Suck or blow?

I'm sticking a new fan to my rear panel. Should I have it suck air out or blow air in?

 

Well Numbchuck, I would suggest that you have it sucking the air out. Assuming that you have a front case fan blowing inward, that helps to keep the air flowing by pulling air from the front fan over your components and expelling the hot air out the back. If you had both fans (front and rear) blowing inward, that air would heat up due to the heat from your components with no way for the hot air to escape and I'm sure you know what heat can do to a computer!! Not only that, but you would also be sucking in more dust and that's not good either.

 

Suck it is then! I've got no fan on the front (mini ATX tower) but the pretty lights'll shine out my PC's arse if I have the fan sucking.

 

You already have one extractor in the form of your psu fan,if you fit this one as an extractor try and make sure there are no gaps in your case near or around the fans as cool air will just be drawn in and blown straight back out,make sure theres a nice vent at the lower front of the case

 

Isn't anyone going to make a smart arse remark? I'll do it then.

I believe that a good suck should be followed by a good blow.


It really depends on your layout and what fans you have, but what Stubby said is generally the way to go.

 

Thanks Major Attitude, I honestly appreicate that! Now as for you Insomniac.....what can I say? With the title of this thread, I just KNEW someone would make a smart arse remark...it was inevitable!!! And Insomniac, you didn't let us down!!

 

yeh good post stubby you pretty much said it all

 

Just to amplify Stubby's comments....

If you mount the fan as an intake at the rear of the case, it may do little more than feed cool air to the PSU's exhaust fan. It'll probably create a better airflow in the case if the added fan is set up as an exhaust fan.

The object of the exercise isn't necessarily to get air into the case. What you really want to do is get the heat out. You'll be mounting that fan close to the CPU, where it can do a good job of removing air that's been heated by the CPU. Incoming air should come in low down at the front of the case so that it can cool hard drives, video adapters, and chipsets on its way to the CPU.

Check out AMD's white paper on the topic. Then try it both ways and see which has the better effect on your CPU and case temperatures.