Intake or Exhaust for side mounted fans?

[Arcum]

I have an IW q500n and I think I'm gonna cut some holes in the side and put two 120s in there. The question is, should they intake or exhaust? Or should 1 intake and 1 exhaust?

 

[mechBgon]

I have a Q600, which is a Q500 with a different bezel, and I experimented with a Radio Shack digital thermometer. Intake seems to be better on my box. If you do just one blowhole, centering it on the AGP card is a good way to go, it will ventilate the upper cards and also feed air into the CPU area. Two 120mm's sounds like overkill to me, but if you have tons of drives in the 5.25" bays you might put a 120mm as a top-rear exhaust or a top-panel exhaust blowhole to keep the upper section of the case cool. The Q500 has that "bottleneck" between the motherboard area and the upper area, and it's known to get hot with lots of drives in the top. Personally, I moved my power supply to the top rear and eliminated the bottleneck.

 

[Gunslinger]

I just cut a hole in the side of my wifes box and it helped out a lot, have an 80mm blowing in on the cpu and hs/fan.
Also have an 80mm intake in the front, sad thing is that there is no way to mount a rear exhaust fan, probably why it was hot in there. Guess I need a slot cooler.

I have 5 towers running and that is the only one with a side mounted fan, all the rest have intake and exhaust in the front and rear.

 

[toph99]

put an intake in the front, and then an exhaust in the back, best way to go