case cooling, blowing air in instead of out.

[Monster]

Most sites have seen recommend you blow air out of the case, and if possible
have air intake in the front to create airflow through the case. Blowing air
out simply means that components don't overheat for example powersupplies
and vga coolers. I also know that if you open the case and stick a fan
beside it everything cools, the hd cools, the motherboard cools even the
powersupply cools. So has anyone tried turning all the fans so they blow air
into the case? hotter case? cooler case? no difference?

 

[David Maynard]

Most sites have seen recommend you blow air out of the case, and if possible
have air intake in the front to create airflow through the case. Blowing air
out simply means that components don't overheat for example powersupplies
and vga coolers. I also know that if you open the case and stick a fan
beside it everything cools, the hd cools, the motherboard cools even the
powersupply cools. So has anyone tried turning all the fans so they blow air
into the case? hotter case? cooler case? no difference?

Well, a friend on mine did it without thinking, his normal mode of
operation, and it was nice and toasty inside.

How do you expect anything to be cooled without letting the heat out?

 

[Wes Newell]

Most sites have seen recommend you blow air out of the case, and if possible
have air intake in the front to create airflow through the case. Blowing air
out simply means that components don't overheat for example powersupplies
and vga coolers. I also know that if you open the case and stick a fan
beside it everything cools, the hd cools, the motherboard cools even the
powersupply cools. So has anyone tried turning all the fans so they blow air
into the case?

Considering 90% of the people in the world are idiots, I'm sure someone
has.

hotter case? cooler case? no difference?

What do you think? That's all that matters.

 

[pheasant]

Most sites have seen recommend you blow air out of the case, and if possible
have air intake in the front to create airflow through the case. Blowing air
out simply means that components don't overheat for example powersupplies
and vga coolers. I also know that if you open the case and stick a fan
beside it everything cools, the hd cools, the motherboard cools even the
powersupply cools. So has anyone tried turning all the fans so they blow air
into the case? hotter case? cooler case? no difference?

Do what you've read. It works.

Built my box last winter. CPU around 43-45 degrees, left exhaust fan off to
keep noise down. Now with summer here, CPU running 51-54 degrees. Added an
exhaust fan and temp dropped about 6-8 degrees.

Play around with it and see for yourself. No need to re invent the wheel,
but satisfy your curiosity.

 

[Al Dykes]

Do what you've read. It works.

Built my box last winter. CPU around 43-45 degrees, left exhaust fan off to
keep noise down. Now with summer here, CPU running 51-54 degrees. Added an
exhaust fan and temp dropped about 6-8 degrees.

Play around with it and see for yourself. No need to re invent the wheel,
but satisfy your curiosity.

The only thing that cools your box off is air coming in one side and
exiting the other side, (or reasonable distributed openings), being
warmed in the process. Each of the heat generating components (CPU,
video card, PSU, disk) needs their share of the airflow. The more air
volume the closer the components will be to ambient (the temp of the
intake air.) If all you fans blew in you'd have a bottleneck on the
exhaust.

I find that one fan blowing in, low on the front of a mini-tower, and
an exhaust fan high on the rear works fine, even though I've got lots
of PCI cards and 3 HDD inside my case.

Before you spend any time or money modifying you case I suggest you
get software monitoring for the CPU and disks set up, or even
a real thermometer so you know where you are now and what effect
your changes make.

 

[DaveW]

To get MAXIMUM cooling in a tower case, the front panel fan should pull air
in and the rear panel fans should blow air out. (If you direct ALL fans to
blow air into the case, the system will overheat.)

 

[Fuzzie Dice]

Most sites have seen recommend you blow air out of the case, and if
possible have air intake in the front to create airflow through the
case. Blowing air out simply means that components don't overheat for
example powersupplies and vga coolers. I also know that if you open
the case and stick a fan beside it everything cools, the hd cools,
the motherboard cools even the powersupply cools. So has anyone tried
turning all the fans so they blow air into the case? hotter case?
cooler case? no difference?

I wouldn't play with that idea. Hot air has to get out of the case somehow.
I have one in the front blowing air in, and one in the back blowing air out.
This is in addition to the CPU and P/S fans. I don't have a fan on my video
card (besides, no real room for it in the mATX case I have right now) but
the front fan is pushing air right directly toward the video card's heat
sink.

It's summer here and rarely if the CPU is at 100% usage, I'd get up maybe
51 - 54 centigrade but normally it's in the low 40s with the system board
temp in the upper 30s/low 40s. I have a 2GHz Intel P4 CPU installed. I think
the better the airflow inside the case, the cooler things will run.