Fan Direction

[Dru Lee Parsec]

Hey folks. I got a quick question for ya.

My CPU is running hot. I checked it and all the fans are running HOWEVER I noticed something really odd. The CPU fan is blowing air onto the CPU heatsink. It seems to me that the fan should be drawing hot air away from heat sink . Also, the ducted fan in my case is blowing onto the CPU/Heatsink. Is this the correct configuration?

If it helps, this is my hardware configuration:

CPU AMD 1.1 Gig Socket A with Generic Heat Sink and fan with fan blowing towards the CPU/Heatsink.
Motherboard has another fan on the chipset.
Guillemont Prophet II GTS 64Meg Video card has a fan on it.
350 watt power supply has the fan blowing OUT.
Ducted 80mm fan blows air IN (sucks it from outside and directs it to the CPU)
Additional 80mm fan at lower fron of the case blows air IN.

I'm also getting a LOT of heat from my 2 40 gig IBM Deskstar drives. Because of the orientation of my drive bays they are in bays right next to each other so they're one big heat source. I think I need to put a hard drive cooler on them.

Also, I'm considering making a blow hole on the top of the case with yet another fan (pointing OUT). The only real problem is that this sucker already sounds like a jet engine. If I add more fans I won't be able to hear myself think.

I'd like to hear your comments.

Thanks
Dru Lee Parsec

[thedexman]

It sounds mostly ok. Typically the CPU fan will blow on to the CPU. Some are different, such as the Alpha heatinks that have the shrouds around them, however. Where is the ducted fan sucking in its air from? Also, you do have to remember that these Athlons tend to run pretty hot (unless, of course, it's causing you stability problems).

[nathaniel]

your fan for an athlon should blow down forcing air onto the heatsink, and if the fan is on the top it then pushes air out to the sides and grabs the heat from the heatsinks.

also if u lack addition fans on the case (just one on the front) remove your side cover to allow cooler air in. If you have the second fan on the back case make sure that it blows out and the one on the front blows in, to make a continius flow of air ( make sure u leave the cover on to prevent the outside air from disturbing the flow through the PC.

NB

[m3rlin]

First one of the problems that Ibm HD have is that they go hot very fast. If you cpu is getting very hot, check this things, the cpu fan is working fine, not stoping for a while and then running again, now if your cpu box is closed, you should have another fan bellow blowing the air out of the box, and to improve the cooling you can add other fan near the cpu blowing the air in, because the fan from bellow in blow the air again to outside, making this way a resonable cooling system. For more info you can go to the web site of the overclockers in uk, im sorry for not putting here the address, it's because i forgot, but if you find the site please post here, i think very ppl will like that
Hasta!

[Roy Smith]

one cheap (~$10), easy thing you might try is to replace the cpu fan with a high-velocity, high-volume fan. won't help much if the case temp is high, though.

[Vagrant]

the "which way should the fan blow" debate .. search on any hardware forums, and you will see this so many times .. there really isnt one answer, it really depends on the specific case .. no pun intended .. but the thing is, the results arent much different either way .. jus look at the air flow in ur case, and make it work in the most logical way .. jus my 2cents ..
*vagrant

[Dru Lee Parsec]

Thanks Folks:

It sounds like my system is set up correctly. I too have discovered that if I leave the cover cracked open it runs a bit cooler. This, of course, means that my in flow vs. out flow ratio is not 1:1.

After peering inside the case again I see that I "may" have enough cable length to put one HD in one of the 5 1/4 external bays with a HD cooler and then leave a drive space gap between that and the other HD in a 3 1/2" internal bay. That means I can have a little air circulation around the two drives instead of having this one massive hot block of drives.

I also think I'm going to upgrade to a better CPU heat sink and make Darn Sure that there's some thermal paste between the CPU and the Heatsink.

Thanks for your help and opinions.