tracking air flow

[eklass]

do you guys suggest some way to track air flow (in the way of colored air maybe?) i just got one of those oh-so-popular antec-style cases. it came with two fan in the back that exhaust air. i also have a fan on the side panel righ over the video car intaking air. my biggest problem lies in my thermaltake volcano 9 HS/fan combo. the fan sucks air onto the HS. of course, it is positioned exactly betwene the two exhausting fans... what my question is... if the fan on the HS is sucking air, shouldn't i be pushing cool air onto it from the outside? my computer doesn't sit up against the wall, so where air comes from/goes to in any part of my computer doesn't really matter. should i reverse the rear fans to pull air (and thus having 3 fans pulling air ir, and non exhausting?), or should i try to flip my CPU fan around to pull air off the HS and exhaust it out the rear? right now with the direction of everything, it just seems that the air taken in on the side would tend to escape through the rear fans before ever getting to the CPU fan... thoughts, questions, ideas?

 

[amcdonald]

If you have time to spare messing around, just try out different configurations. Keep in mind how airflow works though... Exhaust is key in directing airflow. You can bring in all the cold air you want, but if the pressure inside the case is greater than outside, your fans aren't going to be able to push in as much air, and are going to have to deal with backpressure. If you have little or no exhaust, air might acutally escape the case through an intake fan.
Look at the official cfm for the fans you have intaking and exhausting air, and try to match them up somewhat, but keep exhaust higher... this is can be harder to judge if you are controlling the fans or if they are thermal controlled.
The direction of your hsf might help airflow, I'd change that first.
Pulling in air from above halfway up the case is generally not a good idea (unless its a cpu duct).

 

[eklass]

my biggest concern right now is proper cooling for my cpu... for the rest of the fans inthe case, i can easily change around. my biggest concern it that the same airspace that is being exhausted to the rear is the same space that the hsf is pulling air... so i'm not sure where it's actually pulling air. i want to say it's getting it from the intake fan on the side of my case, in which case, who's to tell how much is getting used by my vid card fan and my cpu fan compared to the amount exhaused by 2 rear exhaust fans.

is there something out there that might be able ot color air for a couple seconds before dissappearing that i can leak into the intake fan?

 

[TAL0N]

Take one of the rear panel fans and mount it to the front panel to pull in fresh air, that should help equalize the pressure in your case since the PSU should also be exhausting hot air.

Don't turn the fan around on your HS, they are most efficient when fresh air is forced across the fins.

I don't have any suggestions for colored smoke, perhaps some food coloring on dry ice would work?