PCI slots fans....do they help or hurt?

Viper87227

Viper87227

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I am running a Ti4200 which was claimed ot run at Ti4600 specs, yet I cant get it to run stable above Ti4400. I was thinking it was odd ebcause not only do I have a very cool case, I have a PCI slot fan, and I figured that would help keep the card even cooler than the guy who got Ti4600 specs. THen I though, my slot fan is exhast, yet heatsink fans blow air over the heatsink...so, could a PCI slot fan sucking out while the gfx card fan right above it is trying to blow in actually have a negative effect?
 
I've owned two, and although they work pretty well, both eventually developed very loud and annoying rattling sounds that made them unusable. If you can find one that isn't a cheap piece of crap, go for it.
 
no...i have one, and I am thinking it could actaully be hurting my overclock due to the opposing airflow
 
I know for the 6800 series exhaust slot fans are counterproductive because the 6800 fan sucks air in.
 
Is the Blue Vantec one any good? It gets good reviews and puts out almost 30 CFM I think. Also If the 6800 Series Fans Suck air in how would that be counterproductive? I mean you have a slot fan blowing air at something that is sucking air in. Would mean more air gets sucked in. Now if you had a slot fan blowing air at a gfx card fan that was blowing air back at it that would be counterproductive?
 
gamer1drew said:
Is the Blue Vantec one any good? It gets good reviews and puts out almost 30 CFM I think. Also If the 6800 Series Fans Suck air in how would that be counterproductive? I mean you have a slot fan blowing air at something that is sucking air in. Would mean more air gets sucked in. Now if you had a slot fan blowing air at a gfx card fan that was blowing air back at it that would be counterproductive?
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Thats the thing....The blue UV vantec is the only slot fan ive seen that actaulyl blows air. All the others exhaust air out hte back of your case....therefor is couterproductive, which is the point of tis post, would that actually hurt the card? ALl cards suck air over the heatsink BTW...its just how they work (altho I think a fw 9800s had it the other way, and the fanes died easily)
 
I had a slot fan that died. I didn't know it had died - probably for days or weeks - I don't know.

Anyhow, the fan was not spinning and it was producing heat. It was like a little heat generator.

So it was making things worse.
 
Viper87227 said:
Thats the thing....The blue UV vantec is the only slot fan ive seen that actaulyl blows air. All the others exhaust air out hte back of your case....therefor is couterproductive, which is the point of tis post, would that actually hurt the card? ALl cards suck air over the heatsink BTW...its just how they work (altho I think a fw 9800s had it the other way, and the fanes died easily)
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If it's a blower it should help...I'm thinking about getting one of these for my GT when it shows up monday but we'll see how the overclocking goes out of the box first...

But if it's an exhaust fan...yeah that would decrease the amount of air going into the vid card and be counter-productive whereas a blower would bring cool air in from the outside and probably help significantly...
 
well i have a side case fan that blows in directly to the video card and then the exhaust fan blows hot air out. my temps are cooler but i tried the same thing without a side case fan blowing in and it was very counter productive so thats my thoughts.
 
Slot Fans, if placed too close to the video card, can actually impead heat dissapation - If the fan is an exhaust, the cold air coming off the card will be mix with the case's hot air before it is eventually blown out the back of the tower...So inessence it creates a chamber of warm air between the fan and the video card...thus hindreing video cooling.

Try putting the PCI slot fan further down...separate it from the video card by at least two slots.
 
I just put mine back in, and it dropped the temp as read by my vid card 5c, it was at the very bottom and seperated by an sblive. I did notice though that the air being exhausted out is rather cool, being at the bottom and all. (fan was out before because it added 2c to my comp idle from motherboard sensor last time I tried it)

A blower to the gfx would rock for obvious reasons, a exhaust can help but is tricky.
(I let quake3 idle at the main menu in a window and watched my gpu's ambient temp reading hit 90c, at that time I wussed out and decided that the exhaust couldnt hurt when my gpu cooks like that)
 
Lord of Shadows said:
I just put mine back in, and it dropped the temp as read by my vid card 5c, it was at the very bottom and seperated by an sblive. I did notice though that the air being exhausted out is rather cool, being at the bottom and all. (fan was out before because it added 2c to my comp idle from motherboard sensor last time I tried it)

A blower to the gfx would rock for obvious reasons, a exhaust can help but is tricky.
(I let quake3 idle at the main menu in a window and watched my gpu's ambient temp reading hit 90c, at that time I wussed out and decided that the exhaust couldnt hurt when my gpu cooks like that)
Click to expand...

Yeah, moral of the story, exhaust is good as long as it isn't sucking directly off your vid card...
 
i put one in my moms computer, right under the vid card, its an old dell and she has one of those ati 64 cards with only a heatsink, so i put the blower under the vidcard to suck air off the heatsink and out of the case, problem was that it sucked all the cool air out that was on the bottom of the case, i took the damn thing out and the temps droped 7 deg .
 
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