The case I ordered has a fan on the side of it that blows air OUT of the case. I'm sure this is probably right, but I don't understand why you wouldn't blow air onto the components.

I know I feel cooler when standing infront of a fan, as opposed to standing behind one.

It is good to have your fans, most of them, blowing out, to get hte hot air out of the case, to let more cool air in. Otherwise there is high pressure in the case and you are just blowing the hot air right back onto the cards. Its similar to ware hoses, where the big fans in the back blow air out. Many heat sinks on processors and video cards also blow air away, but some blow it into the heat sink... like mine. I have the fan on my window blowing out, the fans on my back blowing out, and my blow hole on the top blowing out, the two fans in the front blow in, so I some pretty smooth air flow going.

Air flow is the most important factor. Make sure you provide a path for the air to flow across the components and out of the case. In-the-front and out-the-back is recommended, since the power supply is already blowing out the back, and you want a consistent direction of flow.

Some bad things you can do:
* point all fans in the same direction (all in, or all out) ... this prevents air from flowing through the case, so temperature inside just goes up.
* leaving the cover off the case ... this prevents air from flowing almost at all, so air just sits around the components, and they roast themselves.

[quote author=Grok link=board=2;threadid=7737;start=0#msg70912 date=1090039660]
Air flow is the most important factor. Make sure you provide a path for the air to flow across the components and out of the case. In-the-front and out-the-back is recommended, since the power supply is already blowing out the back, and you want a consistent direction of flow.

Some bad things you can do:
* point all fans in the same direction (all in, or all out) ... this prevents air from flowing through the case, so temperature inside just goes up.
* leaving the cover off the case ... this prevents air from flowing almost at all, so air just sits around the components, and they roast themselves.
[/quote] all fans can be blowing out if all fans refers to 1 or 2 fans maybe on the top or back, because air could still be able to flow into case because of low pressure, assumeing there is a vent on the sides or front. But if there are fans blowing out on every side, you are right, there will not be a bit of air flow. But I tend to keep most of my fans blowing out.

I have a fun idea, I am going to make air flow diagrams in paint! :D

ok this is how my case is, except I have the ide, molex, and so on all tucked nicely to the side of the back behind the little shelf thing. Be sure to practice wire management, use some cable ties and get those wires neatly bundled. Ok well here is my crappy diagram
[img]http://quasi-ke.servebeer.com/airflow.gif[/img]

see how I have it from front to back top to bottom? I have more output then input so the hot air is getting pulled off of the hardware and there is a vaccume there for the cooler air to move into. My case ambient air temp is just above room temp, and my mobo temp is about 80f. My processor temp is 86f. I am running intel.

Arrows showing direction would help a lot.

I think the in the front are in and the rest out.

[quote]* leaving the cover off the case ... this prevents air from flowing almost at all, so air just sits around the components, and they roast themselves. [/quote]

I've heard that before, but in the past my temperature alarm would go off and if I took the side cover off the temp. would go down and stay down.

[quote author=iago link=board=2;threadid=7737;start=0#msg70955 date=1090088949]
Arrows showing direction would help a lot.
[/quote]
Blue is cold, red is hot, you decide which way the air is flowing.

I once saw a diagram very similiar to peofeoknight's except it was alot better (sorry lol).

A couple facts about comp air flow:
1. There is always one outtake fan (the power supply)
2. It is nice to have 1 or more intake fans in the front bottom, and 1 or more outtake fans on the back top... This way air flows over everything.. (From the bottom (likely hitting your hard drives) up over you video card likely, and your processor, then all the hot air out the back...)
3. CABLE MANAGEMENT!!! I cannot stress this enough! if you have some old IDE cables just lurking around in there, they block air flow completely!!! that is about the worst thing that you can do air flow wise!
4. If you do have IDE cables round them, or if your lazy buy some rounded ones...
I rounded mine myself, this is how I did it:
I took an exacto knife, cut a little notch in the wires every 3 wires, then pulled the cables apart, starting at the notch and working my way up, I then twisted the cable tightly, and put 3 zip ties on it (1 at top, 1 at bottom, 1 at middle) then I rapped electrical tape around it and plugged it in...

(There is some speculation that if you cut it in a wrong order, it may cause data loss... I have had mine like this for several months now, and I havent lost anything... I didnt do what people say to do wire cutting wise either, so I would say you are pretty safe...)


~Jabird

Hows that for a first post?

[quote author=jabird link=board=2;threadid=7737;start=0#msg71002 date=1090110789]
There is some speculation that if you cut it in a wrong order, it may cause data loss... I have had mine like this for several months now, and I havent lost anything... I didnt do what people say to do wire cutting wise either, so I would say you are pretty safe..
[/quote]
Uhm, that's what happens if you cut a wire, not cut "in the wrong order".

A power supply fan is a good output fan??? Really? Except not much air from my pc is flowing into my power supply, it is a box, there is a vent, but none the less it has sides that prevent a massive amount of air from going through it, it certainly will not have more air flow out then one of my 80mm fans.

Of course you have seen better diagrams then mine, I MADE IT IN MS PAINT LOL.

When I noticed my computer was generating alot of heat, I just took the side off, it's been like that ever since.

[quote author=jabird link=board=2;threadid=7737;start=0#msg71002 date=1090110789]
3. CABLE MANAGEMENT!!! I cannot stress this enough! if you have some old IDE cables just lurking around in there, they block air flow completely!!! that is about the worst thing that you can do air flow wise![/quote]

http://www.ramsinks.com/IDEmod.aspx

[quote author=peofeoknight link=board=2;threadid=7737;start=0#msg71023 date=1090114443]A power supply fan is a good output fan??? Really? Except not much air from my pc is flowing into my power supply, it is a box, there is a vent, but none the less it has sides that prevent a massive amount of air from going through it, it certainly will not have more air flow out then one of my 80mm fans.[/quote]

Peofeoknight, let me offer a different explanation. For air to have good flow across the components, it needs to have blocked sides and open ends. This creates a wind tunnel, where the air flows across the components.

Another way to view it is as a wind-system. If you place a power-supply cooling fan in the middle of the desert, and turn it on full blast, what does it cool? Nothing, because the fan is not the interface to an external destination for hot exhaust, and there is no vacuum side containing cooler air. So that is a closed system. An open system has interfaces of cool air on the vacuum side, we hope, and low resistance on the exhaust side.

j0ker, taking the sides off your case is probably reducing the heat across your motherboard and CPU, while frying your hard drives. Cases are engineered with an air-flow in mind. The designer usually wanted cooler air to enter the front/bottom of the case, flow across the hard drives, then motherboard/CPU, and exit the back, and in some cases, the top fan. If you have cooling problems with the cover on, you need an additional back fan, pointing out, to increase the vacuum from the front. Or, place the additional fan at the front, pointing inwards.

In my system, I have 2 fans cooling the hard drives, a single fan in the back. The Antec 460W power supply fan is heat controlled. When it is not needed, the fan slows down. My cooling works so well that sometimes my power supply fan cuts itself off, having no additional heat to remove! That's a little annoying since the Asus Probe utility sets the low threshold warning at 600rpm, and it pops up an alert. So, I turned off the BIOS power supply fan RPM monitoring.

Everyone's examples seem to have a fan in the front. My case doesn't even have a place for a fan in the front. :(

[quote author=Eli_1 link=board=2;threadid=7737;start=15#msg71171 date=1090172275]
Everyone's examples seem to have a fan in the front. My case doesn't even have a place for a fan in the front. :(
[/quote] does it have a vent in the front? You do not neccessarily need intake fans. I would encourage having one or two, but if you have all of your output in the front and a nice big hole in the front it should still pull cool air in through the front because of the fact that the output fans in the back are creating a vaccume. My friend has an interesting cooling scheme, he has 1 massive output fan in the front, a 120 or something, its not even a computer fan, he stripped the wires and spliced it with a 4 pin, but it throws a lot of air (and is supprisingly not noisy). He then has 2 80s in the back pushing air in, and an 80 on the side which pushes air into his heat sink fan on the processor which is blowing in on the heat sink. But all of that hot air gets pull to the front, the reason he would not get the hot air out of the box asap and pull cool in by putting output at the back is because he has his box under a rack and quite near a wall, so if he pushed hot air there is would not be able to leave really, its like a lot of servers, they have fans pushing heat out at the front. He is going to move to water cooling eventually though because he has that big fan, he has the radiator and all, and the pump and tubes, I guess he is almost ready to do that.

[quote author=peofeoknight link=board=2;threadid=7737;start=15#msg71172 date=1090172737]
i stink
[/quote]

[quote author=jabird link=board=2;threadid=7737;start=0#msg71002 date=1090110789]
A couple facts about comp air flow:
1. There is always one outtake fan (the power supply)
[/quote]

IIRC, the ATX spec defines that the power supply is an intake fan. Always. Otherwise it's not an ATX compatible power supply.

[quote author=hismajesty[yL] link=board=2;threadid=7737;start=0#msg71158 date=1090162931]
[quote author=jabird link=board=2;threadid=7737;start=0#msg71002 date=1090110789]
3. CABLE MANAGEMENT!!! I cannot stress this enough! if you have some old IDE cables just lurking around in there, they block air flow completely!!! that is about the worst thing that you can do air flow wise![/quote]

http://www.ramsinks.com/IDEmod.aspx
[/quote]

I don't think that's a good idea for modern IDE cables. Splitting up cables like that and then putting them together will risk putting two signals next to each other causing crosstalk, transmission errors, and lower transfer speeds.

[quote author=Adron link=board=2;threadid=7737;start=15#msg71200 date=1090186064]
[quote author=jabird link=board=2;threadid=7737;start=0#msg71002 date=1090110789]
A couple facts about comp air flow:
1. There is always one outtake fan (the power supply)
[/quote]

IIRC, the ATX spec defines that the power supply is an intake fan. Always. Otherwise it's not an ATX compatible power supply.
[/quote]

Once again, Adron is correct. My Antec enclosure utilizes a filter for the power supply air intake. The front panel has 40 holes for air intake. These holes are located across the top face of the case and allow air to flow over the top of the components. The case exhaust fan is located in the rear, behind the hard drive stack. I installed a pci slot exhaust fan near the video card to aid in removing hot air. I am considering intalling an 80mm exhaust fan to the side of the case. The latest production run of these cases have one already installed but I have an earlier model. :(

For optimum cooling you should get a aluminum case instead of any other kind. Cable management and placement will affect the quality of the air flow through your case. And like Grok said point all your fans in the same direction. You should be good if you do that.

[quote author=Falcon[anti-yL] link=board=2;threadid=7737;start=15#msg71250 date=1090203038]
For optimum cooling you should get a aluminum case instead of any other kind. Cable management and placement will affect the quality of the air flow through your case. And like Grok said point all your fans in the same direction. You should be good if you do that.
[/quote] Aluminum may help, but it is not a neccessity, and it is much more expencive. Grok said don't point all of your fans in the same direction.... All output or all input could spell no air flow at all, just compression or depression.