Liquid cooling push/pull mind blow

[Davil]

This is what I currently have.

Readers with a keen eye will notice that my back fan is actually an intake, and that's because the fans pulling out are currently pulling out way too much air. What you can't see is the 2 fans on top of my top radiator which are pulling with one sp120 pushing just for fun. What I had all that exhaust I actually wasn't getting very good temps and by reversing that back fan I actually dropped several degrees (sorry no actual numbers but it was a significant amount). I would prefer that fan to be blowing out though since it has no filter and is pulling in a significant amount of air, hence the dog fur near the bottom. I'm wondering if anyone has tried doing a half and half on their radiator with their fans?

I'm getting some better fans pretty soon and I'm going to do one fan pushing air in as an intake and one exhausting pulling out. Place your bets as to what you think the end result will be.

And these are my current idle and load temps.
www.davidsirritation.com/temps.png

 

[getochkn]

Whatever works for your best temps, works for you. That's what I found when I started my cooling adventures with a closed loop cooler, and now my GPU has a closed loop cooler as well. What works better for one person in their house, with their climate, with the position of their tower and what's around and blocking it, doesn't work for someone else.

You can have lots of exhaust, and dust, fur, etc, will still get it. It has to deal with pressure. Lots of exhaust is going to push all the air out of the case. The problem is, a tower is not a sealed system in which we can get less or more than atmospheric pressure, so as all the available air from inside the case is exhausted out, it will have to try to bring in more air to create an equilibrium with the air outside case, so it will pull it through every crack it can find, and thus bringing dust, fur, etc.

 

[Davil]

Whatever works for your best temps, works for you. That's what I found when I started my cooling adventures with a closed loop cooler, and now my GPU has a closed loop cooler as well. What works better for one person in their house, with their climate, with the position of their tower and what's around and blocking it, doesn't work for someone else.

You can have lots of exhaust, and dust, fur, etc, will still get it. It has to deal with pressure. Lots of exhaust is going to push all the air out of the case. The problem is, a tower is not a sealed system in which we can get less or more than atmospheric pressure, so as all the available air from inside the case is exhausted out, it will have to try to bring in more air to create an equilibrium with the air outside case, so it will pull it through every crack it can find, and thus bringing dust, fur, etc.

Well no I've got built in filters from the case on every intake just not that one back one because it's meant to be an exhaust. Theoretically though there should be a slight positive pressure in the case which there isn't, so that's what I'm trying to fix.

 

[Ellis_D]

It's always better to use "fresh" air on radiators as opposed warm and stagnant air so it's no surprise that reversing the rear exhaust fan to blow directly into the top fans exhausting through the radiator improved the performance.

You also have to consider all the Heat you would be blowing into the case from your radiator by making those top fans intake fans. While This would provide the best cooling for the radiator, it might adversely affect your internal, passively cooled components like RAM and your motherboard (and since it looks like your motherboard is water cooled, this may not be all that big of a deal).

But there's no better way to find the best solution than to experiment with your different options.

 

[Davil]

Well there's actually 2 200mm fans in the front of my case that you can't see along with a 120mm pulling air through that front radiator. So I was kind of surprised that I needed to turn my rear exhaust fan into an intake. I would think those big 200mm fans would be pulling in enough air.