The Never Exhausted Debate About Computer Air Exhaust

muddocktor

SimGuy had this to say
Here's a question about air flow for all the Antec/Chieftec/Chenming SX1080 users out there.

Everyone knows the came I'm talking about and it has 5 fans: 2 80mm intakes stacked vertically in the front of the case. The Antec SX1080 has a dust filter to prevent those awful dustbunnies from being sucked in.

Installed in the rear are 2 80mm vertically-stacked exhaust fans.

Installed in the left-hand side panel is 1 80mm.

I picked up a couple of Panaflo 120mm U1A 115 CFM case fans and plan on mounting them horizontally along the base of the left-hand side panel, eliminating the 80mm intake fan located there.

AFAIK, you are supposed to balance exhaust with intake. The location of the 2 new 120mm Panaflo's will be directly over the expansion cards and just lower than the CPU.

Here's the question: Would having the 4 remaining 80mm case fans work as exhaust fans only instead of 2 exhaust, 2 intake fans work better with the dual 120mm's intaking? Is it wise to have that much intake pressure? Thoughts?

SimGuy, I have the air exhausting in the lower fron of my Antec 1240 from the radiator and I found that the louvers on the front of the case held a lot of back pressure and caused considerable flow noise. I ended up making a 120mm vent hole in the louvers by cutting the plastic and making an extention that goes into the front faceplate up to the fan to direct all that heat outside of the case, which is considerable as that is a dual XP machine. Putting the vent hole also cut the flow noise down considerably.

MediaMan

Here's my 2c on the issue:

Airflow and Heat: A cooling guide.

It's in that other area of SM...that non-forum area...

Geeky1

WHOAH... There's ANOTHER area of SM?

MediaMan

Yah....I clicked a wrong link on the forum page and I was in this whole other area. Some dude was talking about computer stuff and there was a whole buncha pictures.

Some cool stuff too about how to mod and all that. Dude...I was blown away.

I wonder if anyone else has thoughta doin that?







We know return you to your regular hot air thread.

Leonardo

MM, this thread is an independent study to the seminal work found at Short-Media main. The effort here was to hopefully arrive at the same conclusions, without knowledge of the other study, hence lending credibility to the first study.

Yeah, that's what we were doing.

automaton

:Rocker:
i just redid my fans

skyhawk al psr series
intake
front 48cfm ys tech 80mm [obstructive fan case] cools raid hds
evercool triple fan bay cooler 18cfm under cd bay blows right thru case
window galaxy clear w led 80mm 53cfm w al filter :banghead:

exhaust
duct 50cfm sunon 80mm bx
60mm delta black label 37 cfm
pci slot 25 cfm
got my temps down 4-5c degrees

sound isnt as bad as i feared not much louder new pitch
spark7+ is already loud on full
with the delta as an added tone

i feel ive gotten :celebrate good results

bothered

I always imagine a fan blowing air in would be warmer than ambiant because the fan produces heat. A fan sucking air out would only draw ambiant air in so surly it would be cooler inside the case.

Gobbles

Geeky1 wrote:

I've run boards outside of the case, and if you put one or two of those rotron 6.75" fans blowing across the board, everything drops to a few degrees above ambient, except for the CPU, chipset, and video card (although if you have a really good cooling setup on them, they'll drop a great deal too.

I just haven't found a design I'm happy with yet...

LOL everything drops a few degrees except all the parts...
:wow2:

automaton

hi
i tried the window as exhaust was not cooler

im trying to get air front to back :hitit2:

cooling guides

http://www.tweak3d.net/tweak/airflowtweak/

http://www.overclockers.com/articles578/

http://www.sysopt.com/articles/casecooling/

http://www.speedy3d.com/articles/case_cooling/

http://www.overclockersclub.com/?re...ppZZpuZCxjnbYEJ

http://www.nordichardware.com/artic...03/luftkylning/

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=70679

http://www.tweakers.com.au/articles...part2/page1.asp

http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=230

http://firingsquad.com/guides/hdcasecooling/
http://www.firingsquad.com/guides/cooling/default.asp

http://forums.overclockers.co.nz/sh...=&threadid=7042

http://www.gamers-depot.com/guides/...g_guide/001.htm

http://www.heatsink-guide.com/

http://www.heatsink-guide.com/casecool.htm

http://www.tech-pc.co.uk/cooling.php

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.c...ead.php?t=92559

Tex

I always did better with intake blowing through the side driectly onto the cpu's hsf. front intakes only help with hard drive temps. It's generally believed you want more exhaust then intake if its not equal and as far as cpu temps that hasnt played out for me. the more cold air I blow right onto teh cpu hsf the better. I typicaly use one top and one back exhaust but in general they blow much less exhaust then the intake fan does

fudgam

My current setup is 2 intake on front, 1 intake on side, and 2 outtake on back (and the psu fan blowing out). What if I turned the 2 front intake around, so Id have 2 outtake in front, one intake on side, 2 outtake on back and then the psu? Would that mess up the fans because there is only one fan blowing in and 5 blowing out? I figure I'd leave the side intake alone since thats blowing on the video card.

EyesOnly

My setup is the only possible for a Antec Sonata (man it was long since i wrote that word). One 120 mm PAPST in the front blowing in and the stock 120 mm fan in the rear blowing out all running on the lowest voltage thanks to a fancontroller.

Whilest reading i though of turning off the front fan but then i realized that the case doesn't have alot of flow in it and having no intake would prolly kill the harddrive. The temps right now are 49C for the cpu and 28C for the mobo. Room temp is 26C.

The highest temps measured was: Cpu 53C, 33C mobo. That was during a heatwave about a month ago where room temps where around 30-33. Still i've got fah running at full speed (which bothered can verify) so i'm pleased with my temps.

When gaming i turn on the fan for the graphics card (an 80 mm zalman) and i can't understand how many of you have fans like that or even louder on all the time.

In other word. My quest for a silent, modern gaming computer was a success.
It's not that hard as long as you don't listen to what anyone has to say and just go your own way.

If my case had better flow i would atleast consider it.

MAGIC

with every case ive had ive tried about all fan configs. i figure that you just need more outtake than intake, you just cant have any lingering air around high heat componentes.

entropy

One side intake, one exhaust, plus 2 on psu (one going into it and one leading out of case). Temps average at around 24-26*C (YES, that's correct, don't even bother challenging it, because I already have ) Ambient varies - tends to stay around 20 to 25. Right now ambient is about 20*C, and my CPU is at 24*C, and it's idling. SF2 on temp-sense over SLK-947. Btw, how safe would it be to remove my psu's intake fan...?

KINGPIN

if intake and outlet are at opposite sides it circulates air better

Leonardo

One thing I have found during my personal adventures in cooling is that you can't make a blanket statement to cover every situation.

Prof, I agree completely. In my experience though, the principle of rear exhaust being the most important cooling component is correct. I've tried many different setups with many different PCs (way to many fan configurations to list here). Sometimes a front intake fand made no difference at all to either case or CPU temperatures. I have found though, that with intake air filtering, an intake fan is almost mandatory with my setups, generally causing a 2*C case temp lowering and 1*C CPU temp lowering.

automaton

:Rocker: :banghead: :Rocker:
got my fans in

intake
48cfm 80mm
triple fan bay cooler
window 53cfm

exhaust
38cfm 60mm
duct 50cfm
pci slot 20cfm :celebrate
dropped cpu temp 4-5c degrees

noise not as bad as feared
window as intake also quieter

[if pix 2 much delete]

JChretien

Hmmm i have one side intake, two front intake, two back exhaust and one top exhaust, all 80mm. add my PSU's one exhaust.. and i have negative pressure... its not as noisy as i thought it would be.. and even with my O/Ced barton, the Vantec Aeroflow keeps my CPU folding@100% in the mid 40s (Celcius). During the recent summer heatwave, its hit 56C max... its not too bad really considering i got the fans for 2$ each =D

Medlock

I have next to no experience with this, as I've only built one computer where there were fans other than the one(s) in the PSU. My current setup is 1 rear exhaust+psu exhaust 1 side intake and 1 front intake, all 80mm. I didn't notice any difference when I installed the front intake. I hate the noise it makes though, my case sucks.

Great thread so far, I'll try and keep this stuff in mind whenever I get a new case and fans.