Explain Air Cooling

[Gingy]

I'm starting a budget build and one thing I'm researching is cooling. I've heard things like, "positive pressure", "negative pressure", "heat dissipation", etc.

 

So guys, explain like I'm 5.

 

What is the ideal scenario when air is coming in/out of your case?

 

I'll go into specifics of parts and cases that I'm thinking of if it is requested. 

[TheRandomness]

Ideally, you'd want to have positive pressure in your case (more intake fans then outtake fans) with all the intakes filtered so that not much dust can get in your system. You'd still have to de-dust once in awhile, but not as much as if you had negative pressure.

[Guest Kloaked]

The standard setup has fans pulling air in from the front of the case, and one in the rear that exhausts the hot air out the back. That's pretty much baseline.

 

Cases come pre-set up with positive pressure in mind anyhow. 

[German_John]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8EN3K-eaVA

[WoodenMarker]

The ideal scenario is getting heat away from your components as quickly as possible.

Getting cool fresh air to the components and warm air away from them is the goal and how it is best done depends on the components.

[LogicalDrm]

You can forget whole positive-negative argument for now. Its not that important. Good case airflow comes when you have more fans bringing air inside the case than exhausting it. So basic air flow setup is 2 in, 1 out. You can manage with 1 in, 1 out. All GPU cooling fans are intaking by default. Same goes with PSUs. Case fans air direction goes from open (no frame) side to frame side. CPU coolers differ. Normal stock cooler pushes air down towards chip. Normal tower air cooler has single fan pushing air through fins and towards rear exhaust fan of case. Normal AIO has 1-2 fans pushing air through radiator and straight outside case.

Heat dissipation is thermal physics. Its something where you have surface that is hotter than air around it. So surface will cool by moving heat from surface to air around it. This is how air cooler fins, radiators and thermal paste works. And thats about all you need to know to work with air cooling inside PC case.

Dust protection is another thing. ALL intake fans need to have dust filters. You don't want case turning into desert.

[Guest trucker2]

I put a t2 cooler on without removing the plastic thingy from the base, still worked but was a lil warm, After a few months removed it and just wiped the plastic cover on the cpu, smeared it around and it works great!

[GANDALFTHEGRAY]

I put a t2 cooler on without removing the plastic thingy from the base, still worked but was a lil warm, After a few months removed it and just wiped the plastic cover on the cpu, smeared it around and it works great!

plastic pcu cover? Is this trolling? I think you forgot to remove more things than a little sheet of plastic.

[Guest trucker2]

On the base of a CoolerMaser T2 there is a peel off piece of plastic, it says remove before installing. It is there to protect the machined surface of the base.