I need a PCI slot fan, any suggestions?

Only trick now, is which fan?

New Thermaltake A2426 80mm Blue LED PCI Slot Fan | eBay
AOC FC 2000 PCI Slot Case Cooler | eBay

the AOC has a much higher CFM rating but I wonder if such a high draw will really matter in this case? The case sits flat so heat really isn't rising.

It seems Dell intended the CPU fan to intake air and the PSU fan to exhaust, but that only works well if it's standing up, not sitting flat.

2 things to remember

1) I am on a very limited budget. That means $10 at most for this fan. I've already spent $5 on thermal paste for the CPU, still need to buy a 16 GB SD card for another purpose and will have a pile of dental bills later this week.

2) This is a Dell Optiplex 745 Desktop case. It is made to sit flat and has low profile PCI slots. It has one intake fan by the CPU and no other fan mount locations.




If I mount a PCI fan or a 40mm fan it will have to go on the slim grate area above the serial port with some rigging to fit it there. I think attaching a fan to the PCI slot area will be too difficult and would ultimately render me unable to use those slots.


I don't have cutting tools to mount to the top panel. Even if I could cut a hole I would need to lead a long power cable to the fan to be able to remove the top. It has a release lever on one side and folds upward to remove.

Here's an update-

I found a Mad Dog brand PCI fan on eBay for $7 shipped. It's not as strong as the AOC but more powerful than the Thermaltake, and cheaper than either. It wasn't too much hassle to rig it into the back grating- I had to bend the L tab of the PCI bracket up flat and drill a hole in the other end, with two long screws secured by tightened nuts. I also ordered a new tube of Arctic MX-2 thermal compound for the CPU.

New HDD in, XP reinstalled fresh, and my Dell drivers installed. I got HD Tune installed. Right now I'm showing 40 degrees Celsius on the HDD(I think? I'm not too sure where the temp sensor in this PC is) after leaving it sit idle. That's about a 10 degree drop compared to the previous HDD and no exhaust fan. The thermal paste may also be helping a bit. The front CPU fan is a 92mm intake fan and is ideal there as it'll better draw in cool air from the room. That temp may go up after some gaming but hopefully it'll stay within a good range.

By comparison, this was the old bad sector HDD stats.

I am wondering which would cool better- with the fan mounted with the face up or down? I have it with the intake opening up right now but it can be switched(regardless of the drilling and bolting to the grate, the fan itself can be popped off the metal plate and reversed). There is space around the top between the fan and lid but having it down might just catch the air from the CPU area better.

I'm running at a stable 40 Celsius after the PC has had time to warm up but if I can drop it a bit by turning the fan...