Managing Airflow

[rgratto2]

I recently assembled my new pc as detailed in my sig. I decided to shuffle cases and revert back to my older, larger, Thermaltake Tsunami that is in good condition still after all these years. All of my parts are currently at stock (need to OC cpu).

I have 2 Scythe Slipstreams: one in the back pulling air out, and one in the front pulling air in across my sole hard drive. I replaced the stock fan (which died) on the side of the case with the Scythe Gentle Typhoon, which pulls air into the case. My Corsair PSU has its 120 mm fan facing into the case, of course.

I recently installed the Dark Knight on my i7, with the fan pulling air across the the chip towards the back of the case. The cpu itself is running a bit hotter than expected and than I would like (40-44ish C idle), but I think that I have too much thermal paste on and intend to reseat it tonight. That being said, my problem is this:


I am using my 8800 gts 640 mb video card, and I fear it is running too hot. It has a dual slot cooler, but idles around 55 C with the fan at 100 %, and got up to around 78 C after some gaming yesterday. Thats pretty hot by my standards. I dont want to always have the fan at 100% either: its loud and the machine is in my bedroom.

Solutions? Did I F up something with the airflow and the fan direction? Should I swivel my heatsink? I was contemplating turning it so that it would either:

A. pull air up, theoretically away from the hot GPU.
B. Pull air down, across the GPU. That seems to make less sense to me, because it would be pushing away from the outtake in the back (adjacent to the CPU).

Or...? Suggestions appreciated.


Edit: The following pics are NOT my setup, but display the heatsink.

My current setup goes like this:

Should I turn it like this?

Or like this?

 

[rgratto2]

Any suggestions? I want to do this when I get home tonight. Thanks.

 

[lilfiend]

i would leave it the way it is and the 8800gts is supposed to be that hot, one way i cooled down my 8800gtx was i took off the plastic cover and added a fan right next to it to blow the hot air out of the case, what removing the plastic does it it stops containing the heat and it lets it spread into the case, my temps went from 90c to 60c on load, that was huge, and was only my initial result, i have modified it several times and i have gone to the quietest solution i could make, i disabled the fan on the video card and have a 60mm case fan blowing out the hot air next to it. My first way was the most efficient though, i took a 80mm fan and electric taped it to the heatsink and turned down the other fan to 50%, good luck

 

[Bunnicula]

I had experience with 3 xigmatek sinks before I said f%ck it and sold them. I dont like HDT heatsinks. They work great on a test bed but once you mount the MB in the case and close it up, it doesn't work as well as the traditionally designed sinks. I wasted a whole tube of AS5 and experimented with the bolt kit and without and results were consistently subpar. Thats just my experience though. YMMV.

 

[coolguy2k]

I had experience with 3 xigmatek sinks before I said f%ck it and sold them. I dont like HDT heatsinks. They work great on a test bed but once you mount the MB in the case and close it up, it doesn't work as well as the traditionally designed sinks. I wasted a whole tube of AS5 and experimented with the bolt kit and without and results were consistently subpar. Thats just my experience though. YMMV.

the intel push pin crap didn't work well and my temps were kinda high.

i bought the mounting backplate and the temps dropped 10 degrees. all seems well with mine, not to mention all the positive reviews on the 'egg.