Intake or Exhaust CFM's and LED connection

Ulti-Resis · 16 Aug 2014 at 14:26

Hi peeps,

I have concerns with the push/pull CFM balance of the fans in my new system which is an NZXT Phantom USB3.0 Big Tower Case. It has a custom watercooled loop for the CPU and 2 Inno iChill Herculez GTX780 6Gb GPU's with an EVGA G2 Gold 1000w PSU. Also I am thinking the direction of airflow of the rad fans is wrong...

To my knowledge/understanding, the front and two side panel fans should be intakes and the rear and two rad/top fans exhausts and negative pressure is better than positive pressure.

The way it has been done is:

Front Intake 1 x 140mm Spectre Pro 1200RPM 86.73 CFM

Windowed Side panel Intake 2 x 120mm Spectre Pro 1200 RPM 56.22 CFM

Rear 1 x 120mm Spectre Pro exhaust 1200 RPM 56.22 CFM

Top Rad Intake 2 x 120mm Spectre 1000 RPM 43.5 CFM. Fans are mounted on top of the radiator.

The two radiator fans have been fitted as intakes above the rad where I thought/feel they should have been fitted as exhausts below the rad, blowing through it and out? Should I move these two rad fans to below the rad and have them as exhausts?

I know it's only a guide adding up the CFM's but if I were to change the rad fans to exhaust then I would have around 199.17 CFM from intake fans and 143.22 CFM exhaust. Again from my understanding and knowledge negative pressure is better (more exhaust than intake) plus the obvious laws of physics that heat rises tells me that the top fans on the rad should be exhaust. Even with the fans on the rad exhausting heat I would still have more CFM from the intakes by the numbers.

Bear in mind that the two Inno GPU coolers and the exhaust from the bottom mounted EVGA PSU with fan uppermost has not been considered here.

So what is the consensus here? Do I leave the rad fans as intakes or change them to exhausts and do I mount the fans above or below the rad? Secondly is the CFM setup (whichever way the fans are going to work) at it's optimum?

That question out of the way my second problem to be solved:

My case has the 6 Bitfenix red LED fans and I wish to connect the LED's to the switch on the back of the case, the switch only has one 2 pin female connector and no power. The fans are connected to the fan controller switches built into the top of the case but the fans also have a separate jumper loop on each, which can be unplugged, and the supplied LED pos/neg 2 pin cable plugged into the jumper. This then requires a power supply and a connection to the on/off switch so the LED's can be turned on and off separately to the fan. Is there a way for me to connect 6 LED 2 pin cables to power and to the case on/off switch on the back of the Phantom case and how would I go about doing this in a nice neat and tidy way? Some sort of 6 in 1 out plus power type adapter maybe? Where can I source this?

I really want to get the fan situation sorted so I can finally power her up for the first time and make sure everything else is working as it should. The LED issue is something I can do at any time.

Any help would be much appreciated, thank you!

Ulti-Resis · 17 Aug 2014 at 14:42

No advice on this? Don't mean to be impatient but I really want to get it sorted so I can turn on my new rig for the first time and check that everything is working.

jh30uk · 17 Aug 2014 at 15:43

I will try to read it fully after dinner.

Ulti-Resis · 17 Aug 2014 at 16:04

Thank you, look forward to hearing what you think!

Ulti-Resis · 19 Aug 2014 at 11:30

Still no answers on this. I'm surprised someone wasn't able to help with the knowledge here on the forum.

I decided to make an executive decision and go with exhaust for the top two fans, sucking air through the rad and out. This just makes more sense to me. Exhaust rear fan and intake for the front 140mm and two 120mm side.

I'll be testing under load with temp monitoring software and digital probe thermometers inside the case to see what the ambients are like. If there is any problem then I'll try turning the top fans back to intakes and re-test.

The LED connection, I have a plan in mind which I'll get around to in the near future.

anthony566 · 19 Aug 2014 at 11:44

Hi, although my system setup is not the same as yours i have 2 x 200mm fans mounted in the top as exhaust's and a front mounted 140mm intake, a side mounted 200mm intake and 2 x 120 mm rear fans in push pull on my AIO as intakes this has turned out to be the best config for tempriture control.

Ulti-Resis · 20 Aug 2014 at 01:16

Thanks Anthony, I'm pretty sure that I've made the right decision having the top rad fans as exhaust.

I now have:

Front 1 x 140mm intake
Side 2 x 120mm intake
Rear 1 x 120mm exhaust
Rad/top 2 x 120mm sucking air through the rad and exhausting

Rad top fans are motherboard controlled Spectre with red LED's all others are on the case fan control switches and are Spectre Pro with red LED's. All fitted with dust filters except for rear exhaust.

CPU is cooled with a custom loop.

The only other thing is the PSU is bottom mounted with the fan drawing air from inside the case but I do wonder about maybe turning the PSU over so it draws exterior cold air from the vent in the bottom of the case.

MOBO is an Asus Rampage IV Extreme Black Edition

The two GPU's are Inno3D iChill GTX780 HerculeZ 6Gb and are supposed to be great coolers.

Ram is Kingston HyperX Beast 32GB (4x8GB) PC3-17100C11 2133MHz.

Some pics of my new rig:

These are the fans I flipped over

Cable management was troublesome because the case is sound dampened and the side panel was being buckled out, got it all to fit in the end.

The big switch on tomorrow and I'll need to get some more pics with the LED's on.

Ulti-Resis · 20 Aug 2014 at 01:21

Thanks Anthony, I'm pretty sure that I've made the right decision having the top rad fans as exhaust.

I now have:

Front 1 x 140mm intake
Side 2 x 120mm intake
Rear 1 x 120mm exhaust
Rad/top 2 x 120mm sucking air through the rad and exhausting

Rad top fans are motherboard controlled Spectre with red LED's all others are on the case fan control switches and are Spectre Pro with red LED's. All fitted with dust filters except for rear exhaust.

CPU is cooled with a custom loop.

The only other thing is the PSU is bottom mounted with the fan drawing air from inside the case but I do wonder about maybe turning the PSU over so it draws exterior cold air from the vent in the bottom of the case.

MOBO is an Asus Rampage IV Extreme Black Edition

The two GPU's are Inno3D iChill GTX780 HerculeZ 6Gb and are supposed to be great coolers.

Ram is Kingston HyperX Beast 32GB (4x8GB) PC3-17100C11 2133MHz.

Some pics of my new rig:

These are the fans I flipped over

Cable management was troublesome because the case is sound dampened and the side panel was being buckled out, got it all to fit in the end.

The big switch on tomorrow and I'll need to get some more pics with the LED's on.

jh30uk · 20 Aug 2014 at 05:26

Sorry OP, I forgot after being busy with work as I saved this URL to my FAV's.

I cannot add much after reading your post about 5x, as not sure what you really are asking but as its late by time I get here I am tired.

I had the same case (minus USB 3.0) and now have the better 630.

The airflow on your case is not that great and those 2 side fans do next to nothing but try to blow air over the HDD's and out the mesh the other side while meeting the air from a front fan so IMO they act against each other.

The top should be exhausts.

The GPU's are not ideal for Crossfire as they do not exhaust the hot air but blow it all over the case.

Both Nvidia and AMD SLI/Crossfire is ideal with Exhaust Blower cards, unless your case has a lot of airflow but its still hot air going all over parts but will not really effect your CPU as its not an air cooler.

You could unscrew the little HDD cage and fit a 120mm or possibly 140mm fan there to blow up to GPU's (the larger HDD cage is riveted in place+you do have a few HDD's).

The 630 has more space behind the Mobo Tray so cables and soundproofing would not cause any issues.

Also with 630 you can fit 2 SSD on sleds behind Mobo tray and split the main modular HDD cage into 3 sizes so you could still use 2 HDD's and not block most of the front 200mm fan airflow and they will get a ton of air onto the GPU's.

I am not sure how long you have had this case or how much you spent on fans but the 630 would have been cooler/quieter/more space/better filtered air and modular options out the box.

The 630 is an Ultra Tower Case so bigger then the E-ATX Full Tower Phantom but does not come in red so far AFAIK.

Neg Pressure is a bit cooler but get very dusty.

Pos Pressure is bit warmer but get less dusty.

anthony566 · 20 Aug 2014 at 09:58

Wow ... very nice looking setup :-)

Is the case under the PSU vented ?? if it is I would turn the PSU over so it takes cold air in and blows it out the rear this will help to remove some heat from your case.

after that just run it and see what the system temps are settling at if its to hot you could look at moving the HDD bay on the right and mount the 2 x 3.5 HDD in the small centre cage and mount your SSD on the side of the upper 5.25 cage this will let you remove that lower section and as said above add a larger fan maybe ??

jh30uk · 20 Aug 2014 at 14:20

The main HDD cage is riveted in place and not modular, SSD can get thrown anywhere even behind Mobo tray as he has used up all his 5.25" bays unless he sticks in that space left as some of his devices are half length.

The 140mm fan is biggest he can fit in front without modding case.

Ulti-Resis · 20 Aug 2014 at 23:59

Thanks for the feedback, I think it has turned out looking mega.

I do have issues though:

Firstly the fan controller for the two side fans. It is acting as though it is switching the fan speeds up, down, up, down repeatedly. The blue light in that one switch goes on and off as it goes up, down. The fan LED's also dim each time it slows.

Upon turning the PC on for the first time the post gives me:

"Power down and attach the PCiE cable for this graphics card and restart"

The top rad fans which are standard spectre seem to be pushing hardly any exhaust out of the top of the case and the ASUS Rog controller fan speed control does not make any difference to the speed of the top rad fans, whether set to turbo, silent or standard.

I'm going to have to contact OCUK about it again. :mad:

jh30uk · 21 Aug 2014 at 00:16

The fan controller could be faulty or the Molex its powered with is loose.

I thought you said you flipped Top Fans over?, because going by the sticker/logo they are acting as Intakes now (hard to tell by photo).

Bart_Hunt · 21 Aug 2014 at 06:00

Check my project in the sig.
It has 17 120s and 1 140mm fan.
All sub 1k rpm.
There are 11 120s as intake and 6 120s/1 140 as exhaust, so slightly less but...
My intake fans are located in front of the case and it's lower part, my exhaust fans are located on top and back of the case.
I also have more intake than exhaust fans, because I have 2 360 rads on top, with 6 fans on, pushing air through them.
But temps are ok, with 780sli and oc'ed 4770k in the loop, D5 running at speed 3/5.

jh30uk · 21 Aug 2014 at 06:26

Is it screwed down to desk to stop it taking off?

Bart_Hunt · 21 Aug 2014 at 06:52

I have an achor in each corner, so case hovers few cm above the desk :-)

Ulti-Resis · 21 Aug 2014 at 13:27

17 fans? Here I am thinking that 6 was a lot of fans. Don't think I have ever seen or heard of a rig with 17 fans in it.

Sorry, yes, I did flip the rad fans. The photo you see here was taken before I did it, I should have been clearer on that.

The fan controller for the side fans is an odd one because all the others are working perfectly. It's only the one for the side fans that is acting up so I cant see it being a power connector problem, otherwise all the fans would be having issues wouldn't they? There are two connectors that go to the one switch for the side fans. I'm going to try connecting the side fans to the two connectors/switch usually used for the top fans and see if that works OK. If it does then it's the switch for the side fans that is faulty (or the wires or connectors).

I'm sure I'll get it all sorted eventually and I'll update with results of my investigation.

Thanks for the assist.

jh30uk · 21 Aug 2014 at 14:17

Did OCUK build this PC for you going by a comment you made above?

Ulti-Resis · 22 Aug 2014 at 13:37

Yes I was originally planning on doing it myself but they kind of offered/convinced me they could do it for me and I was under time constraints so I thought it would save me the time. OC built it and I have pretty much rebuilt it, but I won't say much more on that subject. I knew someone would ask eventually but I didn't want/intend to say anything negative. Suffice to say they have come through on all the parts and forum assistance where needed to put things right and they continue to do so.

I've got the GPU PCiE power issue sorted out now, the side fans are still playing up so I need to use a process of elimination to find out if it is the cables or the control switch that are causing the problem.

The two rad fans should have been PWM 4 pin but they are Spectre 3 pin non-PWM so they are being replaced when stock comes in and I'll be swapping them myself. The new fans will be Spectre pro to match the rest of the fans in the system and they will push more air, as well as the red LED's being brighter. At the moment the ASUS Rog fan controller has no effect on the rad fan speed. The Rad fans were supposed to be motherboard and Rog controlled and all the other fans on the case controller.

Once I get the rad fans changed and either a new fan controller unit or cables it will all be sweet. I'll be on with installing Windoze etc this afternoon and be able to get on with temp monitoring and load testing to see how she copes.

jh30uk · 22 Aug 2014 at 15:32

Not sure how they convinced you to let them build it, I have bought plenty parts since 2002 till now from them and they never did so, I would simply say NO.

That top WC unit intaking and putting hot air in to case is not ideal (if they did that before you swapped it).