Is my cooling set up optimally?

Alexrose1uk

Alexrose1uk

Alexrose1uk

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As it stands, I think I'm hitting the limits of my case and cooling setup however would appreciate you feedback!

I have an Antec 300 with the following fans:
140mm top fan set as exhaust
Overclockers H2Flow Extreme AIO cooler, with 2 fans, set to intake.
2x 120mm front fans set to intake
1x side fan set to intake

Thermal Paste is Kryonaut :)

My GPU is a Powercolor PCS+ so doesn't exhaust all heat out the case.

To push my CPU any further needs some fairly hefty voltage jumps to get stable, and is pushing my temps way too high under IBT to the point of throttling, so realistically I need to cut temps somehow, and realistically throwing a lot of money at a more extreme cooling setup seems silly for the gains, but if there are simple/cost effective/low-risk tweaks, then I'm all ears :)
 
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What fans do you have?

Some decent static pressure fans will help on the radiator for sure.
However with the radiator being intake, although won't make too much difference it's throwing the warm air into the case so need decent exhaust fans to get the air out.

Try reverse the fans, (again don't expect much difference) so top and side intake, and front exhausts through the radiator to get the warm air out, may help as the Antec 300 is quite enclosed.
 
Currently fans are:
Top - Exhaust - Corsair AF140
Rear - Intake -Corsair SP120 --> Rad ---> Coolermaster Sickleflow
Side - Intake - Corsair SP120
Front - Intake - Corsair SP120 x2

Just done a quick test and with this, and IBT, processor hits max of 84 on it's hottest core after 5 runs of High IBT, lowest core is substantially lower but I've always had a few cores run far hotter than the rest so guess its a weaker pair in my 2700k or poor inner solder.

Will try the above suggestion of reversing top and front and report back.

Update:
Just tried that and no improvement, if anything slightly worse, that said I believe the room is slightly warmer now.
 
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Different style of case but I setup my HAF-XB to pull in the front and rear and channel up out the top via a large 24cm fan thinking that heat likes to rise. Well it worked OK but I thought I'd reverse the fans and blow down and out. Low and behold it lowered the temps by 2-3 C so a bit of experimentation won't hurt.
 
I would have thought you would be better with more fans exhausts than intakes, otherwise heat will naturally get trapped.

Personally I would leave the top 140 exhausting (as heat naturally rises), but reverse rear and Rad fans so that heat from the loop gets removed from the case directly (at the trade off, of pulling slightly warmer air through the rad).
 
I haven't tried swapping the rad round as yet (as everywhere seems to suggest intake is cooler?), but so far, what's been best for my system overall is:

Top - Exhaust
Front x 2 - Intake
Side - Exhaust
Rad (intake) - Be aware this is a push/pull setup so still 120mm not 2x 120s operating seperately.

Side fan didn't make a massive difference to the GPU, ~1 degree under the same period of testing, however made a massive difference front fans set to exhaust. Guess it just wasn't getting hot air away from the GPU quickly enough.
 
Alexrose1uk said:
I haven't tried swapping the rad round as yet (as everywhere seems to suggest intake is cooler?)
Click to expand...

Whilst it possibly is slightly cooler, the difference shouldn't be huge. The effect of dumping the radiator's heat into your case though will be much larger (e.g. VRMs and other motherboard components that are passively cooled will be nearer the limit.

Another option that might be worth looking at (taking your concern into account).

- Radiator Fans as exhaust (minimising heat into case)

- 140mm top fan as intake (this will provide more than enough airflow, reasonably directly to the radiator - i.e. it won't be heated much before cooling the radiator - whilst also cooling the motherboard and back of the graphics card)

- 120mm side fan as exhaust (should exhaust hot graphics card air)

- 1x 120mm front fan as intake (don't think you need both, as I think having both creates too much positive pressure meaning air doesn't naturally exhaust as easily. Whichever mount lines up best with the flow to the side fan would be the one I would use)



edit: e.g. this should give airflow something like this
cE0XQIO.jpg
 
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sorry, i'm going to have to say no, on the example above.
physics say you should have more exhaust than intake! air WILL find it's way inside, but you want to CONTROL which you evacuate.
thus, intake from the front, maybe side if you have (bottom).
exhaust from top and back.
 
EXxx said:
sorry, i'm going to have to say no, on the example above.
physics say you should have more exhaust than intake!
Click to expand...

You can say no all you want, but it appears you maybe haven't read the whole thread - compared to how the Op originally had things set up (1x exhaust, 4x intake fans) - mine is more balanced (it also should separate the hot spots, provide cool air for the CPU watercooling loop, whilst still exhausting the radiator hot air rather than dumping it into the case).


EXxx said:
air WILL find it's way inside, but you want to CONTROL which you evacuate.
Click to expand...

Without a doubt - but given the Ops issue, CONTROLLING where the hot air flow goes (rather than sheer volume of air in/out), is more of an issue.

EXxx said:
thus, intake from the front, maybe side if you have (bottom).
exhaust from top and back.
Click to expand...

That may be generally true, but explain how that works in the context of this thread, the watercooling radiator the OP is using, and the high CPU temperature he is experiencing.
 
At the moment, I haven't swapped the radiator around, as I've not had time, but following cleaning and trying the other fans, the best results I have had have been swapping the side fan to exhaust and leaving the other fans as is.

As I have an overclocked R9 290 I have to take this into account as the PCS+ cooler ejects a lot of heat into the case. However, due to the length of the card in tandem with the hard drives, I suspect it is essentially splitting the airflow into two major streams

Bottom one goes past the HDDs and then to the graphics card (notice reversing the front fans made almost a ten degree difference!), and heat generated horizontally by the cooler is then being grabbed by the exhaust and flung out the case rather than having cold air blown onto the GPU.

The second airflow seems to be the top front fan and the air coming in from the rad enters the central cavity of the case, but is then pulled out the case by the top 120mm exhaust. Even if the two top airflows are contradicting (rad v front) the slowdown of air should make it easier for heat to cause the rise and for it to then be exhausted by the AF?
I did consider only swapping the top front fan to exhaust, however I am worried that will disrupt the airflow from the intake just below helping keep the massive heat of the GPU down.

One thing I HAVE noticed however is the AF appears to have lost one of its fins along the way. Would that be making substantial difference to it's performance?
 
At the moment, I haven't swapped the radiator around, as I've not had time, but following cleaning and trying the other fans, the best results I have had have been swapping the side fan to exhaust and leaving the other fans as is.
Click to expand...

That's what I found in My Fractal R4. Front H110 with fans as intake, blowing through the radiator, then single fan on back of case as exhaust and single side fan as exhaust on the side, opposite the GPU.
Without the side fan as exhaust the temperatures were a good 10 degrees warmer.
 
Ok further to the below I've now had a chance to swap my radiator around. Directly reversed the fans in position as the Coolermaster has less static pressure so wanted to have the SP120 pushing, and the CM ejecting.

It seems to have reduced my GPU temps by about 1 degrees C, but has increased my CPU temps by a few degrees at load. As the CPU is the primary focus of this testing, I am going to swap back :)

I just need to pickup a replacement top fan at some point due to the broken blade on the AF140 which I hope isnt affecting performance too much.
 
Most people have little idea how case airflow really works. It's all about supplying components with cool air, not how many fans are used. To really figure out if components are getting the coolest air possible we need to know what the air temperature is they are receiving .. and looking at component temps does not do this. To monitor airflow temps a low cost terrarium, refrigerator/freezer, or indoor/outdoor digital thermometer or similar works very well
e65759c3-fbf9-414f-9f1f-f5941d540397_zps2fe90c77.jpg



Here is a link to how to setup case airlfow.
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=26159770#post26159770
 
I would fix the blade on the AF140 if possible as it will be spinning unbalanced and putting extra load on the bearing - premature wear.
 
Yeah to be honest it's on my to do list however as the fan is still working at the moment my wife will kill me if I replace it for the sake of it!
 
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