Fans?Where?Why?

[ShannonLi]

Alright I lets say you have four fans which way would you set them up to make the best out of them?
1 is in the back 1 is on the side 2 is in the front its a medium case cpu and video cards are near the fan in the back

Is there a such thing as a bad use of fans or any way fans can work aganist you?

Thanks.

[Joeberg]

Not sure about bad use of fans, but usaully, the top and side fans are considered unneccesary; the front should be on intake, back on exhaust, and if your running a video card that runs hot, you can set the side to exhaust...

[james8547]

Generally, it's better to have more outtakes than intakes (you'd want the warm air out asap). You also want to have the front intakes positioned lower than the rear intakes since hot air goes up.

I personally have 5 80mm case fans. The 2 front intakes, 2 rear outtakes, and 1 side outtake near my $25 NVIDIA vid card But if I had 4 fans, I'd try experimenting with 1 front intake with 3 rear outtakes or 2 front intakes and 2 rear outtakes.

[Iniamyen]

Is the side fan best set to exhaust?? My case came with it set to intake. I'd like to know which is really better if anyone knows for sure.

[Surge1243]

What are the system specs ShannonLi? You really don't need four fans running to cool the system unless you are doing some heavy duty overclocking. You'll get by just fine with simply one exhaust and one intake fan. In some cases you'll even be fine with just an exhaust fan. Having all those extra fans will do nothing but make the system run louder for no reason.

[Cricket]

Originally posted by Iniamyen Is the side fan best set to exhaust?? My case came with it set to intake. I'd like to know which is really better if anyone knows for sure.

You would have try the fan in both orientations to find out which way works best for your particular set up. Whatever way gives you lower temps will be the one to stick with.

Cricket

[james8547]

Originally posted by Iniamyen Is the side fan best set to exhaust?? My case came with it set to intake. I'd like to know which is really better if anyone knows for sure.

I have mine at exhaust since it's better to get rid off the warm air and it's generally better to have more outtakes than intakes. In addition, the side vent doesn't have any dust filter. The front intakes only have the filter.

For me, it doesn't matter. I have a 32mb GeForce2 NVIDIA