Proper Case Cooling

[edbmdave]

Question.

I have always believed that you need cross case cooling to be as efficient as possible. On fan in the front pulling air in, and one or two in the rear near the CPU to pull the warm air out. (this all is independent of the CPU cooler/fan, which is another issue).

I have run across another person that said all case fans should pull air out.

Thoughts/Discussion? What is the best for an always on server?

[jlindborg]

According to the AMD cooling notes, having a fan in front of the case pulling air in is pointless.

Interstingly my Divine 5 came with two 60 mm case fans in back - one configured to blow in and one to pull out - which is a tad odd to me since they were right next to one another. I'm picturing a small fan version of the truck and tractor pulls I watched as a kid at the fairgrounds.

I've done tempurature tests on multiple boxes in my house (at least the ones I tuck into my wiring closet) and having nice rear case fans blowing out always did best for me - no fans in front - nothing blowing in except the power supply fan.

[Sarlac]

I am a firm believer in balanced airflow. I have one system that was running VERY hot 140F idle. It's an athlon 1.1 thunderbird which is notoriously hot and power hungry. I went through several heatsinks, globalwin, thermaltake, etc... Before I was done I had a 60mm rear exhaust, an 80mm front intake, a pcislot snailfan, and on and on. As a last resort I installed an 80mm Papst fan in the door, (after a little creative dremmel work), bringing fresh cool air directly into the case over the cpu. I got an instant 25 degree reduction in core temp.

My new system is in an Antec sonata case. It is very efficient and quiet, with only a single 120mm rear exhaust fan and my average idle core temp is 98F. It is a P4 2.8c Northwood.

If you have a tempreture problem adding a high flow intake fan may solve your problem instantly. Nothing however replaces a well designed case and tidy wiring.

Good luck!

[cummings66]

Regarding case cooling. I have an Antec case and 2 fans out with an antec slot cooler. The slot cooler helped, but what made even more difference was adding a fan to the fron to help pull air in. In fact the case has a slot for a fan in that location so I assume that somebody out there thinks it helps.

I look at it like this. No matter what you do, there is only so much air you're going to pull out of a case, that number would be related to how tight the case it. If you push air into it, then it stands to reason that you can pull more air out. The Antec case has a filter on the front of the case as well, another good idea but not entirely foolproof.

Hey Sarlac, I see you use mcmsys.com so you must live somewhere near Moberly? I'd guess you're the first person locally I know of using Sage software.

[Sarlac]

Hey Sarlac, I see you use mcmsys.com so you must live somewhere near Moberly? I'd guess you're the first person locally I know of using Sage software.

Nah, that is showing YOUR ISP. Just a little big brother for ya.

[LowTech]

Here's a thread from another forum in which I posed a similar question. There weren't many responses but there are a couple of good ones...

http://htpcnews.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8569

This might help a little.