Production Sliger SM550/560/570/580 (2 and 3 slot riser layouts, with air and liquid cooling variants)

Bioforce

Airflow Optimizer
Aug 31, 2018
251
116
Thermally, was it as bad as having window panels or somewhere in between it and vented sides?

Personally, I've always been averse to dust filters. It's amazing how much even a small obstruction of the airflow can increase the noise level and temperatures of your system. Not the same as dust filters, but Puget Systems did some testing on the effects of various fan grills on noise and airflow. They note that the mesh grills were similar to dust filters, though not quite as restrictive, and decreased airflow by up to 11%. Considering that filters are even more restrictive, you can probably expect even worse restriction of airflow.

That said, filters may be more necessary this time around since it will be the first time I've ever had a PC with window panels. I may be less tolerant of dust when I can clearly see it lol.
 

TheLobsterHatMan

Cable Smoosher
May 20, 2019
12
54
Dust filters definitely aren't needed for these cases. I have three cats and a fluffy dog and have no dust or floofs in the case. Plus, if it did get dusty, the components are exposed enough to be quickly cleaned with a blast of air.
 

Secret-Misthios

Average Stuffer
May 25, 2019
69
20
Yea, I've never had a case without dust filters, and this might be the first. I've seen some dirty cases with dust filters, so I presume if going vented on both sides with bottom fans on exhaust for negative pressure would mean cleaning/airing out the case at least once a year maybe.

Also that being said, it seems that with both vented panels, the fans in exhaust and negative airflow is the best for overall temperatures. Is the opposite true if using both window panels; like, would you instead want the bottom fans as intake to let the hot air rise up through the top panel?

What then if you decide to go with one vented panel and one window panel?

Edit: Would it be better to keep the gpu side vented in the last case? Problem is, how would ventilation behave with bottom fans in either exhaust or intake? Is it enough to cause air to come in through the vents, or would it cause air to exhaust out of them along with whatever the GPU exdues assuming open air
 
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payo36

Caliper Novice
May 1, 2019
29
38
www.minicomputers.net
I am really curious as to how much space is between the riser and the fans. Also the clearance between the motherboard and the fans.

Although it would be nice to fit the fans inside the case; what I'm getting at is the possibility of mounting the fans externally in a push config.

Imagine this: 240mm AIO rad mounted inside (27mm thickness) and 2 x 120mm slim fans externally mounted in push config (12mm). Boom, AIO in the SM550. Custom loop, we could run a 20.5mm thick rad.

It seems like there is a slim chance this might work... ?

@payo36 thanks for posting those pics btw


I checked, It's 2mm dude.
 

Bioforce

Airflow Optimizer
Aug 31, 2018
251
116
Yea, I've never had a case without dust filters, and this might be the first. I've seen some dirty cases with dust filters, so I presume if going vented on both sides with bottom fans on exhaust for negative pressure would mean cleaning/airing out the case at least once a year maybe.

My current PC has no dust filters and I've found that about once a year is adequate.

Also that being said, it seems that with both vented panels, the fans in exhaust and negative airflow is the best for overall temperatures. Is the opposite true if using both window panels; like, would you instead want the bottom fans as intake to let the hot air rise up through the top panel?

I'm not sure if anyone has actually tested a negative pressure setup with windows on both sides. I would assume with both panels windowed that it wouldn't make a difference. Either way air is coming in one end and out the other. It's not like with vented panels where negative pressure causes air to flow directly into the GPU and CPU coolers, but positive pressure just wastes airflow by venting it straight out the sides. So with both panels windowed, you're probably best off using the fans as intake. This is especially true if you're using the "passive" cooling setup for your CPU, since this configuration relies on the case having as much static pressure as possible. That said, I'm only speaking about the 550 and 560. I don't think we've seen any testing results for the larger two cases that support fans on top and bottom.
What then if you decide to go with one vented panel and one window panel?

Edit: Would it be better to keep the gpu side vented in the last case? Problem is, how would ventilation behave with bottom fans in either exhaust or intake? Is it enough to cause air to come in through the vents, or would it cause air to exhaust out of them along with whatever the GPU exdues assuming open air

Ksliger released some testing results for the SM550/560 and found that with a positive pressure setup, the GPU was more or less unaffected by which panel you decided to use. Same temperatures regardless of vented or not. OptimumTech and others found that negative pressure with vented panels dramatically reduced GPU temps. In some cases people have reported up to a 10 degree drop in GPU temps just from flipping their fans in a vented case. That said, if you plan to do this it would probably be best to do both panels vented so that your CPU cooler benefits as well. As I said before though, these results were only from tests done on the smaller two cases. This information may not be true for the 570/580 as they are larger and have more fans in more positions.

Personally, I'm expecting the best setup for the 570/580 to be windowed panels with bottom intake and top exhaust.
 
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wsgroves

Airflow Optimizer
Mar 20, 2019
315
241
When I swapped the window cpu side for vented in the 560, my gpu temps shot up 10c. That's with the standard bottom to top airflow. The cpu ran much cooler. I have since swapped to both vented panels on both side. I need to swap the fans to exhaust on the bottom but have not gotten around to it yet.
 
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Secret-Misthios

Average Stuffer
May 25, 2019
69
20
I'd imagine it was maybe since less air went to the GPU side when some was then getting exhausted from the CPU side with the switch to vented panels. But perhaps with exhaust both your CPU and GPU would see decreased temps. And thank you Bioforce.
 
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wsgroves

Airflow Optimizer
Mar 20, 2019
315
241
Yes. That is why. They both have gone down in general now. I am still having the lockup issues and im about to throw the whole thing out the window.
 

Allhopeforhumanity

Master of Cramming
May 1, 2017
545
534
Yes. That is why. They both have gone down in general now. I am still having the lockup issues and im about to throw the whole thing out the window.

Your CPU could be the root cause. My 4790k had some weird issue where it would lock-up/power-cycle out of no where. I thought it was the mobo or the PSU at first but went through a whole process of RMAing or replacing every component before finally sending the CPU back to intel within 2 days of the warranty expiration only to find that it was the culprit the whole time.
 
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Bioforce

Airflow Optimizer
Aug 31, 2018
251
116
Yes. That is why. They both have gone down in general now. I am still having the lockup issues and im about to throw the whole thing out the window.

Did you do any overclock/underclocking? My first PC that I built had some infuriating crashing issues that took me over a year to resolve because my overclock settings were changing themselves for some reason. It turned out that any value that I left default was setting itself to the max value seemingly at random. Took me forever to figure out that's what was happening. Amps, volts, whatever, all were turning up to the max selectable value causing crashes. I found that just putting a tiny change on every setting fixed my issue as it only happened to default values. On that PC I was doing my overclocking with the "Intel extreme tuning utility," so that may have been the source of the issue.
 
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wsgroves

Airflow Optimizer
Mar 20, 2019
315
241
Thanks for the help guys.
I been at this a long time. I have replaced everything so far except the case fans, case, and psu and gpu. Either it is a short, or I have things to replace still lol.
It'll go for 2 days and then all of a sudden, do it 3 times in an hour. Usually it'll just black the monitor and restart but sometimes it locks so hard, I have to unplug it.
I'll get around to swapping gpu's next. What a pita.
 

Secret-Misthios

Average Stuffer
May 25, 2019
69
20
The only time I had something like that happen was when I was overclocking my ram last time. Upping the frequency and voltage was just fine. But the second I decided to slightly lower the timing/latency then it went into a cycle that sounds similar to that. I doubt it is that, but you could try loosening the ram timings unless Memtest came back fine for ya.
 

wsgroves

Airflow Optimizer
Mar 20, 2019
315
241
Well, my last two orders were already shipped before I got the tracking message. It's been pretty busy lately. Just hang in there. Trust me, I have 0 patience for shipping.
 

Sahaj

Average Stuffer
Dec 10, 2017
59
60
Thanks for the help guys.
I been at this a long time. I have replaced everything so far except the case fans, case, and psu and gpu. Either it is a short, or I have things to replace still lol.
It'll go for 2 days and then all of a sudden, do it 3 times in an hour. Usually it'll just black the monitor and restart but sometimes it locks so hard, I have to unplug it.
I'll get around to swapping gpu's next. What a pita.

I'm sorry to hear that! Long shot, but on my beloved S400 I also had a random and frequent reboot problem due to an electrical short. What was happening was a custom L bracket to connect the SF600 to the case was coming into contact with a screwhead. Both the screwhead and bracket were a little abused from my excitement in putting together the case and not following the extremely detailed instructions. Replaced all the screws connecting to the PSU, and the problem disappeared completely.