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Best cooling setup

master noran

2[H]4U
Joined
Dec 10, 2006
Messages
2,825
Hey,I hope this doesn't seem stupid. I'd like your opinions on my fan setup and if there's anyway I could make it more efficient. I don't have a camera around and my camera phone is junk so here's a paint pic.

dasdasdn.png


The black lines are the case ( lian li a05b) the red is the MB, the blue are the heatsinks, scythe mugen 2 and a accelero sv1 rev2. The green is are the fans. I have a fan blowing in from the right side then blowing out on the left. Then on the roof there are 2 fans blowing hot air out and 2 fans on the VGA heatsink blowing air down (seemed like a good idea) and a fan blowing down on my mugen 2. All these fans are controlled via 2 fan controlers (one outside the case and 1 on the inside for things that I try to keep cool allways. Not sure what my idle temps for the cpu are (stuck always on 37) but my load temps are about 55-60. My 4850 idles at about 35. Another quick note, my cpu is overclocked to 4.0ghz.


Thanks in advance
 
so youre saying you are blowing air out the top, but blowing air down over the accelero? that seems kinda weird.

it depends a lot on the shape of your case, and whatt type of hsf you have, etc but heres my suggestion:
reverse the top 2 fans so they are intake, and reverse the fan on the right (rear) to exhaust. this way you pull in outside air at the top of the case, it flows down over the accelero'd 4850, and over the sides. from here the hsf pulls some down over the cpu and then out the back, while the rest is pulled out the front of the case (over HDDs maybe?).
 
Blow air in one side, out the other and the other fans all blow up.
Although if the fan sizes are to scale I would blow into the case from both left and right, the other fans blowing up.
That should work ok with an accelero.
 
Your top exhaust fans and the fans blowing air onto your Accelero are opposing each other and hurting your airflow. They should all be blowing in the same direction to avoid trapping stale air in the case.

What I would recommend that you do is change your front fan to an intake, take the fan on your Mugen 2 and place it so it is on the side of the heatsink facing the front of your case and blowing through the heatsink toward the back, and make your rear fan an exhaust. Then arrange your other fans to blow in the same direction (I would experiment with them in both directions to see which gives you better performance).
 
Yeah, The 2 two fans on top are blowing out and the fans on the VGA are blowing down, I figured the air would blow against the card and it would become hot and pool around the sides of the card and make it's way up and out the case. The heatsink is a Scythe mugen 2 and I'd like to keep the very bottom right fan blowing cold air in because it hits the heatsink, and that's why this case is designed this way. It's right to left air motion setup and it's known to have hot air pool up on the roof so I installed the 2 120mm fans there. Also the fan on the top of the Mugen has got to go because I'm installing a Asus xonar dx right about the heatsink there. I was thinking about placing that fan on the left part of the heatsink to suck out the air coming through the heatsink from the bottom right fan.

Anymore ideas?

Edit: I understand what you're saying zero, But the cold air is coming in from the right and directly to the Heatsink. I figured I'd raise temps alot if I switched it. The fan on the left is kind of blocked by Hard drives. and such.
 
Yeah, The 2 two fans on top are blowing out and the fans on the VGA are blowing down, I figured the air would blow against the card and it would become hot and pool around the sides of the card and make it's way up and out the case.
Well, it doesn't quite work that way. Since the fans are opposing each other, you're actually forcing the video card fans to recapture some of the air that has already gone through the fins, and you're hurting your temperatures. Plus, your exhaust fans are also opposing the direction of your CPU fan, so your CPU heatsink isn't getting any fresh air. The fans should be facing in the same direction to get the best cooling performance.
Also the fan on the top of the Mugen has got to go because I'm installing a Asus xonar dx right about the heatsink there. I was thinking about placing that fan on the left part of the heatsink to suck out the air coming through the heatsink from the bottom right fan.
That would probably work better than the way it is now.
Edit: I understand what you're saying zero, But the cold air is coming in from the right and directly to the Heatsink. I figured I'd raise temps alot if I switched it. The fan on the left is kind of blocked by Hard drives. and such.
The reason I said that is because heatsinks tend to perform better when having air pushed through them rather than pulled through them. However, if your case works better with the airflow going back to front, then you should be alright with the CPU fan pulling air through it from the front.
 
Good advice. I also forgot to mention my from has a solid cover on it (great style, bad airflow) the air from the fan gets out or in through small slots on the left and right sides of the cover. This page of the thread has a few good pictures of the slots in the cover I'm talking about.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1133290&page=140
I'd rather not read through a 73-page thread, so I'd appreciate it if you could tell me specifically what you're talking about ;).
 
The reason I said that is because heatsinks tend to perform better when having air pushed through them rather than pulled through them. However, if your case works better with the airflow going back to front, then you should be alright with the CPU fan pulling air through it from the front.

Everything else said was accurate, but heatsinks (and radiators) generally work better in a pull configuration, not push. Truth is that with sufficient static pressure it shouldn't matter, but if you're borderline (and most PC fans have poor static pressure) pull works better.

The PC-A05B comes with a back to front airflow configuration because it uses a front-mounted PSU, and PSUs almost always exhaust.
 
It's in the page of the link, but heres the good example.

img9786o.jpg


Again, this is not mine. But you can see the slots, thats what the air comes in or out of
 
i still like my idea. is there anything specific you dont like about it? it keeps exhaust out the front, it has equal intake and ehaust (not crucial, but nice), the air flows over the accelero the right way, the cpu gets a decent amount of airflow...
 
Everything else said was accurate, but heatsinks (and radiators) generally work better in a pull configuration, not push.

Everything I have read and through my own testing I have seen that pushing is better than pulling, unless the HS is shrouded like a rad is, other wise the air ends up getting pulled from the sides of the fins and any gaps rather than being pushed forward through them. If you have any tests or documents online proving other wise for non-shrouded HS's I would be glad if you shared it.
 
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