Airflow and tidiness are one job.

The gap behind the tray is thirty millimetres wide and it decides how loud your room is at eleven at night.

The gap, in section.

THE DETAIL

Air goes in the front and out of the top and back, and everything in between either helps or gets in the way. Cable is the thing most often in the way — not because it blocks the fans, but because a loom that will not lie flat means a side panel under tension and a case that rattles at a particular fan speed.

01IN THE FRONTMore intake than exhaust
02THE STRAPFlat loom, panel shuts easy
03THE DEPTHUsually about thirty millimetres

What we are writing.

5 PIECES · IN THE WORKSHOP

Five pieces on making a machine quiet. Nothing here costs much, and most of it costs nothing at all.

How to set up case airflow that actually works

Positive pressure, intake versus exhaust, and why more fans is usually wrong.

★★☆ · 7 MIN

How to route cables so the side panel shuts

Working with a thirty-millimetre gap instead of fighting it.

★★☆ · 6 MIN

How to build a fan curve worth ten decibels

The single change that makes most machines noticeably quieter.

★★☆ · 6 MIN

How to clean a PC without wrecking a fan

Why compressed air on a spinning fan is a bad idea, and what to do instead.

★☆☆ · 4 MIN

How to know when it is time to repaste

The temperature pattern that means paste, and the one that means dust.

★★☆ · 5 MIN

A dust filter pulled out from the front of a case, dust visible across its mesh.

A build is finished when you stop hearing it.
SLOT 01 · PC BUILDING · BEHIND THE TRAY

A desk at night: velcro ties, a cable comb, snips and a coil of unused cable.

FROM THE CURATOR

The filter you can reach

When you are choosing a case, pull the front dust filter out in the shop. If it needs a screwdriver, or if it comes out sideways past a fan you have to unplug, you will clean it twice and then never again. The filter you can pull out with one hand while the machine is running is the one that keeps working for years, and it does more for temperatures than any fan you could buy.

BY POPPY — CLASS: CURATOR · THEPINKPIPER.GG

THE REST OF THIS STATION

Your First Build THE SOCKET →Parts & Upgrades THE TOP SLOT →

BACK TO PC BUILDING →

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SLOT 01 / 08 · PC BUILDING

Every station in this room has its own chapter. This one is 01. Back to the room to walk to another.