A quieter place
Length of time: 1-2 Hours
Level Of Difficulty: Medium
01 Filtered out
We’ll start by stripping down this case. Unusually, a lot of what we remove here won’t be going back into the build when we’re finished; most notably the dust filters, as zero fans means zero airflow, and therefore near-zero dust intake. Removing them will help with natural convection, thanks to the Masterbox Q500L’s heavily perforated outer frame. Two of the dust filters are magnetic, while the third is held in place with rubber pegs. You will also need a screwdriver to remove the window and the metal side panel, then the two SATA drive mounts (we won’t need these), and the PSU cage. We’ll be using this system on its side, as shown, so we also removed the four feet, which are secured via plastic push-pins. If you’d rather run your machine upright, leave these in place.
02 Fan down
The next thing to remove is the Cooler Master case fan that comes pre-installed in the Q500L. This is a fairly simple affair; just unscrew the fan at the four corners and lift it out of the case. Be careful here, as a slip of the screwdriver
