Do slot fans help?

[salz]

I was recommended to buy a slot fan for the system that I'm going to build. Do these help? Or do they just create extra noise? The ones that I've seen only cost $6.00, so it's not a major investment. If you think they help, which slot blower would you recommend?

 

[nortexoid]

from my experience, they don't help a lot...like, not a lot at all.
at the same time, they produce virtually no noise.
the best place to position it is right underneath the GPU of the video card so it sucks that hot air out..otherwise at the top PCI slot so it sucks warm air out from underneath the CPU.

i'd recommend an 80mm case fan exhausting out the back instead, it helps A LOT more...(or 92mm or 60mm...whichever your case supports)

 

[Lord Evermore]

Two reasons not to put it underneath the vid card: it creates suction away from the fan on the card, which is itself trying to pull air in. It seems likely to me you'd either starve the video card of air, or it'd recycle its own hot air. 2nd reason, loss of another PCI slot, which of course applies to putting a slot cooler in at all. I found they didn't help much. Hot air rises, you need air from the top of the case exhausted, and if anything, fans to move the air upwards faster (hmmm, I wonder if I could easily mount a fan in the separator between the upper and lower sections of the case...).

A fan behind the CPU would work immensely better I think. Slot fans just aren't all that great a design in my eyes.

 

[clumsum]

I was curious about the slot-fans also .............. !
Has anyone tried the "Squirrel-cage" type vs. the normaly bladed fan version ......... ?
I would think the cage type would work better ...... but have not personally tried either one.

 

[Bartman39]

I had used one under a GF3 (I never put anything in the first PCI slot anyhow). I had trimmed it to fit perfectly under the HS/fan and did notice it pulled most all the excess heat away from the card (BTW had a blue orb on the GPU). When OC`d it really did an excellent job of getting rid of the extra case heat produced by the GF3 card...

JMPO...

 

[nortexoid]

it creates suction away from the fan on the card, which is itself trying to pull air in. It seems likely to me you'd either starve the video card of air, or it'd recycle its own hot air

you are kidding, right?

anyway, the computer i have it configured in like that only uses passive cooling on teh GPU - just the sink...regardless tho, it would not "starve the video card of air" in either case...as if it were creating a vacuum from it's awesome suction power...emphasis on awesome.

 

[spanky]

it sorta helped with my voodoo3 2000 card. it used to crash in the middle of CS... i figured it was heat. so i got a slot cooler and stuck it right under the voodoo and crashing stopped.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Any reduction in airflow is a starvation. I never said I'd tested the theory, I just think two fans blowing in opposite directions, with one presumably having considerably higher output, is obviously not a great design idea.

 

[dunkster]

I used one of the these cards with an Inwin case, and it did help to reduce case temps.

What it did really, was to confirm that the Inwin case had really poor case ventilation - so I replaced the case with an Antec 1030 and the card-fan is in a box somewhere.

They don't move a lot of air, and they increase load on your PS.

I'd spend the money and effort on improving case air flow-through ventilation.

Hope this helps!

 

[herbage11]

I would have to agree and say if your case allows for rear fans 80mm or whatever they would produce much more airflow. I considered a slot fan but with 4 case fans and a HD fan already I think I will have ample air flow.

 

[Barrei]

I put one in the second slot underneath the agp slot and it lowered my gf3 ti200 from 56c to 42c so from my experience it helped a great deal ,14c.I have 6 pci slots so I had lots of room to do it ,moves 36cfm and very quiet.

 

[herbage11]

Wow that is a nice drop in temp Barrei. Did you have any rear exhaust case fans before that? May get one if my temps are high on the badazz Ti4200 I will be getting soon .

 

[psteng19]

I use 'em and while they dont' move a lot of air, it does help.
My case temps are a bit lower.

I also have it right under the video card to suck away hot air from it.

However, be aware that they are not the "lowest friction" type of fans, and do generate quite a bit heat themselves (more than regular ball bearing case fans).

 

[Submit]

I used to have one under my Video Card then one day it got very noisy, so I pulled it out. Haven't noticed any difference in stability, even when oc the video card. My guess is it doesn't move very much air.

 

[Barrei]

Herbage I don't have any rear case fans , and of course there are varying qualities of them out there , the one I have is a ball bearing model not a sleeve model so the heat given off of it is no more then a good quality ball bearing case fan ,life expectancy is 15000 hrs ,as far as them not moving much air that is not true it moves 36 cfm which is considerable and when you put your hand behind it you can feel alot of air being moved. The temperature drop on the video card of 14c is an accurate measurement because the Gf3Ti 200 I have gives you GPU temps .

 

[bocamojo]

As others have said, the best scenario for a slot fan (exhaust) is when you have a video card that has passive cooling only, as in just a heatsink (like the ATI Radeon LE 32MB DDR). I have the Radeon LE in a cheapo case with an AMD 1.33TB, and this slot cooler is placed right underneath the Radeon. It isn't real powerful, but keeps the heated air from being stagnant around the vid card. I also overclock this vid card about 40MHz, so the slot cooler helps to keep it running cool enough to keep my system stable. Since my HSF makes a reasonable amount of noise already, the noise from the slot cooler is not even noticable. Also, when I removed it before, trying to get a little quieter, I noticed a few deg celcius increase in case and CPU temp... so I put it back in.

 

[murphy55d]

I have one directly under my gpu and it DOES help.

 

[boi]

On my Geforce4 4200, it didn't help me get a higher oc.

 

[Lord Evermore]

The GF4 line is probably not the best indicator of whether a product is an effective cooling solution for overclocking. As has been mentioned in reviews, they're already clocked pretty close to their maximum given the process they're made on and the die size, and the 4200 is getting the chips from the bins that didn't do well enough for the higher speeds. Aside from that, they're also still relatively new, so the yields haven't had time to reach the point where they'd have a hard time making a slow chip, which is when you'd be likely to get good overclocking (or at least better, since they're not BAD overclockers really). You may just not have a good 4200.

 

[Barrei]

I had a slot fan took my Gf3 Ti200 from 56c to 42 c which helped alot , I then exchanged it for a card fan took me from 42c to 33c , so from my experience the slot fan worked well however the card fan works better.

 

[LordAccord]

If you think about it, the reason why it does work is because the Fan on a video card and a slot blower are going to suck air in in a fasion where it comes in between the cards, and some of it is sucked into the fan on the card and some is sucked out, while at the same time the hot air that is moving out from under the heatsink in the card is being pulled the other direction.... it will recirculate some,but not as much as if the air just stayed stagnant ... you recirculate a lot of hot air with a fan especially in a closed off space like card slots.,... the blower helps more than you realize.

My problem is that they are too thick.... so I cant run one. Im getting ready to switch to a card cooler, which is, in reality, much much more effective. Also, just keeping the slot next to your AGP card open and putting a slotted cover or leaving that slots cover open helps with exhausting some of that hot air which is being pushed that direction....

However, in a case like the Lian LI PC-60 like I have, I found its much more efficient to mount the blower in the bottom slot, so it catches some heat from the HDDs which is being pushed that way.... I think my airflow will be wonderful with it set up 1 exhaust 80 in the rear, 2 intake 80 in front, slot blower in bottom, 1 exhaust 92 on bottom of PSU, one exhaust 120 on top of case.

Some other fans that I have found really help a case air flow are front bay mounted 40s, or even the 3.5" bay mounted fans that can either blow out or suck in....

LoRdAccord

 

[SteelCityFan]

I used one a couple of PCI slots below my Voodoo5 in my old PC. The V5 card was so large, it left vitually no space between itself and the hard drive / zip. Then, add to that the wires that needed passed between the vid and drives.

The slot cooler helped a lot.

I don't use it anymore since I have an Radeon 8500.

 

[dpm]

Anyone who liked 'em want to recommend one?

 

[Barrei]

Had a slot fan, exchanged it for a card cooler now i'm back to the slot fan, the reason being the card cooler was supposed to be a quiet one but it was just too damn loud , it moved 60 cfm of air but the noise was too much , I like a relatively quiet computer and the card fan moving 60 cfm created to much noise for me, the slot fan moves 36 cfm but is 1/3 as loud as the card cooler, so I had to make a tradeoff my sanity for less cooling.

 

[optimistic]

It works. And it's quiet!