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Now that I'm working on this little machine again, I've realised I need some pretty heft cooling. Back when I had first done the project a few years back, the G3 L2 upgrade in my 6500's board was reading some pretty high temps... I added a small fan to the lower chassis, but it still didn't help much. It would freeze occasionally if I was doing a LOT on the machine, plus it's unhealthy for any processor to run hot to begin with... if I can get better ventillation in the machine, it will last longer and give me less problems.
First fan I wanted to replace was actually the upper one, just to make sure all the A/B (and second ATX PSU) components stay cool... How fast does the stock fan run? I wanted to get something stronger, so it could move more air, but not knowing what I'm working with in the first place doesn't make it easy.
And then for the lower chassis, what's the best attempt? I have a 1.5-2 inch square, quarter inch deep fan that I mounted right in the side of the chassis... it doesn't help much... I can only really use a thin profile fan, but I can't seem to find any in stores other than similar small ones. Is there a good fan outlet online? Do they have larger ones, like maybe 3x3 inch?
Don't mean to ask so many questions, but I'm kind of oblivious to fan technology (as silly as that sounds). Is there a particularly good brand, even?
Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance 
(Going to try attaching an image of what I have in the chassis right now)
When searching for fans, be aware that most are sold in mm sizes, not inches. You probably have a 40x40x15 fan in there now. Many places sell 50x50, 60x60 and 80x80. They genrally come in x25 but some can be found in x15 if you look hard enough. One thing to watch is the db rating. If you don't mind noise just get something with a reasonable db rating and a lot of CFM. A 22 dba fan will sound MUCH nicer than one of those 30 dba cheapo specials.
I don't know what kind of space you've got available on your back panel. Would you be able to fit in one of the squirrel cage fans - like the kind that fit into a PC expansion slot?
Like this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000510SS/102-2423136-1030551?v=glance&n=172282&v=glance
The size of the stock rear fam is 80mm.
You can remove this fan and cut away the grill area covering it. This will leave you a square where the origional fan and it's mounting frame once sat that will fit a 92mm fan perpectly. The fan will be exposed, actually sitting slightly to the outside of the case. You can superglue in some plastic scraps and drill mounting holes or just jam it in there. It is a very tight fit.
Sqirrel cage fans are very hard to fit doe to their size and shape.
Before you start adding fans, considder where the air will come from, and what path you would like it to take.
The fan you are using looks like a 50mm. That will do VERY little, considdering that it is pushing air toward a wall with only very thin slits in it. It will actually be easier for the fan to shove the air straight to the sides and recycle it, effectively doing nothing but stirring hot air.
My vote is for water cooling! We all know that the lil' all-in-one Macintosh computers have heart and soul, isn't it about time somebody gave the gosh dang thing some veins? Get some water pumping through some cooling arteries.
Funk it up with some water cooling. Or if you really wanna go all out, be the first to have a CC that is cooled with liquid nitogen. Yeah, that would be uber cool! Expensive, though.
My vote is for water cooling. Who else has a water cooled CC? You'd get bragging rights, too!
Me too!
And while the water is keeping your CC cool, it can hold your boat in place (and no one will have to see how ugly it is)!
sorry... I just hate that whole style... who ever was behind the artistic design of those Performa towers and the CC, I just want to verbally assault them. They even kind of look like a pop art version of a giant cruise ship... or they remind me of 80's Corvettes... No room for those in my collection. Tie them to the other side of the bitter end.
Be careful when saying such things-- around here, them's fightin' words!
its not just the way it looks... I could get over that, I suppose... its just that the whole thing was... ridiculously designed... the capacity for all those colors, with no juice to back it up. Why didn't they just use the SE/30 logic board? A machine that was discontinued 3 years earlier blows the CCII away! Sure... it has the 8-bit audio in port, I'll give you that... but a lowsy 33 MHz? and a measly 36 MB max ram? its just pitiful... I feel the same way about the regular Classic & Classic II, though I like their shape a little more... Why couldn't they have kept the SE/30 board, put a 50Mhz 030 on it, used a CRT in the same form factor, and called it a day? What a waste it was for them to spend all that R&D on the design of this machine... when they already had a superior design ready to go. I don't understand how a product can have retrograde motion... but it happens... people have suggested that when the G5 is finally replaced by its x86 counterpart that this is what will happen... but I can't see it happening... I think Apple is aware that its customers are smart enough to know, now. The market won't bear it.
The whole purpose of the CC modding community is to preserve the case while improving the functionality. Everyone can tell that the CC is dog slow (actually, I didn't really think it was that slow when I had mine, but the most I did with mine was some word processing and After Dark) and that is why there is a community for making it better. You might not agree with the design decision, but you can't help but admire the craftsmanship needed for, say, a Taco project..
The reason they couldn't stick with the SE/30 form is that they wanted a color display. There were at the time, and I believe never have been, any 9" color displays. They went with the 10" trinitron to get color in there. ( You will see monitors being sold as 9" color on ebay. Trust me. They are 10" tubes. I did a LOT of research trying to get a color SE/30.) While they were at it they changed the design for the better imo. The origional mac form was a cooling nightmare and had to be changed. They also wanted to do the slide out motherboard. Anyone who has ever cracked the case of an SE/30 for the first time will tell you, it's a pain in the ass to work on them.
You gotta make choices. Some things you lose, and some things you just throw away. Sometimes what is most desireable is not always the most obvious.
Ever hear the cliche, "one man's trash is another man's treasure?"
Well, that cliche holds true in almost every facet of life. The trick is in knowing what has been lost, and what has been thrown away. If you're lucky, you'll not only be able to distinguish, you might also even know why.
I guess the design is a matter of taste. I fell in love with the CC on first sight, therefore I guess I'm biased and can't say much else regarding its looks - heh. It looks a hell lot better than the PC counterparts of its time...
The case was designed to thermally conduct sufficiently well for the original hardware used... can't remember the 68030 actually running even lukewarm. When upgraded with the 040, the CPU does actually feel "warm" (still, not hot). This machine was never intended to become a *computing power-house* - it was supposed to be a compact machine for the home user to do their word-processing, etc. quite contrary to the 3D-rendering-G3-using-internet-surfing workhorses they've become today (Takky-mod) *laughs*
If we come back the the fan and cooling issue - what type of fan would be recommended. I'm all for quiet PCs. The Colour Classic FAQ recommends 80mm fans that run 32cfm or less. I would imagin something in the 20 - 16 db range would be excellent noise-wise, but the cfm is substantially lower than the ~ 25 db counterparts, therefore I'd be afraid to overheat the thing because of insufficient airflow. What is your experience with case fans? I know mine sounds like a standing rotary fan *smirks* - I definiatly need to do something about that.