Case Fans

macey79 · 24 Apr 2012 at 16:56

Hi

I am thinking of upgrading a few of my fans, I know how they should blow through the case but I am just wondering should the intake fans be faster than the exhaust fans? I currently have 3 at the top and 1 at the back blowing out and 2 front 1 bottom blowing in.

any input on what are the best case fans to go for is also welcome. I am not using water cooling etc it is just a full air cooled machine.

Cheers.

TastyPC · 24 Apr 2012 at 17:00

It's always best to have more air coming in then going out as this positive pressure helps keep dust from entering all the little ventilation holes around a case.

macey79 · 24 Apr 2012 at 17:06

that is what I thought. think I did see something said about it aswell in your fan review which was very good btw. So it would be best to keep my Apache Black's as exhaust fans and then get something with abit more grunt for intakes you would say?

TastyPC · 24 Apr 2012 at 17:10

Well sometimes people opt for negative pressure as it can often perform better,and then they just clean their rig more.

Or you could use a fan controller and turn the exhausts down a little so they blow less then the intakes.

macey79 · 24 Apr 2012 at 17:14

yeah I see what you mean, I guess with a fan controller you can put most of the exhaust fans to one switch aslong as they are the same fan and the fan controller has enough power. hmm :>

Thanks for your advise TastyPC.

TastyPC · 24 Apr 2012 at 17:29

I would go with a fan controller like this.

Your welcome

rossiboy001 · 24 Apr 2012 at 17:40

I find its best just to have the case open all the time , Iv got an antec 1200 and its full of fans , but life seems to be much easy"r and less noisy to have it fully open , all the fans off , except the cpu one of course , my graphics card under load is much lower than using fans . Its also easy"r to clean , i have a little pastry brush i can dust away with when im sitting at me desk when im bored . and it still looks nice .

Does anyone else prefer case off to fans cooling ?

TastyPC · 24 Apr 2012 at 17:45

rossiboy001 said:
I find its best just to have the case open all the time , Iv got an antec 1200 and its full of fans , but life seems to be much easy"r and less noisy to have it fully open , all the fans off , except the cpu one of course , my graphics card under load is much lower than using fans . Its also easy"r to clean , i have a little pastry brush i can dust away with when im sitting at me desk when im bored . and it still looks nice .

Does anyone else prefer case off to fans cooling ?

The room I'm in gets far to hot for that. you're essentially turning the entire room into your PC case, while that can work nicely if you have a nice cool room, for me I'd just end up with one very hot corner of the room and one very hot PC.

But I can see the benefits of an open case/test bench.

macey79 · 24 Apr 2012 at 18:03

Do you know if you can use 4 pin fans on that controller if I was to go with PWM fans? The only thing about some controllers they don't say what fan connectors fit. Also I see you are going to be testing the Akasa Viper fan and Scythe Gentle Typhoon fans, would you recommend either of these as case fans or is there another you would recommend.

TastyPC · 24 Apr 2012 at 18:20

I've got one coming for review, so I'm not 100% sure yet.

But there website says 'Four knobs to control four 3pin channels'

So my best guess would be no, but you can get adapters.

In terms of what fan I'd recommend it all comes down to your priorities. Airflow, noise, price, looks...ect