PC Case fan question

Hi Guys

I did something today that I hopes not a problem :P

On my pc case side there are two vents for the air to get through, being a typical canadian summer its now getting close to 40c out which means my pc is getting hot. So what I did was take two 80mm fans and temporarily stuck them on the inside of the case with some two sided tape ( will screw them on if this is okay ) and hooked them up to the psu and now they are pulling cool air in the case now, is this okay? I also have the fan at the rear blowing the air out of the case.

Hopefully this is okay because my pc is nice and cool.

Cheers

Jeremy

What you don't want is positive pressure. You wouldn't want three intake fans and only one exhaust fan. If you've got an exhaust fan and the fan in your PSU, that should just about be OK, otherwise you'll get air escaping from where-ever it can the moment it's rammed into the case, rather than going where you want it to go (a clear, clean path from the intake fans to the exhaust fans that flows directly over the key components (graphics card, motherboard and CPU).

I should remove the 2 fans on the side? dumb question but how can I tell if I have positive pressure? like I was saying the case feels cool? but I guess what the case feels like and temps on the chipsets are 2 different things.

another thing I forgot to add Gav is that I dont have any vents in the front of the case, so basically the two fans on the side now are the only place the air gets in the case. so its a 2-1 ratio now I guess ( 2 intake 1 exhaust )

Yeah, but if your PSU has a fan (and 95% of them do) it will exhaust air out of the case too.

Checking for positive pressure is easy - 2x 80mm fans blowing air in and 2x 80mm fans blowing air out (at roughly the same speed) will mean things are pretty much equal. It doesn't have to be exact, just roughly equal.

The problem with positive pressure is that you get pockets of heat. It doesn't matter if the heat is sat at the top of the chassis, behind where the CD drive normally lives, as there's nothing there to cool anyway, but what you don't want is a pocket of heat hanging around under the graphics card, or around the hard drives.

I wouldn't concern myself with it too much if you're not getting instability. If things start crashing, you're having automatic restarts, BSODs or freezing on hot days, then look into it some more. Otherwise just leave it as is.

Or if you're a panicky person, just leave the side of the case off.

Cheers again Gav what temp should a cpu be running at? mine is 38-41c at idle with the extra fans running and 43c without the fans. So not a big difference. Maybe I will remove the fans

Jeremy

Oh forgot to ask. Is there a Program that can measure GPU temps?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/14/2011 01:25PM by RenaultFan.

Idle doesn't matter - it's what the CPU is running at under load, and it depends on the CPU.

Again though, I wouldn't worry if you're not having problems.