Case Turbulance

E

Eyolan

n00b
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Jun 25, 2008
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11
I'm planning on building a new computer with the Antec 300 case. That case, if you don't know, has one rear exhaust fan, and a top exhaust fan along with two fans in the front. My dad has been telling me about being careful with fans because too many intake fans could create turbulence in the case making it so no heat leaves the case. What can I do to help prevent this and get the best performance? Also, will those two front fans help keep the rest of the pc cool? I'm going to have the E8400, and a 4870 in there with a single hard drive. I was looking at this fan. I'm starting to think I should probably try to get something a little less powerful, like this, or this.

With my limited knowledge, I assume if there is such turbulence in the case, I can speed up or slow down the fans for balance them out. I know the stock fans that come with the case have three speed settings.
 
Turbulence can occur but its not as extreme a problem as your dad suggests.
If fans are drawing air out of the PC, air will flow out of the PC.
That air will be warmer.

An Antec 300 case isnt going to suffer from heat retention unless you block airflow :)
 
There is no way you can put together a case without turbulence. About the only way to guarantee turbulence goes away is to blow the air through at hypersonic speeds.

You're Dad's comments are, umm..., nonsense. If more fans blow in than out, the pressure in the case will increase over ambient and the air will force itself out every hole it can find.

You will have three fans pushing air out - the rear fan, the top fan and the PSU's fan (assuming you mount the PSU with it's intake fan inside the case.

Just install some decent quality 120mm fans - 2 front and one rear - and a 140mm on top and see how it works. If you need more, you could mount a side fan.
 
Yea, I was pondering this while I was trying to fall asleep(Usually the best time to solve problems) and I came to the same conclusion. I'm going to have two exhaust fans, along with the the GPU and the PSU all blowing air out of the case. The side panel of the case is perforated, so air can easily escape when the pressure increases.

Thanks.
 
I'm not a fan of bottom mounted PSUs, but the Antec 300 case will breath fine. Make sure you keep your cabling tidy, that can effect air flow as well.
 
I have another question. My motherboard(Asus P5Q Pro) has only one fan connector for the front(has two for the rear). How will I power the second fan? Its hard for me to figure this out because I can't see what connectors my PSU has and what connectors the fan needs.

EDIT: Should I get something like this or this? Would need to fit into a 5.25" bay.
 
Eyolan said:
I have another question. My motherboard(Asus P5Q Pro) has only one fan connector for the front(has two for the rear). How will I power the second fan? Its hard for me to figure this out because I can't see what connectors my PSU has and what connectors the fan needs.

EDIT: Should I get something like this or this? Would need to fit into a 5.25" bay.
Click to expand...

Are the fans in the Antec 300 3-pin?
 
Turbulence can be a problem, but not in the system you have set up. Your airflow is pretty direct, it enters from the front and exits from the back and top. Even if the air is spinning from the fans movement, its moving on a path from one point to another. The problem with turbulence is when people have a lot of fans going different directions. Take this case for instance. Although this case does move air very well, if you dont path out your airflow properly you can make pockets of air that don't get much movement.

One of the reasons the 'in through bottom front, out through top back' air flow is so popular is because its a straight line flow across the components and it uses hot airs natural inclination to rise on its own. Your case should work just fine with your four fans.
 
msabo said:
Are the fans in the Antec 300 3-pin?
Click to expand...

I'm not entirely sure. From the looks of the pictures on Newegg, it looks like it has a 3 pin and a 4 pin connector. Assuming I only have to use one of the two connectors, I should be able to get an extension 3 pin?

EDIT: I take that back. Its a 4 pin. The other thing I see is the speed control. Ok, that solves my problem, I just need to get 3 pin extender.
 
Not sure turbulence is the word... but if you are planning to have all the fans blow air into the case... might I suggest to have some intake fans in the front, and some fans blowing out on the back. This helps with the air flow moving cool air over the hot parts (Harddrive, CPU, mem, NB, GPU, etc) and sucked out through the back. While pointing all the fans in into the case can keep temps okay, the lack of extra holes and outlets of the extra hot air can increase the temp in the case, and probably cause other problems (noise because everything will run a little hotter, more dust, etc).

Not sure if this is the problem being talked about, and what I suggested it all either from past experience or speculation (I personally never put all fans to blow air into a case). I've always been a fan (No pun intended) of having a certain airflow in a case, etc.

If the problem is that there is only one intake fan, and two outtake fans... that shouldn't cause any problems.
 
Eyolan said:
I'm not entirely sure. From the looks of the pictures on Newegg, it looks like it has a 3 pin and a 4 pin connector. Assuming I only have to use one of the two connectors, I should be able to get an extension 3 pin?
Click to expand...

The P5Q Pro has three 3-pin connectors and a 4-pin for the CPU fan. If the case has four 3-pin fans then you can use a splitter such as this to connect to fans together.
 
I saw a review on YouTube of the Antec 300. The fans that come with the case are 4 pin. So I simply need to get 3 pin extenders.

Thanks for your help!
 
Eyolan said:
I'm planning on building a new computer with the Antec 300 case. That case, if you don't know, has one rear exhaust fan, and a top exhaust fan along with two fans in the front. My dad has been telling me about being careful with fans because too many intake fans could create turbulence in the case making it so no heat leaves the case. What can I do to help prevent this and get the best performance? Also, will those two front fans help keep the rest of the pc cool? I'm going to have the E8400, and a 4870 in there with a single hard drive. I was looking at this fan. I'm starting to think I should probably try to get something a little less powerful, like this, or this.

With my limited knowledge, I assume if there is such turbulence in the case, I can speed up or slow down the fans for balance them out. I know the stock fans that come with the case have three speed settings.
Click to expand...


IIRC, turbulence decreases the thickness of a thermal boundary layer...
 
Eyolan said:
I have another question. My motherboard(Asus P5Q Pro) has only one fan connector for the front(has two for the rear). How will I power the second fan?
Click to expand...

You can get an adapter that will allow you to connect two fans to a single connector on the MB. The only problem is that you will lose the speed sense line on one of the fans (i.e. you will only know the rotational speed of one fan - the other's speed sense wire has to be disconnected by the adapter).

The only thing you have to check is that the rating for amperage or wattage of the MB connector is greater than the sum of the demand for the two fans.
 
Direfox said:
if you dont path out your airflow properly you can make pockets of air that don't get much movement.
Click to expand...

It occurred to me after I posted that by "turbulence" he might mean that there are eddies in the case - pockets where the air circulates but does not get flushed well.

Eddies are a possibility and are likely in some cases. The space above the 5 1/4 drive bays is a candidate for dead air in many cases. Intake fans below and forward with exhaust fans aft and near the top leave the lower back and upper front corners vulnerable. The lower is usually fairly open (unless you have a lot of cards in the PCI(e) slots) while the upper front is often blocked by the drive cage. Top fans relatively forward can help with this by evacuating upwards. Side fans can help with the lower-back corner but are usually placed to cool the CPU and VGA card.
 
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