Cooling 24/7 Load System

yellowputty · 4 Jan 2013 at 01:07

G'day OcUK,

I have some questions regarding the logistics of cooling my strained rig. As it is to be situated in an office of an educational institute, I am told that water cooling is not appropriate for health and safety reasons. Hmmm. Anyway... I have an 8350 cooled by a 212 Evo.

The CPU will be under 100% Load 24/7. The question is, how do I go go setting up the case for maximum efficiency? There's the standard fan on the back, but I want to make use of 2 x 120mm on the top, 2 x 120mm on front and also 1 x 120mm on the bottom.

I've heard it is not always wise to use all fans. What combination would you recommend? I also bought some Fractal Design Silent Series R2 120mm fans without doing proper research - can anyone tell me if they're any good? Many thanks.

doyll · 4 Jan 2013 at 02:13

Kinda hard to give answers without all the facts mate.

W need to know what your case is, what GPU you have, how many HDD's are blocking airflow, Will case be setting in the open or under a desk, etc. would be helpful. Age and IQ are not needed.

yellowputty · 4 Jan 2013 at 11:26

doyll said:
Kinda hard to give answers without all the facts mate.

W need to know what your case is, what GPU you have, how many HDD's are blocking airflow, Will case be setting in the open or under a desk, etc. would be helpful. Age and IQ are not needed.

Apologies - will teach me for posting late at night!

It's all housed in a Bitfenix Merc Alpha. There is a 3TB HDD and a SSD (But these can be moved in any position). The motherboard has integrated graphics so no GPU. The case will be under a desk but with a lot of room around it.

Devrij · 4 Jan 2013 at 11:54

The traditional setup would be to have the top 120mm exhausting, bottom 120mm intake, front 2 x 120mm intake, and rear 120mm exhaust. That should provide a good flow of bottom->top and front->rear. You'll want to set up the storage drives to provide the least resistance for the front intakes, preferably seating them at the bottom of the HDD cage.

I don't know if the cooler would mount this way, but you could have it blowing upwards into the exhausts and have the rear fan as an intake if so, but most coolers won't let you mount them sideways or aren't as efficient that way.

Hagar · 4 Jan 2013 at 12:01

I would make use of 2 x 120 on top (exhaust) and 1 x 120 in front (intake) with possibly another one if it really improves the cooling for disks etc. I would put one at the back (exhaust) also if feasible. I would not use the bottom one as it risks filling the case up with dust. Your PSU will also exhaust from the back.

doyll · 4 Jan 2013 at 12:46

I would not put top front fan in at all. Reason is it can cause air to flow too fast in front of CPU cooler intake causing lower airflow through cooler. Top fans often increase noise with no or little cooling difference.
*2x front intake
*1x bottom intake
*1x back exhaust
*1x back on top exhaust or leave blank. Air will flow out top without the need for fans.. unless your fans are carp at moving air.

I prefer to push air in and let it find it's own way out.. but need same exhaust vent area as intake.. and your case has 2x side, 2x top and 1x back for exhaust.. unless you need to use lower side intake to supply cool air to GPU. Than remove all unused PSI slot covers to help hot air escape.

Just remember air is a fickled beast and will often do things that surprise us. If you have the time and inclination try different combinations; none on side, side in, side out, etc. Same with top and bottom. A cheap indoor/outdoor or aquarium/terrarium thermometer (the kind with a lead to remote) are very helpful for this sort of testing.

yellowputty · 4 Jan 2013 at 19:13

Thank you very much for your time in explaining why you would do the setup you suggest.

I built the system today with fans in temporary places (before reading these replies) and it's now clear I had no idea what I was doing.

I think I'll put one fan in the top as exhaust, but I'll make it the one not over the heatsink, because I don't want to balls up the airflow on that. I'll put an intake on the bottom and have one intake on the front too - the last one doesn't seem such an issues to me with regards to keeping the front case components cool, but rather just a better airflow generally.

If I'm right then I would have 2 in and 2 out, which makes sense to me.

doyll · 4 Jan 2013 at 20:18

Are you using filters on your intake fans? If so 3x in and 2x out will be better. 3 reasons:
*filters restrict airflow
*even if no filters you want a little more air coming in through fans than out through fans.
*extra intake keeps exhaust fans from sucking more air out than intake fans are bring in and causing air to come in through other places.. like optical drive.. and bringing dust into them.

Fan over cooler is not a problem. Fan over area in front of cool is a possible problem for two reasons:
*it competes with cooler intake fan which is sucking it's air from same area.
*it can cause a flow past the front of cooler intake fan causing intake fan to have trouble sucking air into cooler.