non standard airflow routes (fan placement)

[lollox]

morning all

looking at my rig this morning it dawned on me that my cpu heatsink wasnt getting unrestricted airflow from anywhere in the case, so thought id give something slightly different a go.

case is a fractal design r2, 780 comes accross almost all the way to the fixed drive bays, which also restrict airflow from the front of the case. So i was thinking....

flip the rear 120 to intake
reverse the cpu heatsink to draw air from the back of the case
use the furthest forward of the top as an exhaust, and then......

front and bottom fans as intakes for the gfx card, with the mid side as a gfx exhaust.

thoughts? anyone tried similar? other option would be the side as intake for the gfx card.

 

[murah]

Just give it a go, what works for one person wont necessarily work for you.

I spent hours with different fan positions, intakes/exhausts everything.

All I can tell you is that it seems like it might work and wouldn't do any harm to try.

As for the side fan I'm against them, While a side fan can cool the GPU down you can mess the airflow to other components up very easily. I'd much prefer to have a balanced system (CPU/GPU end up being roughly the same temp while gaming).
Also In the past I have noticed my MOBO Mosfets getting way too hot with a side fan attached.

 

[rids57]

I have a Fractal Arc Midi v1 and have two 140mm fans sucking air in through the front filter, rear and top 140mm fans exhausting warm air and I added a 120mm fan just in front of the Gelid Tranquillo CPU cooler that sucks air through the top filter, feeding cool air right to the cooler intake. It seems to work well, I have all of my fans running at reduced speed, which keeps things almost silent and my CPU temps only hit the mid to high 50's when gaming.

 

[Havana_UK]

There are no hard and fast rules about case cooling, but some general rules of thumb:

• It's more important to get cool air in vs warm air out
• Consider the direction each of the coolers (CPU/GPU) are moving air, this has to work with your intake/exhaust fans
• Warm air rises, so use this to your advantage
• More fans does not always equal better cooling (and can sometimes be worse)

There's nothing wrong with using your rear "exhaust" fan as an intake, but you'll probably need to reverse your CPU cooler's fan otherwise they'll be working against one another.

 

[lollox]

As for the side fan I'm against them, While a side fan can cool the GPU down you can mess the airflow to other components up very easily. I'd much prefer to have a balanced system (CPU/GPU end up being roughly the same temp while gaming).
Also In the past I have noticed my MOBO Mosfets getting way too hot with a side fan attached.

was that side fan intake or exhaust? also how did you measure the mofsets temps? my board has 5 temp readings in hw mon, what is a sensible number to keep these below?

 

[lollox]

I have a Fractal Arc Midi v1 and have two 140mm fans sucking air in through the front filter, rear and top 140mm fans exhausting warm air and I added a 120mm fan just in front of the Gelid Tranquillo CPU cooler that sucks air through the top filter, feeding cool air right to the cooler intake. It seems to work well, I have all of my fans running at reduced speed, which keeps things almost silent and my CPU temps only hit the mid to high 50's when gaming.

do you run without the 2nd drivebay? I'd have gone closer to std layout but just cant see much air getting past the fixed hdd structure.

 

[rids57]

I have four hard drives in alternating slots, so both drive cages are used and I get excellent airflow.