Coolermaster ATCS 500 owners advise please :)

[Cyrus]

Hi folks havent been here in ages so thought id pop by

Ive been given the opportunity to but an almost new coolermaster 500, its mint and ive always loved the look of them, however i realise cooling bites a bit.

What im wondering is, how much clearance is there under the psu for a hs and fan, would an alpha 8942 (42mm tall on its own) and a 25mm 80mm fan fit?

Any chance a zalman 7000 would fit? im thinking hte alpha as it uses a suck design, i could out a 120mm fan psu over sucking aswell which should help cooling

any other advice, should i go for it?

[loki]

I had a lian li pc-50 which works in the same way as the coolermaster 500 (psu rotated). Clearance between the psu and the mother board was about 7-8cm. But regarless of the space there is just not enough airflow in this space to get adequate cooling. I tried the psu with the 12mm fan trick it doesnt make any difference really. If you have the cpu heatsink blowing then hot air gets trapped between the two, If you tr it with the cpu heatsink sucking then teh cooling is not as good, but the psu helps a bit so temps are roughly the same.

If temps and overclocking don't concern you then this case would be useable. I had 47 idle 51 load with no overclocking. I have snce changed to an antec slk. I now get 39 idle 45 load with my barton mobile at 2.3 and the system is a lot quiter overall.

To sum up i dont really recommend cases with a rotated psu because they give poor cooling and they are only maybe 10-15cm smaller anyway than the non-psu rotated versions, so you are better of without one.

[Gordy]

Cyrus , Ive tried that alpha and 80mm fan combo in the past and it definitly wont fit. What you could try is to get a thinner fan , zalman do a very thin 80mm fan which may fit. You will need a psu with a fan thats in the main casing really with the case. A 120mm fan would be a good bet as the fan is directly over the cpu.

The zalman will not fit not a chance in hell

There is another solution and thats to remove the psu cage and use something like a shuttle psu I am doing this on a cm500 I have here. When I find the time , there is more info on my website www.gordyhand.co.uk

[Cyrus]

hmmmm well ive gone and ordered the thing cos it just looks so damn good, regarding the hsf i though the alpha might fit as its only 3cm high, maybe if i get the 15mm zalman fan might work

WHat psu u think i should get gordy, a single fan 120mm or a tagan (two but the first exhaust is at the side of the psu and so will draw air directly from the case )

Also is it a big job to fit the shuttle psu? im not the best at modding!!

[Gordy]

The shuttle mod isnt massively hard but will involve drilling out some rivets and fitting some kind of bracket to fix the psu in place

I would go for a single 120mm psu if it was me

[Cyrus]

cool ill go for a good 120mm psu, and ill try track down a zalman slim fan, reason i thought the alpah might fit is that i saw a review where a guy fitted a swifty with a 25mm 80mm fan, he said ud never get a 38mm 80 fan in there tho!!

u ever finish the project u were working on with the water cooling?

[Universal]

Cyrus where did manage to get hold of one of them? I am still after a CM 111, wouldn't mind a 500 though if I had the cash.

[Gordy]

cool ill go for a good 120mm psu, and ill try track down a zalman slim fan, reason i thought the alpah might fit is that i saw a review where a guy fitted a swifty with a 25mm 80mm fan, he said ud never get a 38mm 80 fan in there tho!!

u ever finish the project u were working on with the water cooling?

I'm a bit snowed under with other projects so its been put into my case storage area till I finish two of my other projects