Fan Direction Change

[Spirit2007]

Hello, I have my CPU rad on the front of my case, and my fans pulling chassis air through the rad. I'm worried that I am making the rad hotter not colder. Is there a way to swap their direction in bios or on the header, I would just flip them but they are rgb. They are dc fans.

-Maximus X Hero

-570x Case Fans

[minibois]

1 minute ago, Spirit2007 said:

Hello, I have my CPU rad on the front of my case, and my fans pulling chassis air through the rad. I'm worried that I am making the rad hotter not colder. Is there a way to swap their direction in bios or on the header, I would just flip them but they are rgb. They are dc fans.

You can't change fan direction in BIOS, you would need to physically switch around their direction.

What does your airflow look like now?

 

Maybe something like either of these examples?

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

8 minutes ago, Spirit2007 said:

Hello, I have my CPU rad on the front of my case, and my fans pulling chassis air through the rad. I'm worried that I am making the rad hotter not colder. Is there a way to swap their direction in bios or on the header, I would just flip them but they are rgb. They are dc fans.

-Maximus X Hero

-570x Case Fans

Nope, fans do not work that way. You'll need to physically flip them around if you want them to pull air through the front of the case.

[Jurrunio]

So you're using "inside" "fan" "rad" "front-panel" "outside" setup with fan blowing out? Cuz AIOs are designed to use "inside" "rad" "fan" "front-panel" "outside" configuration and they do blow outside's coler air into the radiator and your statement stops making sense in this case.

 

and case fans cannot spin the other way with software, you have to mod the plug (so ground and 12v pins are reversed)

[Senzelian]

19 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

and case fans cannot spin the other way with software, you have to mod the plug (so ground and 12v pins are reversed)

I just want to add, that even tho this is possible, don't do it. It makes for a highly inefficient fan, because of the shape of the blades, which are only meant to blow air in one direction.

[GhostRoadieBL]

1 hour ago, Spirit2007 said:

I'm worried that I am making the rad hotter not colder.

tldr: your CPU is hotter than any air inside your case will be, as a result the liquid in the loop will be hotter than any air inside the case when your CPU is loaded up, turning the fans around (don't rewire them) will lower your CPU temps by having cooler air coming in but it makes little to no difference unless your CPU is thermal throttling. 

 

long answer

That's a common misconception with cooling, the hottest component in your system (other than GPU) is the CPU itself, transferring that heat to the liquid in the loop through the CPU block guarantees the liquid in the loop will be a higher temp than the air, any air, in the case. so the rad will still cool your CPU assuming it is properly sized for the amount of watts of heat your CPU is producing. 

Even the worst case scenario with a very hot GPU dumping heat into the case and no other fans than the CPU rad exist to move air into or out of the case, then the air inside the case will increase the CPU temps by a few degrees, in nearly every case (other than horrible all glass ones with no gaps) there are enough air holes which allow fresh air to come into the case and lower the temps.  

 

this is similar to people saying "having your rad pulling air into your case raises the temp of the case", it does, but it has no real world effect on the other hardware in the case unless you have trapped all the air inside your case with no exhaust fans or even just openings for the air to cycle. 

 

ideally you can swap the direction of the fans on the rad so you are pulling air into the case but that is only necessary if you are thermal throttling right now or have too much noise while your fans spin up. 

 

[freeagent]

The only way a clc will warm up your case is if you have a quiet system not moving much air. Guys use big heat sinks and don’t worry about it. Just gotta get the air out. If it were me I would be using outside air to cool my rad, and push the rad air through the case. Your gpu will heat up your case more than anything, focus on getting the air in and out quickly.