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Bottom Mounted PSU - How do you do it?

Bottom mounted PSU - Fan up or down?

  • UP

  • DOWN

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M

Meractik

Golden Member
Ive read several articles online about how their are minor temperature differences between having a bottom mounted PSU with fan pointing UP or fan pointing DOWN, I am curious... I just installed my first bottom mounted power supply and my PC is not a super powerhouse which requires massive cooling but am undecided whether I should mount the fan pointing up or down.....

So how do you do it?
 
Fan pointing up would mean the PSU will pull air from the top and back and exhaust the air. The air is slightly warmed due to the CPU and motherboard.

Fan pointing down would mean most of the air comes in from the back, although if there is a gap between the bottom and the "ground", then air will be pulled in from the outside, which should be cooler. If you're on carpet, this configuration is not going to be optimal.

But the difference really shouldn't be that large since air from the back will always go in there.
 
I leave the fan pointed down. It helps keeps the PSU cool but having it pointed up might help keep the ambient case temps down if you are running multiple GPUs.
 
I've never had a case that had enough space between the bottom of the floor and the PSU fan, until recently (Corsair Carbide) so I put the fan facing down though the filter so its air flow doesn't bother the cases flow now.
 
Shouldn't really matter as long as there is decent airflow... I have mine mounted up because for convenience as the ATX 6- and 24- pin connectors are closer to the back of the motherboard with the AX1200 fan-side up.
 
It's an interesting question, considering that virtually all top-mounted PSUs are mounted to draw air from inside the case and exhaust it, even though many cases today have an exhaust fan right behind the CPU. Not sure many cases with top-mounted PSUs offer any other option, however.

Like most people with a bottom mounted PSU, I place the fan on the bottom, where there is always an air intake and draw outside air through the PSU. This treats the PSU as more of an isolated component for cooling purposes. I use large, relatively slow spinning case fans for internal case cooing in a strictly front to rear airflow pattern.
 
I didn't want to account for the PSU exhaust when trying to keep a positive pressure setup in the case. Though I would say it rarely is even active. My PSU doesn't even start spinning it's fan till a 200w draw and you can get some pretty sweet Corsair RM series that don't spin the fans till a 300-400W draw.
 
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