I Need Help Installing The Fan: which way?

[aznlov3rb0y]

i have 3 fans in my case 1 120 mm in the back 1 80 on the side and 1 80 on the top which way do I face it towards to keep my SLI or case coolest... example umm .. 120 to suck in air or to blow out air and the two 80 to suck in air or to blow out air..... or any suggestions to make my computer cooler and quiet? anything would help...

 

[Jake_Barnes]

Try having the rear 120mm blowing heated air out. The front and side 80mm should draw cooler air into the case. Seems logical to me.

 

[Gneisenau]

Jake makes sense. But you probably need to try a couple of ways to see which way cools better. (If you have some way to continuously check your temps.) Some people have had better luck with their top fan blowing into the case some with it out. Some people seem to have better luck with the front blowing in and others with it blowing out. I guess it depends on where exactly the cool air sits around your case and where the hot air tends to gather. You may find that the top fan will drawing hot air from the rear fans, or it may bring in cold air because the rear fan blows clear of the case completely. I would try to balance the inflow with the outflow by looking at what flowrate each fan is supposed to push at.

If you can't check your temps, then the standard is front/side in rear/top out.

 

[aznlov3rb0y]

any other way to cool my computer?

 

[waylander]

because hot air rises... typically front and side are intakes, back and top are exhaust

may work better in other configurations but in reality what i said above works best for at least 80%

 

[aznlov3rb0y]

I only have 3 fans 1 120mm in the back 1 80 on top and 1 80 on side no fans in the front..

can i buy anything an extra fan or sumthing? open to ideas.. just built my computer...

 

[HotFoot]

I would very much like to have a top-mounted exhaust fan. My case generally gets very good airflow (TT Tsunami Dream). The fact that I could use a passive CPU air cooler for a PD is testament to the case design.

However, since I started to overclock, I've added a fan to my cooler. Unfortunately, I can't orient this fan blowing towards the rear, so it's blowing upwards. Since this change, the top of my case feels much warmer. I'm sure I could get better temps with a top exhaust fan. However, the space between my PSU and optical drives is taken up by the usb/sound jacks often found on the front of the computer. Does anyone have experience modding a Tsunami Dream for top exhaust?

To the OP: the other poster's suggestions are good. If anything, you'd probably do better to move the intake fan to the front of your case, so it blows air in over the HDDs. You might have to get a different-sized fan, but most cases at least have a place to mount fans in the bottom-front area.

 

[HeavyF]

Airflow through a case is difficult to estimate for most home builders. Layout of motherboard, case, fan, number of add-ins (graphics or otherwise), CPU choice etc has such a large effect on heat generated and circulated/ expelled that only vague rules can be useful across the spectrum of builds. As if this is not enough, many builders swear that a net positive or negative pressure in a case will lead to better case cooling. Opinions are worth a dime a dozen.

My opinion.. what I would do:

EXHAUST
80mm top fan- exhaust , 120mm rear fan - exhaust, + presumably there is also a 120mm or 80m PSU fan that is by default exhaust (unless you mod)

INLET

80mm inlet (near back mid case, right?) and finally mod the case with a
120mm front bottom inlet (presumably side).

Most likely this will be more than you will ever need for air flow. Don't ignore that you still need appropriate cooling solutions like an after market CPU HSF, etc.

Good luck. You can't really screw it up to badly, as long as you have the basic principals of heat exchange in mind.

Cheers.

 

[HotFoot]

I think moving the IO section to the side is the most likely mod for me... Actually, I only use the USB ports of this section, so I could probably get away with putting a USB port into a 3.5" bay slot in the front.

Otherwise I was thinking of adding an exhaust fan at the top of the side in my case. This would be the easiest area to mod because I have a plastic side window. I think it would be simpler to cut the plastic than the metal.

 

[HotFoot]

Since my last post, I took the top I/O port out. This leaves a few small holes open at the top of my case, where air is free to escape. My case has stronger intake than exhaust, so the positive internal pressure seems to be driving air out the top. Either that, or the upward-facing fan on the CPU cooler is causing a small draft out the top of my case. In either case, it's letting the hot air out and the case isn't as warm as before. My CPU temps in a short windows test seemed good, but probably less than 4 degrees better than before. Finding temps during a longer run may take some jiggery-pokery, as I have to be running in Linux to get the SMP FAH client running, and the xsensors program isn't running properly.

 

[HotFoot]

Unfortunately, I've used my spare 120mm fan, sandwiching it between the two halves of my TT Sonic Tower cooler. I posted on this in a different thread, but that fan dropped my CPU temps by 9C. My temps are actually very good. Speedfan reports 44C with FAH keeping the CPU at 100% on both cores @ 3.37 GHz.

I just didn't like the idea of heat getting trapped anywhere in my case. I think I will get another fan the next time I'm at the computer store, but I'm avoiding going there because my budget is $0 right now.

 

[HotFoot]

Those bottom-mounted fans would certainly help out anyone with a single graphics card that's getting a little hot.

I'm thinking that if I do any major modding, or maybe build my own case someday, that I'll use 25 cm fans all around. Not for a blasting wind effect, but so that I could run the fans very slowly and still get great CFM flow rate through my case.

 

[Dahak]

Have the 120 blowing warm air out and the two 80mm fans sucking it into the case.This should give you a decently cooled case.Goodluck.

Dahak

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