Geminiwave

okay someone told me that I need all of my case fans being intake fans to increase the air pressure in the case because denser air can hold more heat...well anyway the side of the case was off cause I was measuring for a heatsink on the southbridge(its needed). ANYWAY

Well when the side is off, the CPU temps go WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY YYYYYYYY down.

so the question is: should I set up some exaust fans somewhere? of so, which ones?

oh yeah and leaving the side off all the time isnt a good option because sometimes stuff falls out of the bookcase next to my comp and then also it greatly reduces the noise.

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Judas

on either side of the case ... and the front... set to intake... the top and back for exhaust....

denser air may contain the ability to contain more heat... but presure can also produce more heat.. AND if that aire isn't moving in any decent direction... it's defeating the purpose.. who ever told you to do that is not very intelligent when it comes to thermal dynamics (did i get the term right? )

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Geminiwave

I think thats the right term.

Okay well see heres the problem though...I have no side fans but I have 2 front fans. The front fans tend to get eatten up by the graphics card and so having both back fans as exaust doesnt seem a viable option.

So heres my idea...why dont I have the bottom back fan be intake and the top back fan be exaust. The top one is more powerful and heat rises anyway so it'd be a good exaust fan.

basically the layout is kinda like a 'Z' shape where the back fans are at the top back and the front fans are at the bottom front.

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Judas

your still cause a problem... the loop will happen... heat rises.. true.. but if the abient temperature rises.. and it tends to depending on room size..... that method still won't work.. ends up recycling the same air.... you want to create a wind tunnel effect.. you want air to move from on end of the case to the other .... no flow restrictions or some form of restrictions.... you keep a general direction of airflow moving... it should produce the best results... and if your worried about intake airflow.... consider this.. it's BETTER to pull air in then it is to blow it in and get the best results.... as long as your back fans are pulling the air from the inside OUT.... you creating a backpressure... causing the front area usually to bring in air regaudless of the fans.. (the front fans will help)... but it willl pull in air around your drive bay covers.. you might want to look for a 5 1/2 drive bay fan setup..

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The_Neon_Cowboy

Ummm you should have almost equil air comeing in and equil air comeing out .... If anything a little bit more air comeing in then out becouse a small amount will be lost to resistance since you case is not air tight....



Air should enter the fount and exit the top and/or rear

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dipstick

My way of doing it is that you want more air being pushed out. You want more negative pressure in the case so as the hot air is being pushed out it pulls fresh air in. Either way you want more fans pushing out than in. So have the two rears as exhaust and the two fronts as intakes.

krazy1

With my case I have 2 front 80mm pulling in and 2 Rear 80mm pulling out. With that my temps are as follows:

Room Temp: 70F
Case Temp: 74F
CPU Temp (Under Load): 95F


I have NO side fan. With my last case (which was identical to my current except it had a side fan) I was 15F warmer everywhere. By limiting my case fans to front and back I have droped the internal temps. I know lots of people swear by side fans and top blow hole fans but to me they mess up the air flow through a case. Then again every case is a little different.

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Zelig

Same here, more or less, since I've got my two sides as intake, and my two rears as exhaust, but I've also got my PSU as exhaust.

Geminiwave

wow...theres alot of great feedback guys. Thanks!

Okay so theres one more thing i'll tell you about and if you guys still say that the best option is to flip around the back fans, then I'm sure thats the best decision.

Okay so my two intake fans are in the front but they are covered by the front of the computer, so instead of sucking air from the front, it sucks from the bottom(kindof restricts incomming air a bit) even so, it still gets pretty nice cool air. So the problem...I have a huge heatsink on my Radeon card. See before on the old heatsink the whole card would heat up a ton but not much air would come off...with the new heatsink the card stays cooler but the overall air temps stay ALOT hotter so what I did was to remove the plate covers to the back of the computer where the PCI cards stick out and have them all open so that the front fans blow all the air from the Radeon card out. Basically I dont really think the front intake fans ever get fresh air to the CPU.

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krazy1

If your PC is on carpet, put a board under it and that will help the front pull in cleaner air

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Geminiwave

Actually...LOL it is on carpet and I propped up the front on bottlecaps XD like the big plastic ones. Anyway it does pretty well now(though I'm seriously considering dust filters for all of the fans...grrr)

the point is that all of the cold air is being blown against the graphics card which produces as much if not more heat than the Athlon XP I believe.

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Judas

get a slot fan or to.. (they fit into the pci slot areas).... and plug em in... that'll help out a ton....

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Geminiwave

there arent any available slots. the heatsink on the graphics card takes up most of them, and the soundcard and firewire take up the last two(i can probably ditch the firewire though...I guess)

so basically I just need to set up some exaust. Noted. I shall do that after my LAN party tomorrow.

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Zelig

You don't need filters on the exhaust fans.

The_Neon_Cowboy

that would create a depression resulting in a thenner air meaning HSF coolers would be less effective


Creating pressure means thicker air and the air grabs heat but since there is pressure it's no wisked away like it should so it would trap heat..



A balanaced air flow is the best one........

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Geminiwave

lol yeah if I open up the side of the case, the temps go down way way low. 98 under load right now...Ooooo yeah ;-)

Okay fans are gunna get flipped around sunday. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

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Vampyromaniac

the thing I don't like about that, is that with that low pressure in the case, air and more importantly dust gets sucked in from all the cracks and crevices around the case, instead of just at the fans, where you can filter it.

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Judas

agreed... but in the end.... i had better results anyways with more blowing it out.. then sucking it in....

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dipstick

yea but thats how you know you got great airflow. Just to test take off the side panel; If your temps rise you got great flow throughout the case. If temps fall, well you get the idea

Zardon

you need a combination of both for maximum effect. cold air pulled in low from front being pulled in the case toward the back with a fan(s) helping this air move by pulling out at rear. Heat rises so any excess will hit the PSU and any top case fans. side panels can also have a fan blowing in for further flow to help cool capacitors etc.

If ALL fans are blowing out the only way cool air can get in is via these outward flowing fans (or small air holes in the case joints) ...... all the fans "compete" to control the one way flow and minor amounts of air will break through the fan blades inwards - far from ideal.

this is the optimum flow. in from front, out at rear, in at side, out at top with PSU and any fans at top as heat rises. Its been proven in many a scientific experiment with special visible gases in the air and a clear case to observe exactly how the air flows internally.

Geminiwave

Wow...this is alot better response than I hoped for.

yeah taking the side off definaly helps. The temps go WAYYYYYYYYY down. The deal is that at first I only had one case fan...and things were good...then I added another...things were better, then another, still better, then one more, and things were great.

My temps went down more and more each time, so I wasnt sure if I should mess with them. As I said, after the lan party, those back suckas are getting flipped.

one more thing: Any of you know where to get a good CPU fan that doesnt involve a heatsink? My heatsink didnt come with a fan so I bought an 80mm case fan to stick in there and uh....yeahhhh its not so effective. I'm getting CPU temps of about 38-40 degrees celcius and I know I can do better than that. I dont really wanna spend all that money on a new fan when I get to throw away the heatsink basically.

lol funny thing...back when I was using a 2600+ Tbred my temps were 95 degrees under load with no fan. It was great.

okay anyway fans gettin flipped.

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Logla

You have to have a heatsink - A fan blowing directly onto the cpu will not keep it cool enough due to the small surface area of the cpu.

The heatsink is there to make the surface area much bigger and therefore make any fan blowing onto it much more effective.

If you aren't into fans for the cpu, then you have to start looking at water cooling, which if you can afford it (its a lot cheaper these days) becomes tremendous fun.

Geminiwave

hahahah okay I didnt write that properly. Please dont think I'm a n00b.

Okay what I mean is that I got a killer heatsink like this one http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...109-011&depa=0 in fact I believe it was that very model.

now anyway the deal is that I have the heatsink and it didnt have any fan...for my XP 2600+ Tbred that wasnt a problem because the temps didnt get anywhere near 100 degrees under load...however for my barton it is a different story(that and its summer now so the temps are higher) so basically I just bought some random 80mm case fan and stuck it on...well its loud and not very efficient etc etc and anyway I want something better. Problem is that I was going to buy a good fan and its impossible to buy a CPU fan without a heatsink along with it...and the really good CPU fans tend to be on really good heatsinks which make the price upwards of $40-50

yeah I dont wanna pay that much. Is there any way of getting a nice fan for cheap?

oh yeah about the water cooling....thats possibly going to be my christmas present to myself but I havent decided yet.

(I am so so sorry for the horrible spelling job in this post)

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