Flip fans on GPU for better cooling?

[JVIPER88]

Hey everyone. I was wondering what the feasibility was of flipping the fans on my GPU around so that they "pull" air through the heatsink, rather than "push" air on it.

The case I'm using is a Silverstone FT02. It's recommended that people who use cases with rotated motherboards use blower-style cards instead of ones with aftermarket coolers. But I find that the noise on the blower-style coolers is unpleasant.

Aside from the heat-pipe problem that I can't do anything about, something else that caught my attention was the contradicting airflow. The problem is: when the air is being exhausted from the card, the hot air is coming out from the top, the sides, and the bottom. On the FT02, the intake fans are located on the bottom of the case, so any hot air blowing out of the card is going directly against the flow of the intake fan below it.

But what if I could flip the fan so that it "pulls" air through those other openings? Then, the cool air coming into the graphics card would work with the airflow of the case fan, and be exhausted through the GPU fans.

Am I thinking about this correctly? Is what I said even possible? Can you flip the fans around in a GPU so that they pull instead of push?

In case what I was saying wasn't clear, I have a couple of pics attached that demonstrate it. (The pics aren't of my PC; just something I grabbed off the internet to use as an example).

Thanks for your input guys. I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to say.

(P.S. - My current GPU is an R9 270 from XFX. I don't think my temps are too bad. 34C when idle, 46C when watching video/streaming, and no higher than 70C gaming.)

 

[KingFatty]

I don't recall any specific data, but I would speculate that if you tried this, you'd get hotter temperatures on the GPU. The reason is that ideally you want cool air to hit the most of the heatsink. Fans blowing onto the heatsink accomplish this, by hitting the full face of the heatsink with cool air. If you reverse the orientation of the fans, then the cool air will come in at the edges of the heatsink. This doesn't sit well with me, because it shouldn't matter, but ah it's my guess.

Anyway, the other way to think of it is in terms of static pressure, not "flow" of air. The fans create pressure against the heatsink in a desirable way. If you reverse them, then you lose that dynamic pressure arrangement.

Your case is about causing airflow, but the GPU heatsink fans are about pressurizing the heatsink, if I think I'm getting it right here but others please clarify/correct me? So it's not as important, how your case fan is creating that airflow, because it just carries away the waste heat surrounding the video card, and doesn't create big enough pressure differentials at the heatsink itself, the way the heatsink fans do.

So the GPU fans aren't creating flows that battle against the case airflow. Instead, they are pressurizing the heatsink, and creating some waste flow that is carried away, so it's OK that the flows are technically going against each other. That minimal counteraction is such a small effect, that you enjoy the very big effect of the fans blowing against the heatsink?

But then I think of the experiments with CPU heatsinks, whether to push or pull, and maybe it's not going to matter? Ah I need to see more data, sorry if I'm misleading here. The point is that I don't think it's going to improve things, I think it will hurt GPU temps and be less efficient. The GPU is also different than CPU push-pull, because the GPU has a shroud that is designed to work with the pressurizing/static pressure of the fans, and not just a flow of air.

 

[cbrunny]

I tried this exact thing on an FX-8350. I flipped the CPU fan so it would blow onto the CPU rather than away from it. For my configuration it did work, but only because I had a side case-fan blowing directly onto the CPU fan, so in effect the air that was cooling the CPU was as close to direct from outside the case as possible. In addition, I had plenty of exhaust going as well.

The results were good for me, mostly. Temps were better for sure, but the noise from the CPU fan was way worse. I guess whatever mechanism rests in the centre of the fan blades had it's "noise-making-thing" pointed to the heatsink by default.

On a GPU, I wouldn't try it. Not because it wouldn't help (no idea if it would in your case) but because I'd just rather not take a part a GPU heatsink unless I had to. Gaming at 70C is pretty good - It likely wouldn't throttle at those temps.

 

[XFXSupport]

Hep OP, I don't recommend trying to change the fans orientation and the temperatures you have seem reasonable. If they ever do break 80'C, just let us know and we can send you out replacement fans free of charge.

 

[JVIPER88]

On a GPU, I wouldn't try it. Not because it wouldn't help (no idea if it would in your case) but because I'd just rather not take a part a GPU heatsink unless I had to. Gaming at 70C is pretty good - It likely wouldn't throttle at those temps.

Yeah, honestly, I don't know if i would do it anyway. I went with XFX because of their solid Warranty, and it would be stupid to throw that out just to try and flip the fans.

It's more of a thought exercise, I guess. I wasn't sure if it was even possible to flip the fans around inside of a GPU cooler, and I'm not sure whether or not my thinking on the matter is entirely accurate. The folks in this forum have a ridiculous amount of knowledge about computers, so I was just throwing a thought out there.

 

[Nullxd]

Hey everyone. I was wondering what the feasibility was of flipping the fans on my GPU around so that they "pull" air through the heatsink, rather than "push" air on it.

The case I'm using is a Silverstone FT02. It's recommended that people who use cases with rotated motherboards use blower-style cards instead of ones with aftermarket coolers. But I find that the noise on the blower-style coolers is unpleasant.

Aside from the heat-pipe problem that I can't do anything about, something else that caught my attention was the contradicting airflow. The problem is: when the air is being exhausted from the card, the hot air is coming out from the top, the sides, and the bottom. On the FT02, the intake fans are located on the bottom of the case, so any hot air blowing out of the card is going directly against the flow of the intake fan below it.

But what if I could flip the fan so that it "pulls" air through those other openings? Then, the cool air coming into the graphics card would work with the airflow of the case fan, and be exhausted through the GPU fans.

Am I thinking about this correctly? Is what I said even possible? Can you flip the fans around in a GPU so that they pull instead of push?

In case what I was saying wasn't clear, I have a couple of pics attached that demonstrate it. (The pics aren't of my PC; just something I grabbed off the internet to use as an example).

Thanks for your input guys. I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to say.

(P.S. - My current GPU is an R9 270 from XFX. I don't think my temps are too bad. 34C when idle, 46C when watching video/streaming, and no higher than 70C gaming.)

Could you tell me how you can flip the rotation from the fans because i have a geforce 8800 gt and when i turn on mi PC the hot air goes in the wrong way and makes the GPU get more hot

 

[solidsnake1298]

1) This thread was a hypothetical thought experiment.
2) The consensus is that reversing GPU fans is a bad idea.
3) Even if it was a good idea, it isn't possible with the way GPU fan/heatsinks are designed.
4) GPUs from the 8800 GT's era had almost exclusively blower style coolers. The thought experiment OP made only applies to down draft coolers.
5) With a GPU that old you should first look at dried/cracked thermal paste before anything else as the cause of your high temps.
6) You should have made a new post asking for help instead of necroing a very old post.