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How to setup fans in case?
- Thread starter krue92
- Start date
BonzaiDuck
Lifer
I've spent the good part of a year on this issue, complicated by the desire to mod some full-tower "Gateway" and "InWin" cases that are 1998 vintage but ATX compatible.
I had a CoolerMaster WaveMaster and sold it to my dentist. To make it better for cooling, you nearly have to destroy the appearance of the lower-front case-panel.
Generally, the rule of thumb is to get air intake from the lower-front of the case and put the hard disks just behind the fan(s). Another reason I prefer full or 3/4-full tower cases is that it is possible to put two 120mm fans -- one on top of the other -- behind the front chassis-panel. I've also found it an advantage to use a case that allows you to put the fans between the exterior of the front chassis panel and the plastic (sometimes metal) front bezel of the case. You simply run the bolts through the chassis-panel as before, but put the fans on the outside instead of the inside.
120mm fans are much less noisy than their 80mm counterparts.
If possible, a 120mm fan exhausting air from the upper-rear chassis panel is in order. But sometimes, given the orientation of the power-supply, a 120mm fan is not an easy fit. I have chosen to use two 92mm fans for that purpose, and prefer the Zalman 92mm fans because of their low noise and respectable rpm's, although Zalman never seems to specify the CFM's of air-throughput these fans provide.
Sometimes fans interfere with each other. If your power-supply is at the very top of the case and one or more exhaust fans are located just underneath it, and if the PSU sucks in air from its bottom with a 92mm (sometimes larger!!) fan, the other exhaust fans can starve the PSU intake and make its fans work a bit harder. In that case, you may want to build ducts which draw air from some distance away from a PSU intake.
The other possibility is to "mod" the power supply using modder's mesh or other perforated sheet metal, and augment or replace its cooling fan(s) with a larger one -- perhaps a 120mm job -- which sucks air from the case interior, blows it through the power supply, and exhausts it through the modder's mesh holes at the rear of the case. But you need to reinforce the mod so it can be bolted securely to the rear chassis panel in the usual ATX PSU holes.
Finally, there is the "blowhole" -- strategically placed over the CPU. And again, if you are drawing air in and directly on top of the CPU, and if the fan is especially large (92mm or even 120mm with an XP120 heat-sink or other heatsink which accepts a 120-to-92 or -80 fan adapter) -- it will also interfere with the exhaust. I use fans that I don't like very much, cutting the motor and fittings out of them, to use the fan shrouds to build ducts. You can glue them together with superglue, and / or tie the corners together with cable ties. The duct can be bolted onto the side-panel over the blow-hole, or if your heatsink is not very heavy, they can be mounted on the CPU fan so that air is exclusively ducted in from the blowhole.
The other option there is to use the blowhole for CPU fan exhaust. If you use it for intake, it needs to be filtered. If the front intake fans are filtered (which they should be, and you mount the CPU fan as an exhaust fan, it doesn't need to be filtered -- an unnecessary feature of any exhaust fan.
You want to create air-flow currents within the case which move over the hottest surfaces. That's a basic objective. I have seen one recently introduced aluminum computer case which accepts ATX motherboards in a BTX (left-side-panel) orientation, and has a 140mm clear-plastic duct at the bottom of the case that is open on one side and both ends, sucking air from a lower-intake fan across the motherboard and CPU heatsink, and drawing it out with a twin exhaust fan at the lower rear.
It is probably a good idea to calculate the maximum CFM's of all intake fans combined, and do a second calculation of maximum CFM's for all exhaust fans combined. Since Intake is restricted by filters and exhaust is not restricted, you would like to insure that the CFM's on the intake side are greater -- even considerably greater -- than exhaust. If you actually create a little pressure inside the case, slightly denser air will have a higher capacity to absorb heat and will do it more effectively.
I had a CoolerMaster WaveMaster and sold it to my dentist. To make it better for cooling, you nearly have to destroy the appearance of the lower-front case-panel.
Generally, the rule of thumb is to get air intake from the lower-front of the case and put the hard disks just behind the fan(s). Another reason I prefer full or 3/4-full tower cases is that it is possible to put two 120mm fans -- one on top of the other -- behind the front chassis-panel. I've also found it an advantage to use a case that allows you to put the fans between the exterior of the front chassis panel and the plastic (sometimes metal) front bezel of the case. You simply run the bolts through the chassis-panel as before, but put the fans on the outside instead of the inside.
120mm fans are much less noisy than their 80mm counterparts.
If possible, a 120mm fan exhausting air from the upper-rear chassis panel is in order. But sometimes, given the orientation of the power-supply, a 120mm fan is not an easy fit. I have chosen to use two 92mm fans for that purpose, and prefer the Zalman 92mm fans because of their low noise and respectable rpm's, although Zalman never seems to specify the CFM's of air-throughput these fans provide.
Sometimes fans interfere with each other. If your power-supply is at the very top of the case and one or more exhaust fans are located just underneath it, and if the PSU sucks in air from its bottom with a 92mm (sometimes larger!!) fan, the other exhaust fans can starve the PSU intake and make its fans work a bit harder. In that case, you may want to build ducts which draw air from some distance away from a PSU intake.
The other possibility is to "mod" the power supply using modder's mesh or other perforated sheet metal, and augment or replace its cooling fan(s) with a larger one -- perhaps a 120mm job -- which sucks air from the case interior, blows it through the power supply, and exhausts it through the modder's mesh holes at the rear of the case. But you need to reinforce the mod so it can be bolted securely to the rear chassis panel in the usual ATX PSU holes.
Finally, there is the "blowhole" -- strategically placed over the CPU. And again, if you are drawing air in and directly on top of the CPU, and if the fan is especially large (92mm or even 120mm with an XP120 heat-sink or other heatsink which accepts a 120-to-92 or -80 fan adapter) -- it will also interfere with the exhaust. I use fans that I don't like very much, cutting the motor and fittings out of them, to use the fan shrouds to build ducts. You can glue them together with superglue, and / or tie the corners together with cable ties. The duct can be bolted onto the side-panel over the blow-hole, or if your heatsink is not very heavy, they can be mounted on the CPU fan so that air is exclusively ducted in from the blowhole.
The other option there is to use the blowhole for CPU fan exhaust. If you use it for intake, it needs to be filtered. If the front intake fans are filtered (which they should be, and you mount the CPU fan as an exhaust fan, it doesn't need to be filtered -- an unnecessary feature of any exhaust fan.
You want to create air-flow currents within the case which move over the hottest surfaces. That's a basic objective. I have seen one recently introduced aluminum computer case which accepts ATX motherboards in a BTX (left-side-panel) orientation, and has a 140mm clear-plastic duct at the bottom of the case that is open on one side and both ends, sucking air from a lower-intake fan across the motherboard and CPU heatsink, and drawing it out with a twin exhaust fan at the lower rear.
It is probably a good idea to calculate the maximum CFM's of all intake fans combined, and do a second calculation of maximum CFM's for all exhaust fans combined. Since Intake is restricted by filters and exhaust is not restricted, you would like to insure that the CFM's on the intake side are greater -- even considerably greater -- than exhaust. If you actually create a little pressure inside the case, slightly denser air will have a higher capacity to absorb heat and will do it more effectively.
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