Need help with case fans position

Mijaca · Nov 5, 2015

Hi to everyone. I need some assistance. In the next week or so I want to clean my computer case and maybe to rearrange my case fans. Currently, I have 3 case fans, one in the front, one in the rear and one at the top near the middle spot. Two are exhaust fans and one in the front is intake fan. Also, my air cooler is positioned from front of the case to rear and my PSU is at the bottom and facing down.
So, what do you all think? Is this good configuration or maybe I need to reposition them? Maybe CPU cooler facing from bottom to top instead from front to back? O, and my case is located on the wooden floor under my desk. Thanks all in advance.

p.s. Top rear spot in the case is unusable due to the 8-pin CPU cable interference.

My PC specs:

Case - Cooler Master Elite 430
Case fans - Fractal Design Silent Series R2 140mm (front intake),
Fractal Design Silent Series R2 120mm (rear exhaust),
Fractal Design Silent Series R2 120mm (top exhaust)
Motherboard - Asus M5A99 FX PRO R2.0
PSU - Cooler Master V550
CPU - AMD FX 8320 @ 4GHz
CPU Cooler - CM Hyper 212 EVO
GPU - Gigabyte R9 380 4GB G1 Gaming (stock)
1 SSD
1 HDD

Dark Lord of Tech · Nov 5, 2015

Ideal setup , yes PSU fan down.

Mijaca · Nov 5, 2015

Thanks for the answer

So you think my current config is ok? No need to reposition my CPU cooler to blow air from bottom to top?

Dark Lord of Tech · Nov 5, 2015

Front to back , for 212 is correct .

Configuration is good.

Mijaca · Nov 5, 2015

Well, I think I'm good then. Thanks again.

Dark Lord of Tech · Nov 5, 2015

Your welcome.

Bearmann · Nov 5, 2015

But his top fan is in the middle spot, not the rear top. Is the top fan over the cooler, or in front of the cooler?

Mijaca · Nov 6, 2015

Bearmann :

Top fan is at the second from the back (middle) top spot, slightly over and in front of the cooler (cooler fan).

madmatt30 · Nov 6, 2015

I'd remove that top exhaust personally & use it as an extra intake on the bottom next to the PSU.

Its serving no purpose where it is & is more than likely actually lowering the effectiveness of your 212 evo.

Mijaca · Nov 6, 2015

madmatt30 :

I'm not sure I can manage that. Many cables interference at the bottom. It's a small case sadly with very bad layout, but is currently the best I've got.

Bearmann · Nov 6, 2015

I would add it as an extra intake to the front of the case, if possible.

Karadjgne · Nov 6, 2015

Before you mucking around, what's your temps look like.

And no, the top exhaust is just fine, if not beneficial. Aircoolers are responsible for more than just cooling a cpu. They also cool many of the socket area components, especially the voltage regulatory circuitry. This happens because of bleed, where turbulent air escapes out the sides of the heatsink providing minimal airflow where ordinarily there wouldn't be. Having the top fan helps this by providing a conduit for that air.

While the fan setup is important for airflow, fan speeds are just as important. You have 2 exhaust vrs 1 intake. So, intake should be at a higher cfm to balance this out. If that means reading the fan with a stronger cfm, that's fine, or bumping up intake speeds especially. The top exhaust needs to be at a slow speed, you don't want it to overpower the rear exhaust, drawing too much bleed. The rear exhaust should be the main exhaust and run at slightly better than the cpu fan. This just helps cpu cooling by providing a good airflow.

If you aren't using the motherboard software for fan control, you can set up the curves in bios or use software such as SpeedFan. Mobo software is the most user friendly, SpeedFan has the highest amount of control but is a pain to understand at first.

madmatt30 · Nov 7, 2015

^ I disagree mate - if he had the exhaust top rear yes fine .
Where he has it though bits 60-70% in front of the CPU cooler - its actually pulling air away from the 212 evo fan before its even had a chance to do its job.
Its more than likely actually hampering CPU cooling performance.

Look where that front top vent is in relation to the CPU on an atx board.

Bearmann · Nov 7, 2015

madmatt30 :

I agree.

Mijaca · Nov 7, 2015

Karadjgne :

Well, I think my temps are ok. I don't do anything heavy, the heaviest action is occasional gaming. In GTA V my gpu temp is around 60-62C. All at stock, clock speed, fan profile etc. CPU temp is couple C lower. I think that everything is ok. Just to mention, during the summer months, in my room was very very hot and temps were higher for maybe 2-5C.

And about fan control, I use Asus Suite II and Fax Xpert inside it but I can not control individual fans, just Cpu fan, which is ok and Chassis fans all together. I've set user setting for both, not standard, silent or turbo option. And regarding to SpeedFan program, I never used it. Maybe I should try

Karadjgne · Nov 7, 2015

At 4-500 rpm, that top exhaust fan doesn't have sufficient power to create enough vacuum to over draw even the stock fan on a hyper212. If cranked up to 2000 rpm, then probably, yes, but at minimal speeds no. At low speeds, the area of draw is minimal at best 1-2" below the fan. That top section above the cpu cooler is generally the warmest part of any case, with an air cooled cpu, as most of the intake exhaust and gpu exhaust is drawn in by the faster spinning cpu cooler. Having a fan in that position provides a helping hand, so to speak, for the natural rise of whatever heated air isn't redirected through the cpu heatsink and bleed. If anything, it's actually helping cpu temps as it removes circulated hot exhaust air not drawn in by the rear exhaust, such as air sitting in the hdd/optical area of the case, which doesn't see much if any airflow, especially in cases with strong rear exhaust as the airflow remains diagonal through the case from low front to high rear.

It's a matter of adjustment. In this case, a slow top exhaust provides much more benefit than a fast one. Keeping that fan on low provides for better overall case temps, motherboard temps, hdd/ssd/optical temps. If you think it'll cost you 1°C on the cpu, so be it. Cpu temps aren't everything. And in the case of gaming, where the gpu is heating the case air more than the cpu is, having the top fan there will actually lower cpu temps as the cpu will have better access to intake air not recirculating hot air from the top side of the heatsink.

Karadjgne · Nov 7, 2015

What it boils down to is motherboard design. They haven't changed in any significant way in years. Back a few years ago, cases were shrouded you removed both sides and top on 1 piece. Here a rear exhaust made sense, creating a low pressure area at the back of the case which drew air in from the front. With aftermarket coolers on standard motherboard designs, the air exhaust is generally aimed at the rear, for the exhaust to remove. With new case designs being modular, top sections being perforated for top fan mounts and especially for aio/clc coolers, top exhaust makes more sense. Only for tower air coolers with exhaust directed at the rear require rear exhaust. If that tower was redirected to exhaust upwards, as is the case with some amd motherboards, having a rear exhaust would be detrimental to case temps. Heat rises. Straight up. Turning the airflow direction 90° in a case with top vents is nuts. Only for tower coolers like the 212 does having rear exhaust actually have any benefit.

Karadjgne · Nov 7, 2015

Asus fanXpert is by far the best written of any motherboard software, it works by temp zones, not fan speeds. Properly setup there's no reason why you'd not have any control of case fans. Understanding that case temps differ entirely from cpu temps is important. Case temps will never reach 70°C, which is default 100% duty cycle in bios. Your case fans should be controlled entirely in the 30-40°C range with 100% intake/rear exhaust happening at @36-40°. Top exhaust should be capped at @60% at 40° with a slow curve from 30-35, then sharp curve from 35-40. Intake and exhaust should be 50%-60% at 30-35% then sharp curve to 100% at 36-40°. Or there abouts. The only header fanXpert won't control on a p8z77-v is cpu_aux, which will remain at a constant 12v. Cpu_fan is pwm, so needs a pwm (4pin) fan for cpu control. The other sys_fan headers will accept 3 or 4 pin control via pwm or analog, fan speed or fan voltage control.

Mijaca · Nov 7, 2015

Karadjgne :

All you said is correct but there is a problem, for my mobo and any other from AMD AM3+ series except Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 which uses Thermal Radar 1 instead of FanXpert I think, there is no FanXpert 2 version with all that fancy control stuff for individual fans, only FanXpert 1 version which is plain and simple. It has Cpu fan option which is strait forward and Chassis fan option which is universal for all fans. I don't have option for individual fans. So, anything that I put there is applied to all case fans, one, two or five of them. I don't have control to put XX% at XX°C to front fan, XX% at XX°C for rear fan and so on.

Karadjgne · Nov 7, 2015

Ahh, there is fanxpert 2,thats actually what is stock with the Asus p8z77-v series. Asus fanxpert was for the older series and the ROG boards use fanxpert 3. Fortunately you can use any version you choose to when it comes to fanxpert, its not motherboard specific, just as I use fanxpert3 on my p8z77-v LE and 3570k, I also use Gpu Tweak 2 for my 660ti, not the standard Gpu Tweak. If you look up the motherboard software on Asus site, don't choose the all in one package, that's the basic version and older. Scroll down and specifically look for the fanxpert 2 standalone dl. It's what I use. I set it a while ago and haven't messed with it since. No need to. It's great. And being fanxpert2, its also part of the Asus Suite, so fits right in with the rest. The only part of Asus suite you may not be able to rely on is the cpu temp. For me it seems to stop right at 40°C, even under prime95 torture test, when I know for a fact the cpu is @70°C, so rely on realtemp and/or speccy by piriform (same ppl make CCleaner). Speccy is very good as it drops all sorts of info, everything from every temp (hdd, SSD, case, cpu, gpu etc) to Windows versions and key.

Need help with case fans position

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