Intake fan, exhaust fan. How do you know which is which?

[sandmanwake]

How do you know when buying a fan whether the fan is an intake fan or an exhaust fan? Like a few people here, I got the Chieftec case and now I need fans. I'm going with panaflo since a lot of people here are saying they're quiet, but bgmicro's description of the fan doesn't say what type of fans they are. Does it just depend of which way you position the fan in the case as to whether the fan causes the air to flow into or out of the case?

 

[Anubis]

fans are bi dirtectional you just turn it arround

 

[MoFunk]

There should be little arrows showing you which direction the air is going to flow. Or plug it in and hold you hand hear it and feel which way it is blowing.

 

[punkrawket]

<< fans are bi dirtectional you just turn it arround >>

he is correct... a fan is a fan... it depends on which side the label is facing....

whichever side the label is on is the way the air will go......

if you have any fans... hook then up and get a tissue or a piece of paper and hold it up to the fan... it'll suck or blow the paper

 

[Duer]

Any problems unplugging and plugging fans attached to motherboard while system is running? Would like to see where noise is coming from.

 

[aphex]

<< Any problems unplugging and plugging fans attached to motherboard while system is running? Would like to see where noise is coming from. >>



Not sure how good it is, but i do it sometimes without any problems... I dunno if i would reccomend it though, ive gotten some nasty wounds from sticking my hands in my computer while its running. Speaking of that, i should really put my grill back on my Delta Black Label 🙂

 

[Lower]

<< Any problems unplugging and plugging fans attached to motherboard while system is running? >>



This really depends on the fans you'll be plugging and unplugging, and your powersupply.

All I know is I unplugged a fan once (or did I plug it in, I don't remember), and my whole computer shut down. It scared the crap out of me twice, once from being startled, and then again from not knowing if I fried something. (Everything worked fine afterwards though).

My conclusion is that some fans can give the powersupply enough of a surge that it trips their overload safetys. But I'm pretty clueless, so this is just a guess.

 

[adlep]

Ehh, MoFunk has explained this well,
look for an arrow sign on a fan itself...

 

[Fireman]

The only directional fans I can think of are the Hard drive coolers that fit in a 5" bay. They blow into the case.
And the slot coolers that mount in an empty PCI / ISA slot on the rear that blow out.