PC case cooling problems/question (1 Viewer)

[Neil Joseph]

I just made a new pc, which worked/works ok but... the inside of the case gets hot, so much so that it had a hard drive problem one time. The hard drive is mounted near the lower half of the tower. The power supply is mounted at the rear top of the tower with its own exhaust fan. I have two exhaust fan ports below the power supply for the purpose of mounting a case fan.

OK, the single case fan I had was installed so that it was sucking air into the case instead of expelling the exhaust (hot air) from the case so I reversed it.

Question - Should I install a second fan and have that blow the exhaust out as well, or should I install it so that it sucks air into the case?

As I mentioned, both ports are next to each other (one lower than the other) with the power supply exhaust right above them...

powersupply

fan1

fan2

I/O

slots

What way is best for a fan 2?

 

[Chas_T]

Neil,

I would have the fan on the bottom part of the box sucking in and if the box is really warm as you describe, install a second fan on the top portion below the power supply on exhaust.

A good little tool is Mother Board Monitor, which is a free download for internal temps.

Also, here is a thread with a similar situation which may be of interest.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...hreadid=164398

Charles

 

[JamesHl]

You want the air going in one direction all through your case. Fans in the back exhaust, and fans in the front intake. I would recommend getting a front fan or two if you don't have one.

 

[Neil Joseph]

Thanks for the suggestions. As it turns out, there is a temperature monitor in the bios for the cpu and motherboard. I tried the fan both ways and monitored the temperature. It seemed to work best with both fans blowing out and settled at a cpu temp of 35C and motherboard temperature of 24C.

 

[Seth--L]

Yeah. It's not about bringing cooler air into your computer but instead removing the hot hair from it. Sorta the same idea of how your refrigerator works.

 

[Neil Joseph]

There are no more place to mount fans. I may look into placing one on the side panel and use that to suck air into the case in the future.

 

[Kalle Karpaasi]

You should also have more or more powerful fans blowing air in to the case. If more air is coming out through the fans than is coming in this will create negative pressure inside the case and air will be sucked in through all possible holes/crevices. This is not good since dust will get in through your cd-rom and disk drive slots.

 

[Mark Giles]

Also consider buying a fan for your hard drive for under $10.

Behold..

Dual Fan Hard Drive Cooler

or a Bay Fan

 

[JamesHl]

I can't recall ever having seen a case that doesn't have an intake fan in the front, usually near the bottom. A side intake fan would be a good second choice.

Newer hard drives don't need cooling as long as the case is cool. I have a raid 5 array of 4 drives on the same rack, 2 pairs of 2 touching each other with a space in the middle, and they're barely warm to the touch. Some run hotter than others though.

 

[Neil Joseph]

I found the solution. Purchased this cooling device just today. Basically it is the same size as a cd-rom and it installs into a 5" bay. It has a vent in the front and fans inside plus a big heatsink. The hard drive can mount directly onto it so it has a double funciton of sucking cool air through the front of the case and also cools the hard drive. Not bad for cdn$24. I think I will get one for my other computer as well.