Moving air

[Bearamas]

Hello all,

I’m looking for some advice on where I should position fans in my case for optimal cooling.

This is my current set up

Case: Corsair Obsidian 550D

Fans currently installed are two intake fans in the front of the case both 120mm SP fans that came with the case.

One 120mm SP fan pulling outside air through the radiator of my H50 Corsair cpu cooler mounted at the back of the case.

I removed the upper hard drive cage so there is nothing in between the top fan mounted in front  and the GPU which is a  Evga GTX 970 ACX 2.0+

I was thinking of replace the top front fan with a 120mm high air flow fan and adding  two 140mm high air flow fans on top ofthe case to exhaust the hot air. 

Please advise Thanks

[rmac52]

I prefer slightly positive pressure with filtered intakes. It keeps the dust down as much as possible. Keep in mind the high airflow corsair fans are very noisy

[blueballs]

I'd probably put the closed top fan of the back as intake so your cpu get some cold air and the other one as outtake.

[Bearamas]

Blueballs

I have a SP fan pulling in cool air form the outside that is attached to the radiator for the CPU cooler. Plus the two fans in front are also sucking in air  into the case. With the new video card I figured I better I better get some fans to exhaust the hot air.  

[asker509]

I would experiment a little for me I found that in my 550d I got better Temps keeping my top hard drive bay in and putting a fan on it but I have a blower style gpu

[LogicalDrm]

I usually ask in these threads where you clearly already have good fan setup, are you not satisfied with temps? Adding fans or changing to more powerful ones will raise noise from PC. Thats not what most people nowdays want.

[Bearamas]

LoGiCalDrm,

The main reason I'm asking is because my computer would crash when I played Diablo 3 I thought I had ruled out other causes for the crashing besides heat.  

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

You have more than enough airflow to keep a 970 from overheating.  I can keep a pair of 770s cool with 2 intake fans and a single exhaust fan, and those cards emit a lot more heat that stays inside the case too (MSI cards use a similar non-reference cooler as your EVGA).

 

Ideally you'd want to keep the SP fans in the bottom front spot due to the HDD cage.  Same with the exhaust due to the radiator. 

For the top front slot, you could consider an airflow-oriented fan, but it won't make much of a difference. 

 

I certainly wouldn't just add more exhaust fans in the top, because that will generate negative pressure inside the case, which means it'll pull unfiltered air in through all the nooks and crannies and all the small holes in the back. 

If you really want more airflow inside the case you can add one exhaust fan at most, but only if you add an intake fan in the bottom.

[Bearamas]

Captain Chaos,

Right now the fan I have mounted to the radiator is sucking in air from the outside as the installation instructions for the cpu cooler directed. So at this time I don't have any case air being exhausted out of the case. All the fans are in taking air from the outside. 2 SP's in the front and the one on the radiator.   

[tomas710]

Add 2 air channeling fans in the front for your graphic card (Of course Noctuas are awesome, but if you don't wanna spend that much money, AP121s and AP123s are great too) You can repurpose the fans you have there in other sites, maybe exhaust, and a little trick, if you want more exhaust but maintaining positive air pressure, add a second fan on the rad, won't do much for CPU cooling but you can set all your other fans as intakes and have a good dust free airflow. If you are going to add 2 140s on the top i would go for quiet low RPM fans since you don't need much, this NZXT ones are great, really quiet and look at the reviews, oh, and they are 10 bucks

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KJGYLMI?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01

What i use for front intake/rad fans

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003RRY9S2?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00 (Got them very cheap)

and i think the AP123s are actually as good but quieter

http://www.amazon.com/Silverstone-Penetrator-Channeling-Dynamic-AP123/dp/B00B3QY9OS/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1435337079&sr=1-1&keywords=ap123&pebp=1435337078402&perid=0N7214GZJSRMKPYAX47W

[tomas710]

Add 2 air channeling fans in the front for your graphic card (Of course Noctuas are awesome, but if you don't wanna spend that much money, AP121s and AP123s are great too) You can repurpose the fans you have there in other sites, maybe exhaust, and a little trick, if you want more exhaust but maintaining positive air pressure, add a second fan on the rad, won't do much for CPU cooling but you can set all your other fans as intakes and have a good dust free airflow. If you are going to add 2 140s on the top i would go for quiet low RPM fans since you don't need much, this NZXT ones are great, really quiet and look at the reviews, oh, and they are 10 bucks

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KJGYLMI?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01

What i use for front intake/rad fans

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003RRY9S2?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00 (Got them very cheap)

and i think the AP123s are actually as good but quieter

http://www.amazon.com/Silverstone-Penetrator-Channeling-Dynamic-AP123/dp/B00B3QY9OS/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1435337079&sr=1-1&keywords=ap123&pebp=1435337078402&perid=0N7214GZJSRMKPYAX47W

Oh, misread something, flip the fan on the rad, is better to have them as exhaust for overall airflow and dust on the rad