best air flow pattern?

[wolfen69]

what do people think about airflow patterns in the typical computer case? temps were always lowest when i had 1 fan blowing out the back.

i wanna hear your theories on caseology.

[tamoneya]

I like front to back with a positive internal pressure. This is accomplished by having more fans blowing in than blowing out. The reason this is nice is that air will be going out all the small cracks instead of getting sucked in. Along with this air comes dust. Keeping the positive internal pressure helps keep the case cleaner.

[Canis familiaris]

The back of the cabinet should always throw the air out of the cabinet. Try putting an exhaust fan on top of the cabinet too (since hot air always moves up).
If possible let there be some way for air to be sucked in front of the cabinet.
Fans on side of the cabinet should be intake.

Also never setup by putting an intake fan over or under another exhaust fan because that will be pointless.

To check smoke in the cabinet, use a smoke creating agent such as incense sticks, or something like that. It would give you a great idea about how the air flow in a cabinet.

[RedPandaFox]

I like front to back with a positive internal pressure. This is accomplished by having more fans blowing in than blowing out. The reason this is nice is that air will be going out all the small cracks instead of getting sucked in. Along with this air comes dust. Keeping the positive internal pressure helps keep the case cleaner.

Sounds like a good plan

[amazingtaters]

As far as I'm concerned, the rear and top should be used for exhaust, while air should be taken in via side and front fans. If you're going to customize your fan setup and are willing to do the work, then make your intake fans as low to the bottom of the case as possible, while exhaust should be higher up. This is due to the fact that hot air rises, cold air sinks. Will such a fan placement make a drastic difference? No, not really, but it will help the littlest bit. And the post about positive pressure is good too. It won't stop dust, but it sure couldn't hurt.

[kerry_s]

i use 1 on the back, 1 on the cpu and 1 for the hd.
my flow runs front to back straight through, all my wires are tie strapped away from the motherboard. using a flame test i have great suction in the front.
my rig is oc'ed 1.5ghz to 1.7ghz, idle temp is 30c, working go's up to 50c max

[kerry_s]

Along with this air comes dust. Keeping the positive internal pressure helps keep the case cleaner.

i use a paper coffee filter tapped between the frame and front cover over the holes.

[mcduck]

I like front to back with a positive internal pressure. This is accomplished by having more fans blowing in than blowing out. The reason this is nice is that air will be going out all the small cracks instead of getting sucked in. Along with this air comes dust. Keeping the positive internal pressure helps keep the case cleaner.

The downside of that is that it doesn't really work. Not with thew axial fans used in computer cases, as they are not able to create pressure, only airflow. With axial fans all the extra pressure will just escape from the space between the fan blades, and the area closer to the motor where the blades are not moving very fast. To pressurize the case you'd need to use radial fans or some other fan type.

Because of this the best way is to use exhaust fans only, at the top & back of the case. Then only add intake fans if your case has bad design and because of that there isn't enough airflow around your hard disks (if located at the front of the case) to keep them cool.

One more thing to consider is that 1 exhaust fan + 1 intake fan moves the same amount of air as the one exhaust fan alone would. So using only the exhaust fan you get the same result with less noise.

I cool my desktop machine with one 120mm fan at rear of the case, mounted on the radiator. PSU has another 120mm fan, together they create enough airflow to keep my passive-cooled graphics card and all the other hardware cool, even when running at minimum speed (a bit under 1000rpm). You can hardly hear the machine running. Unless I turn the radiator fan to fill speed, which sounds more like a jet engine. Luckily I never need to do that. ;)

[wolfen69]

i use a paper coffee filter tapped between the frame and front cover over the holes.

freakin hippies..... :)

[MaxIBoy]

I have a 120 mm fan on my power supply, and an 80 mm CPU fan bolted to my case:
http://img363.imageshack.us/img363/4903/rigfanya2qb8.jpg
The fan is pretty high up by intake fan standards, I'll admit that, but it's simultaneously blowing air on my northbridge heatsink (my motherboard model has a reputation for hot northbridges) and assisting my CPU cooler.

I may be building a server soon; the case I've picked out comes with an extra fan the server won't need. I plan to put that fan on the bottom of the front of my case.

[kerry_s]

freakin hippies..... :)

:lolflag: dude i got 2 dogs, i'll find hair in places you wouldn't think hair would get to, but there it is. :confused:

[regomodo]

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