Fan Direction for Airflow..

[LesPaul30]

Just want to run thoughts by folks here-

I have recently bought the Cooler Master Hyper N520 to replace my stock Intel Fan. I am using a q6600 CPU. I was getting idle temps on the core from Speedfan coming in around 41-43C- with the fan it has lowered appx to 35c. After installing the fan I noticed that the air around the PC was very warm- much wamer than it has been. I then noticed that I installed the fan incorrectly. The instructions for this fan make the mistake of labeling the diagram upside down and my airflow is now reversed where the air is blown INTO the case, not out.

Can this lead to a problem down the line?

In the mean time I did buy some AS Remover solution in case I need to reverse the fan, which is not something that will be too bad as I"m comfortable with doing the process. I also think I may have put down too much paste anyways and want to just throw down a 'line' instead of smearing it around the CPU... I also didn't clean the old paste properly when I made the chage to the fan since I didn't have any of AS's solution. Is there an answer to using 'too much' paste? I keep seeing yes and no on this in the archives... but my main concern is the fan direction. Thanks!

 

[wolfram23]

Well if the fan is blowing towards the front of the case it will generally cause the case to heat up which can lead to higher core temps as it will be pushing hotter air through. If you can, redo it. You'll probably want to buy some new thermal grease like Arctic Silver 5. For removal you don't need anything special, even rubbing alcohol is good.

 

[hankafyin]

I just use rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol and coffee filters (lint free). Some thermal pastes are conductive, so excess thermal paste on your motherboard around your CPU socket is not a good thing. I would dismount your heat sink and do a good clean up and reapply as you said.

As for airflow, most cases intake outside air from the front, side, and bottom, and exhaust to the rear and top. Virtually all CPU heatsinks "push" air through the cooling fins, some use multiple fans in "push/pull" configuration.

Take the time to be kind to your system and it will appreciate it.

 

[rubix_1011]

In most cases, applying paste can take place a few different ways.

You can do the 'grain of rice' size dab in the middle and allow heat/pressure to spread it.

You can apply the 'grain of rice' and then dab it (finger inside a plastic baggie)

With direct contact heatpipes, there are a few other suggestions such as pre-filling the gaps of the pipes with small amounts of paste, then applying the normal paste on the CPU and installing.

Some still prefer the 'credit-card' method to distribute. (similar to the 'finger dab' method)

Regardless, you want as little as possible, yet enough to make good contact with your cooler. Apply some paste, install the cooler, then remove. See what kind of patch you get when you pull it off.

 

[LesPaul30]

I went and took the fan off, cleaned and reapplied the paste the proper way, threw the fan back on in the right direction and was seeing temp values in the high 20's. Will look to see where things are after 5 days or so..but I like it!

Thx Folks..