The big air cooling investigation

guys i found this article in bit-tech.com.i thought this the must read for everyone.

1. The amount of venting in your case can have a huge impact on cooling, particularly around the CPU area. If you have fan mounts here that are blocked up, unblock them.

2. Generally, all other things being equal, it’s better to get hot air out of your case than to pump cool air in, particularly when it comes to CPU cooling.

3. If you have a roof mount that’s located nearer the front of the case than the CPU cooler, leave it open. Fitting a fan here only causes problems.

4. If you have one, two or three fans in your case, the side panel intake mount is the most important. Fill this first, followed by the rear exhaust mount, followed by the roof exhaust mount.

5. Bear in mind the fact that fans have an effect on each other and use this to your advantage. For this to work though they need to be close enough to interact - a side intake works better with a rear exhaust than a front intake does for this reason.

6. With four or more fans, concentrate on traditional front to back cooling and creating one strong, continuous air flow. Fill the front intakes and the roof and rear exhausts first.

7. More fans does mean more cooling, but expect diminishing returns when going above three or four fans.

link-The Big Air Cooling Investigation
Published on 10th February 2012 by Paul Goodhead
-

nice article. a front mounted fan is important when you have more than 1 HDD. also if someone have a cabinet with facility for mounting fan at the top, better leave it open and concentrate on other areas as hot air will anyway move up or get thrown by a rear fan.

@ sukesh1090 - thanks for the article - I've done everything perfectly inside of my CM Elite 430 with 3x 120mm and 2x 80mm fans ;-)

one who is building his rig first time or one who is worried that his computer is running hot then he should read that article.it will help a lot.one thing i found is that side intake fan is very very important to keep gfx card,chipsets and even processor cool.
@topgear,
welcome bro.

Sam said:
nice article. a front mounted fan is important when you have more than 1 HDD. also if someone have a cabinet with facility for mounting fan at the top, better leave it open and concentrate on other areas as hot air will anyway move up or get thrown by a rear fan.

but still bro i think the upper exhaust at the back side should have a fan because it will accelerate the movement of air to the outside of the case but the one which is very near to the front intake should be left alone as if we add a fan there then the cool air coming from the front will be thrown out from that fan before it reaches the processor and all.

one front intake & atleast one top mounted exhaust is a must

sukesh1090 said:
but still bro i think the upper exhaust at the back side should have a fan because it will accelerate the movement of air to the outside of the case but the one which is very near to the front intake should be left alone as if we add a fan there then the cool air coming from the front will be thrown out from that fan before it reaches the processor and all.

if one have more fan (like topgear's 5 fan set) then installing top mounted fan helps. but in case of just 2-3 fan, 2 intake fan helps lot more.

very nice article, i am using CM 690. I have 3x120mm fans, one in front(intake), one in side pannel(intake), one in rear side(exhaust), also my psu fan works as exhaust fan . No fan on top.

Sam said:
if one have more fan (like topgear's 5 fan set) then installing top mounted fan helps. but in case of just 2-3 fan, 2 intake fan helps lot more.

yup the preference is like this,
1.side intake 2.rear exhaust 3.front intake.......

&& perfect placement for 2/3 fans.

Sam said:
if one have more fan (like topgear's 5 fan set) then installing top mounted fan helps. but in case of just 2-3 fan, 2 intake fan helps lot more.

The top fan is for keep the mobo VRM region cool when OCed and at sizzling summer season ;-)

or else like you said on a previous post hot air will dissipate through the top vents automatically but adding a fan just accelerate the process more.

topgear said:
The top fan is for keep the mobo VRM region cool when OCed and at sizzling summer season or else like you said on a previous post hot air will dissipate through the top vents automatically but adding a fan just accelerate the process more.

you have Phenom II X4 overclocked so a top fan really helps but Jaskanwar too had found his own way to cool VRMs, if you remember :lol:

^^
what was that?

^*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/cpu-motherboards/152074-cooling-vrm.html
:))

btw let me test this now!

^^
but what about NB.how to cool it?btw will adding the tim came with the hyper 212 evo cooler to NB reduce the temp of NB?

^wait 5-10min. let me confirm what that temp belongs to.

yup sukesh that NB temp i think then, because none of tempins changed after i unplugged that fan.
just tie a small fan on NB cooler. experiment :-D

i too have done jugaad cooling for my passive cooled gpu... will post pics soon....

Jaskanwar Singh said:
^wait 5-10min. let me confirm what that temp belongs to.

yup sukesh that NB temp i think then, because none of tempins changed after i unplugged that fan.
just tie a small fan on NB cooler. experiment

i can't do that my 212evo is very near to it and now the problem is i guess i won't be able to fit even side panel fan as 212evo will most probably touch the side panel. :-(

thats not the problem i just hope that 212 evo just sits inside source 210.

Jaskanwar Singh said:
^wait 5-10min. let me confirm what that temp belongs to.

yup sukesh that NB temp i think then, because none of tempins changed after i unplugged that fan.
just tie a small fan on NB cooler. experiment

I will try to do this butwe have to use of 80mm fans ( as fans smaller than 80mm is not easy to find ) and it's not always easy to tie a 80mm fan on NB cooler but I'll give it a try for sure though ;-)

sukesh1090 said:
i can't do that my 212evo is very near to it and now the problem is i guess i won't be able to fit even side panel fan as 212evo will most probably touch the side panel.thats not the problem i just hope that 212 evo just sits inside source 210.

fix 212 evo horizontally. i mean fan facing up ;-)

after that you will get enough space.

topgear said:
I will try to do this butwe have to use of 80mm fans ( as fans smaller than 80mm is not easy to find ) and it's not always easy to tie a 80mm fan on NB cooler but I'll give it a try for sure though

nice,

topgear said:
I will try to do this butwe have to use of 80mm fans ( as fans smaller than 80mm is not easy to find ) and it's not always easy to tie a 80mm fan on NB cooler but I'll give it a try for sure though

but how will you fit fans on the NB? VRM cooling was possible cause Jassy tied the fans to cabinet grill and HSF, maybe but in case of NB you'll have to arrange some kind of mounting mechanism as GPU doesn't have holes nor is it safe to tie anything to the PCB of the graphics card.

^^ I've a small fan of 8600GT - 60/40mm may be with 2 pin connector - will try with that ;-)

Jaskanwar Singh said:
fix 212 evo horizontally. i mean fan facing up
after that you will get enough space.

nice,

it it can be done and we set 212 with 2 fans one fan will face NB cooler and other one will face th Top vent - so NB will reamin cool and hot air from cpu cooler will go out quickly using the top vent and it will left a little bit more space on top side so I'll be able to add 120mm on top - but the big question is can we fix the cooler like Hyper 212 horizontally on AMD mobos ???? I've tried but it was not possible though I've placed the cooler horizontally with previous Intel rig ;-)

topgear said:
it it can be done and we set 212 with 2 fans one fan will face NB cooler and other one will face th Top vent - so NB will reamin cool and hot air from cpu cooler will go out quickly using the top vent and it will left a little bit more space on top side so I'll be able to add 120mm on top - but the big question is can we fix the cooler like Hyper 212 horizontally on AMD mobos ???? I've tried but it was not possible though I've placed the cooler horizontally with previous Intel rig

yeah 2 fans is also nice option.
if you take the case of evo, i did it.

Adding more Fans helps but as the fan increases so does the noise level.Having very low tolerance for noise i had prefer not more than 2 fans at any time.

Does the article reflect anything on the size of the fan ?

Is it better having 1 big sized fan with lower RPM rather than 2 with high RPM ?

How much does CFM play role in reducing /increasing noise ?

^^
take an example,
a 200mm fan produces 50cfm by running at600rpm
a 140mm fan produces 50cfm at 1000rpm
a 120mm will produce same at 1500rpm
a 80mm will produce same at 2500rpm
higher the rpm more noise will be produced.

Jaskanwar Singh said:
yeah 2 fans is also nice option.
if you take the case of evo, i did it.

buddy if possible post a snap .. want to have a look at it ;-)

TP, exams coming. so i will post detail pics later. till then -
*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/show-off/151107-my-new-rig-4-core-ka-zor.html

^^ thanks for the link - I think I got my answer ;-)

BTW, best wishes for the upcoming exam.

V

Is my fan setup correct ?

*i.imgur.com/5kx4K.jpg

Front - Intake - 120mm 90CFM - to cool 2 HDDs
Side - Exhaust - 120mm 90CFM
Top - Intake - 2*140mm 65CFM - to cool VRMs and NB
Rear - Exhaust - 120mm 42CFM

Top left intake (specially to cool VRMs as OCing) and adjacent rear exhaust is wrong i guess.

front & side as intake. top as exhaust. you may make the rear fan as intake to cool VRM.

V

Sam said:
front & side as intake. top as exhaust. you may make the rear fan as intake to cool VRM.

Hmmm
But again air from rear intake wont be sucked up by top left exhaust ?

topgear said:
^^ thanks for the link - I think I got my answer

BTW, best wishes for the upcoming exam.

thanks tp.

vyral_143 said:
Hmmm
But again air from rear intake wont be sucked up by top left exhaust ?

keep front and side as intake and rear,top fans as exhaust.

finally managed to mount my trusty old CM Hyper 212 horizontally ;-)

I'm still surprised how future proof this cooler is though it was introduced on 2007 ( I'm I remember it correct ) but thanks to AMD for retaining a good and compatible socket type ( still going on ) and CM for making a great cooler like this ;-)

V

sukesh1090 said:
keep front and side as intake and rear,top fans as exhaust.

VRM cooling then ?
OT: We have similar config in terms of Proccy, mobo and HSF.

if you keep the temp inside your cabinet less then the vrm will also stay cool.if you heatsink fan blows air upwards and the top fan blows downwards and both exactly opposite then you can guess what will happen.so it is better to throw the air coming from heatsink fan out with a top fan.even your side intake fan will keep your NB temp cool which reaches very high in this mobo.

here guys another one from "Hardwaresecrets.com",
Which is the Best Place to Install a Case Fan? - Part 1

Which is the Best Place to Install a Case Fan? - Part 2

^^ great find ( TFS ) ;-)

and nice to see they used a CM 430

BTW, a little OT : are you running the cpu @ stock speed - what's the cpu temp under load ??

^^
thanks bro.i am using my 955 in stock speed at 1.25v vcore.right now i am using ubuntu live cd so don't know how to check the temp.will tell you when i get my HDD from RMA and when i get my source 210.

^^ ok ..

sukesh1090 said:
^^
thanks bro.i am using my 955 in stock speed at 1.25v vcore.right now i am using ubuntu live cd so don't know how to check the temp.will tell you when i get my HDD from RMA and when i get my source 210.

right click on the panel (assuming gnome,)
add applet/widget/whatever
scroll down to system monitor or something, add that, and it'll show temps.

^^oh thanks bro but it is unity.now i am using linux mint 12.it is pretty awesome os.looks prettier than windows 7.it has hardware temp widget but it shows in Fahrenheit.do you know how to get it in Celsius?

use this

convertall - Linux Mint

thanks bro.

^^ you are welcome buddy ;-)

BTW, check this out :
Case cooling - the physics of good airflow - Technibble

My NZXT Tempest Evo has 6 freaking fans! It's screwed from birth?

Two front
Two top
One side
One rear

Half or more are 120mm

Great Link... thank you.