Doubt about exhaust and intake on my CPU

WispyCorn · Oct 20, 2014

The lateral fan of my case (220mm) fan is not working anymore leaving me with one Intake and 1 exhaust, one in the front and one in the back.

Since its been very hard to find a 220mm in my area, I came up with an alternative when I noticed that the lateral cover can be fitted with 4 little 120mm fans. Question is, should I install them all as intake? or 2 exhaust, 2 intake?

What would be the most optimal configuration considering that they will be placed in the lateral side (pic attached) and that I live in a very hot region.

huilun02 · Oct 20, 2014

Have them all as intake, so there will be high pressure in the case to aid the exhaust of warm air.

Your case has no fans on top/bottom?

MeteorsRaining · Oct 20, 2014

Well that's tricky, intake will blow onto the GPU thus cooling it, exhaust will take out hot air coming from GPU's cooler thus reducing heat buildup in the case and again helping in cooling it. I normally prefer intake on side panels but since yours has 4 mounts, I'd go with intake on the bottom two mounts (for cool air to enter the GPU) and exhaust on top two mounts (for the hot air exhausted by GPU cooler to be exhausted right away out of the case).

WispyCorn · Oct 20, 2014

huilun02 :

No, no fans on neither of those areas.

WispyCorn · Oct 20, 2014

MeteorsRaining :

This sounds like an interesting solution.

huilun02 · Oct 20, 2014

I see. Whats your CPU cooler btw?

sizzling · Oct 20, 2014

Ok I am taking this logic from cooling engines but normally aim for 50% more exhaust than intake. The logic being that if the air cannot get out easily enough then pockets of trapped air can heat up much higher than the air actually free flowing. The most important thing with engines is getting the hot air out. I have always used this logic for PC's and it has worked for me.

WispyCorn · Oct 20, 2014

huilun02 :

Right now using stock cooler, saving for a Hyper 212 Evo, hope it fits and its not too tall so I can close the case.

Gets very hot when playing certain games or streaming.

MeteorsRaining · Oct 20, 2014

The CPU cooler will exhuast to the rear fan (usually), which you have in place. The top fans are usually for GPU's heat, which can be settled by exhaust on top mounts of side panel, which is because from the image I can see the top side mounts are quite high, and hot air rises

WispyCorn · Oct 20, 2014

sizzling :

Do you mean having 3 of those extra 120mm as exhaust (4 with the one in the back) and 1 as intake (2 with the one in the front)?

huilun02 · Oct 20, 2014

With stock cooler you should follow Meteor's bottom intake and top exhaust suggestion.

But the 212 Evo will direct air to the rear exhaust and I'd rather not have a side exhaust fighting against it.

WispyCorn · Oct 20, 2014

huilun02 :

I see what you mean, but wouldn't this be good? Both exhaust will be getting the hot air from the CPU, what would be the problem?

huilun02 · Oct 20, 2014

The Hyper 212's fan needs to take air to send them through the block of fins. If you have two fans nearby working against that...

capt_taco · Oct 20, 2014

All intake is the way to go. The more oustide (which means lower-temperature) air you can run through the system, the better, and at that short of a distance blowing directly at the GPU and CPU, it's extra bonus time. Those fans will cool down your system like there's no tomorrow.

~160CFM flowing in, a few inches away? That will blow away all the heat you can shake a stick at. The only way you can ruin it is by having two fans right next to each other fighting with themselves, which means pointing any of the side panel fans in opposite directions. Think of how the original 220mm fan worked. It went all-in, for a reason. That amount of air was enough to brute-force cool anything. I've had systems with 200mm and 220mm fans. They work great. The only problem is that they're so big they wear themselves out. Which is where you are now.

If you worry about excess dust in the case, get dust filters for your fans. They really do work, and they're cheap. Even without a filter, you'd be no worse off than with the original configuration.

WispyCorn · Oct 20, 2014

huilun02 :

Now I see what you mean.

But wouldn't too much intake be bad for the whole system? After all there's only one exhaust.

MeteorsRaining · Oct 20, 2014

I see no issues in the config I suggested, and I have explaination for that. The fan of EVO 212 works in a push config (with single fan) and sends the hot air from the block's fins to the exhuast fan on the rear. The side exhaust will exhaust this hot air right away (with the push fan on heatsink and rear fan still doing their job) and will allow more air to come through the fins.

The basic principle is that a coolant is vaporised in the heatpipes and gets cooled in the block, thus heating up the air surrounding it, and by capillary mechanism, sinks back to the heatpipes where the process repeats. And so, exhaust on the side will only speed up this process by helping in exhausting the hot air surrounding the block's fin.

huilun02 · Oct 20, 2014

All the air will be forced out the rear like a leaf blower. If there are any holes or unused fan mounts the air can escape from there too.

You can just go with Meteor's config all the way. I doubt it would make too much a difference.

Its just my personal taste to have a high pressure leaf blower like I did to my PC. I have 4 intakes and the rear exhaust is my AOI's 140mm in push/pull. All the toasty air comes out super fast.

sizzling · Oct 20, 2014

WispyCorn :

What I mean is just making sure the air which has been heated up can easily escape. Thinking about how the air will flow through the case is also very important, try to keep it moving in one direction, usually in through the front and out the back and top

Doubt about exhaust and intake on my CPU

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