Antec 300 fans and new LGA 775 cooler

[HorizonXP]

Hey guys,

So I've been running this PC for over 2 years now, and I thought it would be a good time to do some cleaning up and upgrading.

I recently upgraded the RAM, video card, and added an SSD. Today, I spent a few hours cleaning out all of the dust, and rebuilding the machine from the ground up, so I could reroute cables appropriately to optimize airflow. I think I've accomplished the best I can do.

This case came with a top fan, and a rear fan. These are Antec tri-cools, and according to the Antec manual, they are both exhaust fans. I currently have them on the low setting. The Antec manual also states that if I add the 3 optional fans (2 on the front, and one on the left side panel), that they must be mounted so they're intake fans.

I bought 3 Scythe SlipStream 120 Kaze-Jyuni 1200 RPM fans, and mounted these so that the logo is facing outwards, hoping that this was the correct orientation.

How can I tell that I've got it right? Should exhaust fans be blowing out air? Enough that I can feel it with my hand there? Because right now, I feel nothing.

Also, my LGA775 cooler is an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. I've never been happy with this cooler, but I've stuck with it because the dude I bought the CPU off of had milled and planed the CPU and cooler together (if I remember right, there's a piece of copper on the CPU itself, but I'd have to remove it to see). Moreover, the fan is pointing up, towards the top exhaust fan. I'm not sure if that's optimal, but it was the only way to mount it. Any other orientation has no clearance.

Would you suggest that I purchase a new cooler? My CPU idle temps are around 52 C. I think that's pretty high! (CPU is a Xeon X3350 BTW at stock speed)

Any help is appreciated.

 

[BoomerD]

Hey guys,

So I've been running this PC for over 2 years now, and I thought it would be a good time to do some cleaning up and upgrading.

I recently upgraded the RAM, video card, and added an SSD. Today, I spent a few hours cleaning out all of the dust, and rebuilding the machine from the ground up, so I could reroute cables appropriately to optimize airflow. I think I've accomplished the best I can do.

This case came with a top fan, and a rear fan. These are Antec tri-cools, and according to the Antec manual, they are both exhaust fans. I currently have them on the low setting. The Antec manual also states that if I add the 3 optional fans (2 on the front, and one on the left side panel), that they must be mounted so they're intake fans.

I bought 3 Scythe SlipStream 120 Kaze-Jyuni 1200 RPM fans, and mounted these so that the logo is facing outwards, hoping that this was the correct orientation.

How can I tell that I've got it right? Should exhaust fans be blowing out air? Enough that I can feel it with my hand there? Because right now, I feel nothing.

Also, my LGA775 cooler is an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. I've never been happy with this cooler, but I've stuck with it because the dude I bought the CPU off of had milled and planed the CPU and cooler together (if I remember right, there's a piece of copper on the CPU itself, but I'd have to remove it to see). Moreover, the fan is pointing up, towards the top exhaust fan. I'm not sure if that's optimal, but it was the only way to mount it. Any other orientation has no clearance.

Would you suggest that I purchase a new cooler? My CPU idle temps are around 52 C. I think that's pretty high! (CPU is a Xeon X3350 BTW at stock speed)

Any help is appreciated.

Look carefully on the housing of the fan. There should be two small arrows indicating both direction of rotation and direction of air flow.

They may be like this:

or they may be near the corners.

 

[HorizonXP]

Awesome, thanks! I had the fans mounted as exhausts, so I turned them around and my overall system temps have dropped by about 3 C.

Any ideas on the LGA 775 cooler? The fan is pointed upwards, towards the 140 mm exhaust fan. I think that the CPU fan is trying to pull air down, across the heatsink fins. But the exhaust fan is pulling air up and out of the case. To me, it would seem like the fans are working against each other, and the CPU cooling fan is likely losing.

The better ways probably to mount the HSF the opposite way, so the fan is pointing down and pulling air up. However, there's another heatsink on the motherboard that seems to be in the way. At least, that's how I remember it. I could try again...