Hyper 212x Configuration

[val0r0x]

Hey there,

 

Long time lurker, first time poster.

 

Long story short, I have transplanted my components from a case I was only temporarily using, into a Fractal Design Define S. Everything is working fine, except after a quick test (not an actual stress test, just playing a few games) I found my 4690K (not overclocked yet) was hitting 80 degrees celsius within only a few minutes. It may even go higher, but once I saw that I stopped playing. Even at idle, it jumped erratically between 50 to 60! In the old case, where I had a lot less fans installed, it was hovering comfortably around the 60 degrees mark under "gaming load". 

 

Amway, the problem I face, and I'm all but certain this is the issue, is that my fan configuration is far from ideal and my options are limited. I have to orientate my Hyper 212 vertically so that the one 120mm fan I have got installed on it, is parallel to to the 140mm exhaust fan. To make things worse, they're also right next to each other, with only a few cm separating them. But I can't place the CPU fan on the opposite side of the cooler because the RAM is too high. So at the moment they are both trying to push air the opposite way. Presumably the 140mm is capable of pushing more air, so is suffocating the CPU fan? 

 

What should I do here? Should I simply turn the CPU fan around so that it is trying to suck air through the heat sink on the Hyper? This would at least prevent competition between the 2 fans, as they'd all be sending warm air in the same direction, but I'm assuming I'm going to take a performance hit in the cooling of the CPU (but surely no worse than I'm currently experiencing). Or do I go something more drastic, like turning the single 140mm exhaust fan into an intake, keeping the current placement of the CPU fan and turning the 3 140mm fans at the front of my case all into exhaust?

 

Anyhoo, that ended up longer than I expected. Hopefully it makes sense. If not, perhaps I'll butcher up a diagram.

 

Thanks.

[Bajantechnician]

7 minutes ago, val0r0x said:

Hey there,

 

Long time lurker, first time poster.

 

Long story short, I have transplanted my components from a case I was only temporarily using, into a Fractal Design Define S. Everything is working fine, except after a quick test (not an actual stress test, just playing a few games) I found my 4690K (not overclocked yet) was hitting 80 degrees celsius within only a few minutes. It may even go higher, but once I saw that I stopped playing. Even at idle, it jumped erratically between 50 to 60! In the old case, where I had a lot less fans installed, it was hovering comfortably around the 60 degrees mark under "gaming load". 

 

Amway, the problem I face, and I'm all but certain this is the issue, is that my fan configuration is far from ideal and my options are limited. I have to orientate my Hyper 212 vertically so that the one 120mm fan I have got installed on it, is parallel to to the 140mm exhaust fan. To make things worse, they're also right next to each other, with only a few cm separating them. But I can't place the CPU fan on the opposite side of the cooler because the RAM is too high. So at the moment they are both trying to push air the opposite way. Presumably the 140mm is capable of pushing more air, so is suffocating the CPU fan? 

 

What should I do here? Should I simply turn the CPU fan around so that it is trying to suck air through the heat sink on the Hyper? This would at least prevent competition between the 2 fans, as they'd all be sending warm air in the same direction, but I'm assuming I'm going to take a performance hit in the cooling of the CPU (but surely no worse than I'm currently experiencing). Or do I go something more drastic, like turning the single 140mm exhaust fan into an intake, keeping the current placement of the CPU fan and turning the 3 140mm fans at the front of my case all into exhaust?

 

Anyhoo, that ended up longer than I expected. Hopefully it makes sense. If not, perhaps I'll butcher up a diagram.

 

Thanks.

remount the 212. might not be making correct contact with cpu

[duckwithanokhat]

Post a picture of the setup.

 

What I would do is to mount the CPU fan so that it is pulling heat away from the CPU and then move the 140mm fan to the top and use it as an intake for the CPU.

I'm not a expert so take my advice with a grain of salt.

[aisle9]

I think a diagram might help. I'm looking at a picture of the Define S right now, and it seems like you're saying that you have a top exhaust fan directly in front of the CPU with the CPU cooler also venting out the top, is that right?

 

Here's what I think is going on:

-Your CPU cooler's intake is pointed straight down at your GPU, which puts off a ton of hot air.

-Your 140mm top exhaust fan is absolutely pulling intake air away from your CPU cooler's intake.

 

Put those two things together, and the only air you have reaching your CPU cooler is the 80-85C or higher exhaust from your GPU. Looks like the Define S can handle tons of fans up front. I'd use all of those slots and take the top exhaust out entirely. That should help your temps significantly.

[val0r0x]

OK, so I'm now realizing how hard I've failed at explaining this, my apologies!

 

Basic diagram attached (hopefully it works and it's understandable). 

 

I will try remounting the cooler too, something I didn't have time for last night after testing. 

[ViKT0RY]

If you have more air input than output, you will create a vacuum cleaner. Apart of this, the best is to take the heat outside the case, so the fan on the cpu should blow to the fan in the case. You could also remove the fan at the back if you make a way to redirect the blowing from the 212x to the case back grid (some OEM systems use plastic walls to do so).

You can put the fan over the ram, there's no problem in leaving a slight part of the radiator without air coverage (example with my 212 evo, just imagine the ram is taller):

 

[twisties]

In your picture, all you need to do is turn your cpu fan around so it pulls across the heatsink and straight towards the rear exhaust fan. If you could get one of those 3 intake fans up top somewhere to supply fresher air to the intake side of the CPU, I think that's help slightly too.

[val0r0x]

Ah cool, I wasn't sure if that was just going to make things worse or not, but if leaving some of the heat sink without direct fan contact is OK, it would be the quickest solution. If I do that, would it be beneficial then to add another 120 fan on the exhaust side so it's in a push/pull configuration?

 

As for my intake/exhaust situation as a whole, you mentioned that having more intake than exhaust is going to create a vacuum. With only one exhaust fan, do you suggest I cut down to 1 or 2 intake fans at the front?

[val0r0x]

1 minute ago, twisties said:

In your picture, all you need to do is turn your cpu fan around so it pulls across the heatsink and straight towards the rear exhaust fan. If you could get one of those 3 intake fans up top somewhere to supply fresher air to the intake side of the CPU, I think that's help slightly too.

I was thinking of mounting something up top, but I'd have to remove one of the top solid plates on the Define S to do so. Aesthetically pleasing, I was hoping to avoid that. 

[twisties]

Shouldn't matter that much, just go and reverse that fan direction on the CPU, have it pull instead of push. This is exactly how I have my hyper 212x setup and from what I remember of my last testing, it never went over 60degrees under load either.

[val0r0x]

Thanks everyone. Twistie's simple solution of turning the fan around, so that it was set to pull instead of push, seems to have returned temps to acceptable levels after a quick test. Just because I can, I chucked another fan on there so it's running push/pull towards the exhaust fan. 

[twisties]

Good to hear it's helped. Main reason I used pull instead of push was so if any dust got past my intake filters, I'd be able to more easily clean the beard off the heatsink than having to take the fan off and clean that too. I've actually started mocking up some ducting to try and direct the airflow in my case a little better. I cant get an intake fan blowing straight onto my gpu because the damn thing ended up being too long in my Node 204 to fit it.