Posted: Sat May 24, 2014 0:33 Post subject: Netgear R7000 Nighthawk 140mm Fan Mod
The Netgear R7000 Nighthawk is kept on top of my cabinets for optimal signal strength to all devices being that this is the center of my small home. The Nighthawk natively runs hot, and of course having it up there to where heat rises certainly doesnt help. This DIY Mod took care of it. 140mm fan hole traced and cut with a dremel tool into the top cover. Four screw holes drilled to mount the fan. Fan's +12V and -12VDC leads soldered to the 12Vdc input connector at the bottom of the board. The fan is set to vacuum air out of the Nighthawk, having it replaced with fresh, cool air from the bottom and side vents. I superglued four TV wall mount spacers to lift the Nighthawk up a bit to allow cool air to flow from underneath. The 140mm fan is silent and has a nice high flow rate. Onboard temps have definitely dropped.
I keep the house at 74 Fahrenheit 23 Celcius. This mod keeps the Nighthawk at:
CPU 42.5 °C / WL0 38.51 °C / WL1 39.00 °C
(CPU 108.5 °F / WL0 101.318 °F / WL1 102.2 °F)
Please tell me you have pictures of the mod process. I feel the need to mod mine as I am astonished that these things still don't come with fans or at least an fan option. I'd like to see where you placed the fan, but more importantly where the leads are to power it.
EDIT: Weird, before I signed in there were no pictures and nothing to even indicate there was something I wasn't seeing. I thought the first responder was a nutter . Now I see the images, is there a diagram of the PCB so I can track down the leads.
EDIT 2: I didn't catch all of the post the first time. Did you test with positive pressure? If so did negative pressure offer better cooling? It seems to me that while air from below is technically cooler, forcing air down over the heat sinks would offer more effective active cooling. I need to find a photo of the r7000 taken apart, I wonder if perhaps there are superior fan optimized heat sinks to replace the OEM sinks with.
How does the R7000 cope with accumulated dust over years of use with the fans sucking in air from underneath, also, is opening the R7000 difficult, I'm looking into doing a similar mod myself. _________________
Joined: 04 Jan 2007 Posts: 11564 Location: Wherever the wind blows- North America
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 13:39 Post subject:
Oh...BTW...my fan is only 120mm...I think I should have gotten the 140mm like bradleybaldwin1...it looks nice with the larger fan...but the 120mm pushes enough air...I'm happy.
Nice mod bradleybaldwin1.
redhawk _________________ The only stupid question....is the unasked one.