Robin: The net6501 standard case provides a mounting bracket on the far side, next to the disk drive area, for a very compact 30mm case fan. It attaches directly to one of two 12v headers on the system board and blows sideways. (Others have suggested on this list that the venting holes in the case are not optimally situated for this fan to blow air unobstructed, but that's another discussion.)
I tried using this fan mount myself and it kept the system much cooler, but as you yourself suspect, it was somewhat noisy. So in my case (ahem), I ended up taking a drill press and putting about 25 moderately-sized (maybe 3/16"?) holes in the top of the case, in a big circular grid right above the processor heat sink. I then mounted a larger - maybe 40mm? - but slower fan right below those holes, inside the case, blowing up and out through them. (There is enough clearance between the top of the heat sink and the case itself to allow this if it's not too thick of a fan.) That fan also attached to one of the same 12v headers on the processor mainboard. For me, that larger but slower fan was somewhat quieter, drew only about 1w total, and worked very well to keep the reported processor temperature much lower. I'm not sure how much just the new case holes alone would have helped due to increased convection, if at all, though that would be an interesting test. Good luck. David On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 4:46 AM, Robin Kipp <mli...@robin-kipp.net> wrote: > Hi all, > well, now that I've got a hard disk built into my Net6501, I've noticed the > whole thing heating up quite significantly. I've found that when up and > running, the 1-slot metal case will get quite hot, and that's while the CPU > is somewhat idle. So, I guess that in order to stay safe, a fan would be > quite a good idea. However, I'll admit I don't know too much about mainboard > fans and have no idea what the Net6501 can handle. Also, it would be > important for me to have something rather quiet, so not a fan that runs on > full speed all the time. > So, if anyone on here has any experience with fans on the Net6501 I'd > definitely appreciate more info on this subject! Also, do they need to be > soldered to the mainboard or do they also just plug in normally? _______________________________________________ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
