What is better pulling or forcing air onto a HSF?

[kdo2milger]

I have read that it is better when your heatsink fan is pulling air away from the cpu, rather than forcing air onto the cpu. What is better for an AMD Athlon XP 2000+ set-up?

This is what I am running: Cooler Master HHC-001 w/ a 60mm to 92mm Aluminum Anodized Adapter, and a Sunon 92 mm 2500RPM, 44CFM, 33DBA regular bb fan, which is much quieter and generates 8CFM more air. SO pulling air, or forcing air, thats my question...



We all love disassembling things to see how it works, but who wants to put it back together again?<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by kdo2milger on 06/24/02 05:03 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[FatBurger]

Alphas suck, others blow.

<font color=blue>Hi mom!</font color=blue>

 

[OldBear]

Very true. Well put.

<b><font color=blue>The shortest distance between two points is under construction. :lol:

 

[kdo2milger]

So I'm going to pull the air away from my cpu, run tests then turn the fan upside down, run more test, then compare data to see which is best for my set-up.

We all love disassembling things to see how it works, but who wants to put it back together again?

 

[pcilliterate]

It depends on what type of material and how thick the fins are at the base of the HSF, if its copper finned and a heavy base it's best to draw the heat up through the fins as the majority of the heat is collectively closer to the cpu, if its alloy then blowing through theoretically thicker fins will be better as the heat is spreading through the Alloy evenly. Without doing calculations it would be impossible to determine what’s best as every HSF combo is different in a varying case environment. So what works in one case (excuse the pun) may not work in another, it has a lot to do with case airflow as well.

Like you said, just try it. No need for long winded explainations. heh

Here is a good place to read up on it: <A HREF="http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=105&PageID=1" target="_new">General Heat Transfer Guide </A>

 

[kdo2milger]

Thanks pcilliterate, your explanation was informative, and thanks for the research tip...

We all love disassembling things to see how it works, but who wants to put it back together again?

 

[marsh]

in my quest for a cool pc, i've just replaced the [-peep-] thermal pad on my heatsink with some plain old cheapy copper grease. as a result, my temperatures have dropped between 15 - 20 degrees C. my cpu was running on average at around 60C never higher, and rarely below 55C, but it's dropped to between 35-50C. i've never used any of that arctic silver stuff before, but this does a fine job for a fraction of the price.