PSU fan facing up or down?

Lither

Lither

Lither

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I have built a HTPC in the Silverstone ML03 case (Intel Pentium G4600, GT 1030, 8GB RAM, 250GB SSD and 8TB HDD) and will be placed on the bottom self of this TV stand.

8mLHe0U.jpg

The only fans in the case is the CPU cooler (Big Shuriken 2) and the PSU (Be Quiet 300W SFX Power 2) and I'm wondering should I mount the PSU with the fan facing up or down? The case has a fan vent and filter on the bottom for the PSU.

Also, the Big Shuriken 2 cooler fan is intake (default) and the case has CPU vent and filter on the top, should I leave the fan as intake or change it to exhaust?

Thanks
 
Facing down so it can draw in air to cool itself. If you put it fan up in that case it won't get any air. With regards to the cpu fan, many people have had better temps by reversing the fan so it's blowing upwards instead of downwards. If that vent is directly over where the cpu cooler will fit that could work well for you in that case. The cpu cooler will end up drawing air in from that side vent across the motherboard and memory and dumping the hot air out of the case. The conventional method with the fan blowing down just dumps the hot air across the motherboard, memory and out of the side vent while trapping some in the case which will get drawn through the cooler again and increase temps. Having the fan blowing up and out of the roof vent should theoretically lower temps of everything in the case.

What I would do is load up HW Monitor and a stress test and leave it run for 10-15 minutes and see what your max temps are like on the cpu and other components with the fan in the conventional setup (blowing down). Shut down, swap the fan around and leave it shut down with the roof off for 30 minutes or so to cool everything down for a fair comparison. Boot up and load up HW Monitor and a stress test again and repeat the test to see which method works best for you. With that case I would bet on the fan blowing upwards and out of that roof vent should make a decent drop in temps.
 
pastymuncher said:
Facing down so it can draw in air to cool itself. If you put it fan up in that case it won't get any air. With regards to the cpu fan, many people have had better temps by reversing the fan so it's blowing upwards instead of downwards. If that vent is directly over where the cpu cooler will fit that could work well for you in that case. The cpu cooler will end up drawing air in from that side vent across the motherboard and memory and dumping the hot air out of the case. The conventional method with the fan blowing down just dumps the hot air across the motherboard, memory and out of the side vent while trapping some in the case which will get drawn through the cooler again and increase temps. Having the fan blowing up and out of the roof vent should theoretically lower temps of everything in the case.
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Yes, the CPU vent on the top is directly over where the CPU cooler is. I will turn the CPU fan around to exhaust as the GT 1030 GPU is a passive card so having all the hot air out through the top is the better option since the GPU, RAM and motherboard are quite close to each other.

With it being a exhaust on the top, I guess there is no need for the magnetic CPU fan filter?
 
Lither said:
With it being a exhaust on the top, I guess there is no need for the magnetic CPU fan filter?
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Filter in exhaust would only slow down airflow and increase temps...
Unless having fan at higher&noisier speed to counter increased airflow impedance.
With case inside that shelf there's really not that much dust falling down on it.
 
In almost all situations horizontal coolers like Shuriken give lower temps with fan pulling air away from motherboard. Reason is air going through cooler to motherboard turns out when it hits motherboard, then up when it hits RAM and other things on motherboard coming back up along side of cooler and fan where it is drawn back into fan. Your case may be one of that few fan orientation is not as important because GPU is remotely mounted. Simple way to find out is try it both ways and see. ;)
 
The vent area is much bigger than just cooler fan size, so there is a better than average chance it will cool better pulling air up through cooler and out of case than pushing air in. I found even on open bench test station these horizontal/pancake coolers ran cooler pulling air away from motherboard (but I did have a small GPU on test station).

I've also found that not using the I/O shield on motherboard I/O opening and removing all PCIe back slot covers significantly improves case airflow resulting in lower temps.
 
doyll said:
I've also found that not using the I/O shield on motherboard I/O opening and removing all PCIe back slot covers significantly improves case airflow resulting in lower temps
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Yes in a case of this size not fitting the i/o would be an advantage, it would also help the cooler in pull to get fresh air
 
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MaXxBoulton said:
That's what I said.... Why you always try so have to be a smartie pants. :eek:
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Your saying 'pull to get fresh air' sounds more like it's pulling 'fresh air' through grill directly above it, not pulling air from back of case over motherboard and up through cooler. ;)

Please answer this so you will have last word.
 
doyll said:
Your saying 'pull to get fresh air' sounds more like it's pulling 'fresh air' through grill directly above it, not pulling air from back of case over motherboard and up through cooler. ;)

Please answer this so you will have last word.
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No problem.

It will help the cooler in pull to get fresh air
 
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