Hi All
Like others I've been worried about the HDD temperature. I wanted to have a mod that kept the appearance of the N2100 as its on show in my study.
This is my 'almost finished' mod which has four internal fans, two 40mm and two 60mm x 10mm thick and keeps the original fan too.
sbv3000.homeip.net/photo/Here is how I did it.
First remove the drives and main board from the case
Case - Use a fine flat blade screwdriver and GENTLY prise off the thin plastic inset trims.
Cut out a rectangle window in the lid approx 10mm from the trim recess ridge. Repeat for the bottom half of the case, however cut the rectangle
10mm in from an area bounded by the mounting screws.
Cut 50mm holes in the case, measuring centres 60mm from the middle of the case and down the centre line of the black section.
The grill material is 1mm thick aluminium sheet that should be available from a good diy store. I chose the slotted style as it looked a good
match. Cut this to the same size as the plastic inset removed earlier. Using 10mm wide double sided adhesive tape fix the new grill to the
top/base.
Fans - The two 40mm fans are attached using self adhesive plastic standoffs. Attach to the front of the assembled HDDs, being careful to line up
the fans so they wont foul the LED sub-board. The best way to do this is to insert the HDD cage temporarily and align the fans and press in place.
Orient the two 60mm fans with power cables to the top and use a hacksaw to cut off the bottom corners as shown. This allows them to fit between
the HDD cage fixing screws. I bound the two fans together with a cable tie (yellow in the pic).
For the fan power, I used a Zalman 4 way adapter. Gently remove the hdd adapter plug, pass the cables through the kensington hole, then reassemble
the plug. I did this as I wanted to run the fans independent of the Thecus PSU and at lower voltage/noise levels.
Assembly - Before installing the HDD cage cut some 'sticky-fixer' pads to approx 10mm square and attach them to the 4 HDD mounting screws that are
nearest the 'front' of the unit.
Carefully slide the 60mm fans between the case and HDD cage, lining up the front edge of the fans with the HDD/sticky fixer attached screws. With
the corners removed from the fans they almost naturally align to this position. Press the fans down onto the sticky-fixers. This holds them in
place and provides some dampening too. Use some cable ties to tidily route the fan leads.
Assemble the lid and if your measurements have gone well you should find that the retaining lug on the lid presses the 60mm fans into place to
hold them firmly.
Presto - my HDD and system temp both now at approx 34=36 degrees under load.
In my prototyping, I tried 50mm fans but they didn't appear as effective hence the oversized 60mm ones. Ok these dont look too good offset to the
holes, but I plan to put some grill behind to mask this.
Also I found the best temperature results to be had with the 40mm blowing towards the HDDs but the 60mm drawing air out.
