/products/fan

You can probably zip-tie them somewhere on your case.

Billy86

Great spot, you're a lifesaver!

Picked up the following 120mm for the front of the case: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00KESS6O0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
And a 92mm for a bit of side mesh that is approx 9x11cm to try with the zip-ties: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B009NQM7V2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
(the specs are wrong on the description here; it's 92x92x14mm as a few of the reviews point out)

I'll switch out the solid front I've got at the moment for the mesh front which I'm thinking might do the trick - intake on one, exhaust on the other. The smaller one will be directly above the CPU (perpendicular to the Noctua CPU cooler I've got there now), while the larger one will be by the back end of the GPU, above the SSD and below the HDD (facing directly at the motherboard, ram and CPU, again perpendicular), bit of fiddling as to which to put as intake and which as exhaust and I should be all good!

I really do get a chuckle out of how brutally awful and cheap looking Noctua's tradition colour scheme is despite them having such a great reputation and being a bit more 'premium' than some fans.

K.O.Kiki

I think it's absolutely genius marketing.

Noctua are the ONLY fans you can tell the make of from a photo!

Billy86

It's a fair point too, just funny in a sense because while I'm not really bothered about how the interior looks and am only really interested in having as small and discreet a case as possible, but for those doing fancy lighting systems etc it's got to be a little offputting... unless they're neutral enough to just take on the lighting colour?

Billy86

Got the two case fans in on Tuesday after work, and they're making a huge improvement immediately - did a good 3hrs of Total War Warhammer on highest settings (the first one) last night to really try to push it since that was causing a good deal more heat than other games.

Typically whenever I checked temperatures were in the mid/high 50s or occasionally in the low/mid 60s on RealTemp. Two cores peaked at 74c and 72c though likely only very, very briefly, while the other two had highs of 68c and 64c. The case at it's hottest felt about room temperature though it was typically noticeably cooler than other surfaces in the room (e.g. table top, floor, etc). The fans are working a treat and I love how they seem to auto-detect how much power is needed; my god though when I tried to rev the big one up to 3000rpm it made some noise (not a bother since I use headphones 90% of the time)! Outside of gaming it was typically mid 20s to mid 30s and the fans barely noticeable even with everything on mute and no background sound (radio, etc).

I'll try to take a few pictures of how hilariously cramped it is in there, but zip ties did the job for the cabling (still quite messy, but they're isolated/tightly bunched together). Because of the mini fans I have placed on the mesh by the CPU even getting the lid on/off is a bit of an ordeal but well worth it for so much power and storage in such a small case. All the mesh is a huge help, basically gives nowhere for warm air to build up.

Wasn't able to find a mini fan in black, but the larger one is and it looks really good too.

Billy86

The joys of cabling a 2,5" SSD, 4TB HDD, full size GPU, 2 sticks of RAM, a 140mm PSU, motherboard & CPU with aftermarket cooler and two case fans inside what is probably the smallest non-specialist (e.g. DANCase, MCase, etc) case on the market. :pac:

I'd probably be as well to change the small sidefan to face out as exhaust but it was such an ordeal getting this all in place - partly because it also meant doing the same on the one I built for my sister and her boyfriend. I was switching the solid front I used to have for the mesh one on theirs - they only play games occasionally on it and have a G4560/1050TI build so it shouldn't be an issue.

It might not show but the cabling is held tightly in place by a good 5-6 zip ties drawn as tight as was possible.

The 120mm front fan fit in with all of 3-4mm to spare between it and the HDD (this is where the heat buildup was - I had a solid front which I've switched out for mesh, and between both that, the heat of the 970 and HDD, and the CPU fan blowing hot air away this was the real problem area)


A bit zoomed out:


It's so tight that I'm glad I got the 14mm thick mini casefan because I'm pretty certain the standard 25mm would flat out not have fit:


There is barely any space for anything at all left here, even moving the 4TB HDD to 8TB might might work and I'm not sure how I'd ever get use of the m.2 slot on the motherboard.


But overall couldn't be happier - no window means all that cabling mess just vanishes once the lid is on, and it's got so much mesh that heat buildup is essentially impossible with no areas for warm air to hide.