Intake vs Exhaust

[jamesyboy]

So i have finally built my ! rig (may not be your dream rig...but i love it

i7-930

6GB 1600mhz ocz ram

asus p6t

ati radeon hd 5850


In prime 95 my cpu is running at 90 celsius at 9 minutes on the blend test....is this high? it seems so....i idle at around 42-44.


On to the real question:

I bought a cooler master R4 90CFM less than 20 decibal fan to take up one of the side vents on my cooler master scout. At the moment, it is intaking cool air and blowing it toward my graphics card (which has its own fan...is this going to counteract/slow down the graphics card's integrated cooling? the other slot on the side of the case is adjacent to my cpu...i worried that blowing air toward the cpu fan might slow it down (idk how many of you have blown on a fan, but it normally slows down.)

my question is this....:

should the fan be an intake or an exhaust....and what spot would be best to put it in (on the side of the case)?

Intake or exhaust over the vid card?
or intake or exhaust over the cpu?

I believe that i also have the option of moving the fan to the front of the case for extra intake there....where do you guys think it would be best place?

I've read a lot on this subject, and cant seem to find any REAL consensus.

Are these high cpu temps? Whats the safe max range?

 

[Kon37]

generally for side fans it's better to have them as intake, i think your cpu temps are quite high too for no overclocking, are you using the stock cooler?

 

[JohnnyLucky]

OK! We know you've got a Coolermaster Scout pc case. We know you were running Prime 95 at load. It appears as if your cpu temperature is high.

1. What was the ambient room temperature when you ran Prime95?
2. What utility or software did you use to measure cpu temperature?
3. At the time of testing was the system overclocked?
4. Did you measure the temperature of the four cpu cores?

If you did not measure the temperature of the cpu cores, then please download RealTemp and CoreTemp. Run both utilities while running Prime95 and post the cpu core temperatures.

5. Are you using a stock Intel cpu heatsink that came with the cpu or a third party cpu heatsink?
6. If you are using a stock Intel cpu heatsink did you remember to remove the plastic film on the thermal compound?
7. If you are using a third party cpu heatsink did you apply thermal compound according to the manufacturer's instructions?
8. Is the cpu heatsink fastened securely?
9. What was the speed of the cpu fan when running Prime95?
10. What was the temperature of the 5850 video card when running Prime95?

 

[jamesyboy]

The ambient room temperature is 75 degrees farenheight, im using the stock intel fan, and the temperature of all four cores was about 89-90 with the side fan as an exhaust fan in the bottom slot. Im using realtemp to find my temps...going to switch the side fan to intake right now to test the difference

 

[jamesyboy]

actually im using realtemp gt

 

[jamesyboy]

idk what the difference between real temp and realtemp gt is

 

[jamesyboy]

I guess realtemp gt is for gulftown proc. i switched to realtemp regular and its displaying the same readouts

 

[jamesyboy]

is it possible realtemp is wrong? the asus tool that came with my mb says my cpu is at 37 celsius idling and realtemp says 45

 

[jamesyboy]

I downloaded a couple different apps, so here's an update.
]
I switched the side fan to intake: didn't seem to make too much of a difference.

The ASUS tool that came with my MB says the temp is 38-40 idling...
Realtemp says that im at 45-48 idling....
Speedfan says im idling at 38-40
and HWmonitor says im at 45-48...

it seems as though realtemp and hwmonitor share a theme....and speedfan/asus utilities do too....i have no idea what to believe....when i open my bios and watch it idle...it goes between 39-41

 

[Conumdrum]

90C is tooo hot. You need to get a new heatsink. Are you sure the Mobo Bios is set up right for the fan? It might not be ramping up to high speed when your temps go up.

Use realTemp. No need for anything else.

You sir need better cooling, your ambients or case cooling is very very poor. Or your application of the Thermal paste is bad. Don't let the CPU run for long at those temps.

Get another CPU cooler ASAP. And better case fans.

 

[saint19]

Hi newcomer and welcome to the Tom's hardware forum.

Like I see, the problem could be the orientation of the fan. You can taken the air from the back side of the GPU, that obviously is hot. I would change the orientation of the cooler to the front of the case, because the airflow comes from the front to the back side of your case.

 

[jamesyboy]

So, i returned to microcenter with my computer. The problem was undoubtedly a bad spring in the cpu heatsink (stock intel i7). They gave me credit towards a purchase of the Cooler Master V8.

My temps are now 35-39 Celsius!!! =D

 

[saint19]

Goood for your. Enjoy your OC and don't forget solve the thread.

 

[jamesyboy]

Best answer selected by Jamesyboy.