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Side case Fan direction

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  • Apex
  • Cases
  • Fan
  • Components
Last response: in Components
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October 29, 2013 8:49:28 AM

Hello everyone,

I am building a HTPC, with a Apex MI-008 case (pictures not mine):





The rig don't have any case fans to remove heat from the inside out, only the PSU fan. I intend to add a side "noiseless" fan to the system to provide more cooling to the HTPC (although it may add bit more noise).

My questions are:
.1) Should i add this fan?
.2) If i add the fan, should i set it to blow in air, or suck the air out?

I know the rule of thumb is to blow in from low/back zones and to suck out from high/front areas, but the case is so small it puzzles me what direction it should be headed. I also know it's better to have a negative pressure inside the box, but with such cluttered space, would it still be valid and preferable to suck air out?

Best regards

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October 29, 2013 9:03:59 AM

Hi,

I have a few questions.
What processor, CPU cooler and motherboard are you using with your HTPC? Are you using any disk drives in the system?

I've used this case (under the rosewill brand, same case still) to build a few light duty workstations, 3225 i3 and 4670 i5 both using the stock intel coolers. The i3's even under load run whisper quiet while the 4670 understandably has quite a bit more fan noise and higher temps for regular usage.

The case is so cramped and most air pathways end up getting blocked for the most part, so any fans you add inside the case will have to be fairly small and will definitely only serve as point cooling. The ventilation holes all over the case will really prevent a fan from being able to direct the whole airflow in the case. You can probably get away with mounting it with the ventilation holes by using some of those rubber/plastic pin affairs versus screws to make up for inexact alignment between the fan and the ventilation holes. Again, the small and cramped nature of the case will make effective airflow from a single fan nearly pointless. There may be enough clearance on the side to include 2 low-profile 120mm fans in exhaust which would get the noise to airflow ratio about as ideal as possible versus smaller fans which might just cause turbulence instead of creating an overall airflow direction.
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October 29, 2013 9:20:03 AM

Hi dwatterworth,

I'm currently using a FM2A75M ITX R2.0 Mobo with a A8 5600K APU. The APU is cooled with the Scythe Kozuti Cooler .
I was intending to built with an optical disk drive, although not a prerequisite!

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October 29, 2013 9:30:26 AM

yes, i agree with dwatterworth..
It's really depend on whole of your system..

Even if you build it with just mid end hardware, it's always better to remove heat faster from your case..
Because heat is the enemy of electronics..

add 2 silent fan, one for intake in one side, and another as the out take in the other side..
bigger is better, maybe 14cm silent fan (from any brand) is a good choice.

of course you have to make hole in your case for the holder..
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October 29, 2013 9:32:57 AM

I think I would get everything installed and configured and then conduct some thermal testing by running everything from streaming HD, playing movies/games etc and see where temperatures with the CPU fall by using that Scythe Kozuti heatsink.

This is a good temp gadget: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

It will keep a record of min and max temperatures while also showing core load % etc. I think under high load the A8 5600K will be putting out a decent amount of heat and the Scythe is probably going to be running at it's upper RPM range, creating more noise, but then again, under that load of gaming etc, there will presumably be more audio action happening which will mask the fan versus just playing a movie where it needs to be silent and most likely will be.

I think run it as is for now and then take the approach of 1-2 low profile fans mounted to blow air onto the CPU heatsink and HDD/optical drive if you need further cooling. What would be ideal would be if the fin direction on the scythe could be lined up side to side so the fans could blow air directly across from any added case fan(s).
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