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Fan Placement Question

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  • Heatsinks
  • Cases
  • Fan
  • Overclocking
Last response: in Overclocking
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August 2, 2011 1:07:02 PM

Hello. I'll try to make this quick to read and understandable.

I have a Zalman Z9 Plus case. It holds 4 working fans at the moment. A front fan and side panel fan (intake), and a rear fan and a top fan (outtake). The side intake fan is blowing air somewhat on the RAM, not exactly but almost there.

Now, I have a 5th fan, which is also located at the side panel, and is not connected yet, so it's stopped. The fans are placed diagonally. My question is, should I use this 5th fan as intake as well? It sounds odd to me to have two intake fans at the side panel, which would also mean I'd have 3 intake fans, and only 2 outtake fans.

However, and please correct me if I'm wrong, I think it would make more sense if this 5th fan was used to blow air inside the case, because it would be blowing air directly into a spot from where air is sucked in both from the GPU fan and from the PSU fan (which is placed at the bottom of the case). Would you consider this to be a correct procedure? If I do this, should I switch the other side fan to blow air out?

TL;DR: Last paragraph.

More about : fan placement question

a b K Overclocking
August 3, 2011 1:22:45 AM

I would use the 5th fan as an intake fan since you've already got the other side panel fan as an intake. Having an intake and exhaust fan next to each other is counter intuitive; that is they'll work against each other.

There are benefits and complications to positive and negative air pressure. For positive pressure, you'd need to situate your fans to have more intake than exhaust; conversly, more exhaust than intake for negative pressure.

The benefit to positive air pressure is that you have more cool air coming in, so in turn, your system should be cooler. The complication is that with more air coming in, more dust will also be coming in.

As for negative air pressure, you have more hot air being expelled, but is it enough to make the temperature inside your case go down?

This is an on-going debate, but you have to consider several factors, and they'll typically apply to the person conducting the experiment. This is what you have to consider, in regards to temperature:

1. Ambient Temp - How warm or cool is the room the PC is in? Are you measuring the temp in the daytime or at night?
2. Case ventilation - If there were no fans on your case, how well can the case breathe?
3. Climate changes - As seasons change, so does the outside temp, which will ultimately affect the temp inside your house/building
4. Internal cooling - It's not just about the physical presence of the fans, but how effective they are too.
5. Overclocking - when you OC a system, you're increasing the speed, and often times for high OC's the voltage is also increased. Speed plus voltage = operating temperature. This applies to any hardware you OC.

To sum it all up, it is better to keep your fans working together. So in your case, if you want the side to be intake, use the 5th fan as intake as well. In regards to overall cooling or temperatures, you must experiement for yourself, while understanding how the variables will affect your system temp.
August 3, 2011 2:01:42 AM

Thanks for the extensive reply. Another thought going for what I initially thought, I will most certainly try this out. Thanks :wahoo: 
!