Where should my fans be placed for maxium airflow

moesgone

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Mar 8, 2008
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Hey ... i recently build and bought a computer
but i didnt put any fans on itt .. and soo im going to buy new one soon time

the places for fans on my case are placed wierde ...
but ill try to describe this ....

okay soo the back of the case it has an area for a fan .. 92m x92m or 120mx120m

on the side of the case, on the left side( looking at it from the front ) has 2 fan spots .. one 80m and the other 120m
and a 120mm fan space in the front of my cpu . but its covered by the cpu front ..

this is how it looks from the left side

|``````````````|
back fan->| ( ) | <-- front
| |``| |
|_|__|__________|<--hiddden 120mm fan
^
|_> that the 120mm fan and ontop is a 80 mm fan
im going to put a 80mm fan blowing INWARDS because my CPU fan sucks air threw that small 80 mm fan opening above the 120 mm opening


what direction and where do you guys think i should put the fan for maxuim airfloww ...
and btw i cant use the 120 mm fan unless i find away to uncover it ...


what do you guys think ?

http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg312/moehabibi/caseinfo.jpg




 

Xpyrofuryx

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Dec 29, 2006
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Its hard to point out what goes where, try to MS Paint a pic and color coat the fan positions, itll make it easier on us (or at least me) lol
 

moesgone

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okay there i uploaded a pic ...

REMEMBER ... the small 80mm fan is gonnna be blowing into the cpu fan so the cpu fan can suck more air ...

anyone know how i should place my fans ?
 

rockbyter

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Feb 13, 2008
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In the front bottom and side - out the back and top. By filling or covering all open holes you can successfully create an effective cooling system. None of the fans have to be loud, they just have to move. Leaving a hole uncovered or not filled with a fan will more than likely work against you.
 

ZOldDude

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Apr 22, 2006
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Air in/air out in as dirrect a path as possible removes the most amount of heat in the shortest time...always.

Unscrewing or -cutting away- the exit fans grill also gives a larger than expected boost in it's air flow. If nothing else is changed doing that gives the -largest- drop in temps,often more than swaping a CPU HS without doing it.

Adding extra fans to the side of a case -mix- the airflow slowing down the removel of heat inside the case.

The seven systems on my LAN in my profile all have a 50% OC on air and never go over 4C above the rooms air temp.
If your case has correct airflow then you should never feel hot/warm air comming out of the PSU. Your PSU is -not- a case exit fan!

After years of building I find the case in my profile to still cool better than all others on air.
Large,heavy,"ugly" (no side windows) and 100% pure function.
 

spoonboy

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Mate i looked into the same thing once, saw some ancient article - years old - about optimal fan placement, a few pictures of fan combos with system temps, they basically said that a rear exhaust underneath the psu like in just about 99.9% of pc cases, and a fan in the roof towrad the rear end, was just as effective as the same setup but with a front and side fan aswell. The (their) conclusion was that drawing warm air out of the rear-top corner of the case was a better setup than one front and one rear fan, and even better than these 2 with a side fan. I guess for a totally custom setup, going with the natural movement of the air, convection in the case with cool air being drawn in and warm air rising up and out the case, might be a good thing to bear in mind when choosing a configuration.

Artic cooling made some interesting case a while ago, the 'silentium' http://www.silentpcreview.com/article216-page2.html
If your up for some unusual fan setup, you could try something like this. Apparently, apart from the weak psu, the case used only a handful of small fans, yet kept case temps very very low . Just as effective as a brute force 11 x 150mm fans approach :)

I had a go at implementing planned air flow in my own case. I pulled out the redundant covers on the front of my case, that cover the empty optical drive slots. This gave an air inlet straight to the cpu cooler, so the cpu could directly get cool air, instead of taking whats blown in from the existing/original case fan at the bottom front part of the case. I then fixed an 80mm fan into this space, to blow cool fresh air straight at the cpu cooler. The 120mm rear case fan sits directly behind the cpu cooler, sucking out the hot air from it. That gives (looked at from the side with the side panel off) an almost straight line of airflow from the front 80mm fan, the zalman 9500 cpu cooler, and the rear 120mm fan, simulatenously feeding the cpu with cool air and drawing the hot exhaust away. It looks a bit ghetto cos I used bits of plastic, cardboard and sticky tape to mount the front fan, but it works well. The cpu load temps went down about 3-4 degrees celsius, and I think the case temps dropped a bit too. Anyway the point is if you play around with configurations you can get some interesting and useful results, and I would definetly recommend doing what I did and using the empty drive bays to mount a cooling fan. The 80mm one I used is pretty weak, so a 100mm or 120mm might really drop case and cpu temps signifigantly.

Cheers
 
What is the case you are using?

The first principle is to arrange a straight through airflos path. Preferably intake low in front, output high in back.
You want this path to be as unobstructed as possible, so wiring neatness counts.

The second principle is to have about the same fan capacity of intake fans to output fans.

Lastly, larger, slower turning fans are quieter and more effective.

What to do in this instance??

1) Look again at the front fan location. Are there some vents at the side of the case to supply air to the fan? It is illogical to me that a case would go to the trouble to make a fan mount that can't be used.

2) If you can change out the rear fan from a 92mm fan to a 120mm you can almost double the exhaust capacity.
Do the math, a 120mm circle is almost twice the area of a 92m circle.

3) If no front position is available, Install a 120mm intake fan on the side.
Look for a couple of Yate loon fans, they are cheap and quiet.

4) If you can, clean up your wiring.

5) Do you have a hot vga card like a 8800gtx? If so, the addition of a slot cooler like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999704

---good luck---
 

Reaper221

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Mar 13, 2008
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I read an article somewhere that stated that the general consensus for a bit awhile ago was more air coming in than going out, but now it might be better for more air leaving the case than coming in, like a minor vacuum, not that we could even try to achieve a vacuum in our boxes. It's a shame the article wasn't more concise but it was also a while ago I read it. My memory's not what it used to be.

My current case has five 80mm fans, two drawing air in, two drawing air out, and a fifth that I had blowing into the case. After seeing a few minor problems, I switched the fifth case fan to drawing the air out of the case (2 blowing air in and 3 pulling air out) and the problems went away.

Just my personal experience.
 

moesgone

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Mar 8, 2008
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okay soo i just found out... that i cant take out the front panel ... because my usbx2 microphone and audio imput + my restart and power buttons cant be moved ... wel they can but i just dont know how ..

so now whats left is the side and the backk


my wireiing ... is either 100% or 99.9% clean and neat

when the person build it i told em to make it night and neat ...

i dont have a 8800GT ...
but i think since i have dual 8600GT 512MB SLI graphic card ..
it might be giving off more then normal heat

so from what i read ... the only thing i can do is
120mm- exhoast fan in the back
80mm- outtake
120mm- intake ( which is right infront of the graphic cards