Is front cooling bad?

craigxt22 · 11 Jan 2011 at 18:32

Hi

,

Posted a few weeks back about putting 120mm fans on the front of my PC to cool my HDD.

After a bit of reading, I've read doing this is bad as you can push warm air into the PC.

Any truth in this?

Cheers

RJC · 11 Jan 2011 at 18:51

You will bring in ambient air which probably wont get heated up much by the HDD and the air will pick up any extra heat in the case and then exhausted out the back.

Tealc · 11 Jan 2011 at 18:57

Having a fan up front is better than not having one up front. Blowing ambient air into a case with air temperature above amibent can only be a good thing.

Just don't put an electric fire next to your case, or have it facing a radiator and all should be fine.

craigxt22 · 11 Jan 2011 at 19:43

Nice, thanks

bifday2k · 11 Jan 2011 at 22:19

Iv always had 2 fans upfront, and always will, just aids in case/mobo/gpu cooling as there is a flow of air coming in, and then getting sucked out.

Don't have to have them fast, all my case fans are at 500rpm, both fronts and tops/rear.

setter · 11 Jan 2011 at 22:23

I prefer to have more intake fans on my case than exhausts, it came with 2 x 140mm as standard, but i added another 120mm into the 3 remaining 5.25 bays.

Randomface74 · 11 Jan 2011 at 22:26

Haha I currently have a 3k heater on max infront of my rig.
Rig doesn't care.

bifday2k · 11 Jan 2011 at 22:31

Yeh im the same, mines on the floor, close to the radiator, well just to the side of it, so i stay nice and warm when using the comp.

Comp doesn't even blink.

Dirk · 12 Jan 2011 at 16:41

Three 120mm intake on front, two 120mm exhaust at rear. Combination of dust filters on the front and positive pressure means my case is largely dust free for years at a time. (And cool).

chippy08 · 12 Jan 2011 at 16:46

I like to have a fan at the front of my case to blow air over my hard drives.

Lunatic Dreyfus · 12 Jan 2011 at 16:53

The air's going to be coming in one way or the other.

You may as well use it to your advantage.

Just to freak out the fan collectors here, besides the CPU and GFX, I have just one fan... and that's in the PSU.

LiamJ · 12 Jan 2011 at 17:07

Yes, but only because your case is so small!

My front fan is actually going below the two HDDs in my case at the moment! After removing the HDD cage in my case, I moved the front fan down slightly, so that it misses the remaining two HDDs above it.

I installed a 120mm fan in my 3 spare 5.25" bays also.

ThomasTheTankEngine · 12 Jan 2011 at 17:22

setter said:
I prefer to have more intake fans on my case than exhausts, it came with 2 x 140mm as standard, but i added another 120mm into the 3 remaining 5.25 bays.

I agree. You end up with higher pressure inside the case which stops dust getting sucked through any cracks/gaps. As long as the intakes are filtered, you end up with much cleaner pc.

chippy08 · 12 Jan 2011 at 17:23

I have never found a perfect case yet for a few reasons and one being keeping the hard drives cool, the fan cools some of them but not all of them. The fan is normaly too high too low or just not enough fans at the front.

setter · 12 Jan 2011 at 17:32

jimbob27 said:
I agree. You end up with higher pressure inside the case which stops dust getting sucked through any cracks/gaps. As long as the intakes are filtered, you end up with much cleaner pc.

Yep, dust has never been a problem thankfully, all intake fans are filtered and it literally takes seconds to access the filters, simply pull the entire front panel of the case.