My case came with a cone attached to the side panel to help direct air to the CPU cooler. There is plenty of room between this cone and the CPU and I am wondering if it is safe to add a an extra intake fan between the panel and the cone? How fast should this fan be in relation to the CPU fan or does this matter? I definitely don't want to have a fan that will interfere with the CPU fan, but it seems like adding a fan here to help bring more outside air towards the CPU would help keep the inside of the machine cooler.
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Should I add a fan to my side panel cone?
- Thread starter Digitoxin
- Start date
quakefiend420
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2004
- Messages
- 224
A long time ago I did just this and made a small cardboard duct to direct the cool air directly to the heatsink and the change was noticeable...however the fan was on top of the heatsink, not on the side. Give it a try and see what happens...most of the fun in overclocking is in the tinkering to try to push as far as you can with what you have, IMO.
If its a stock cooler or similar alignment this works very well. I also built a ghetto fan/shroud system that cooled down my Zalman 7000 very well. This works great on the "flower" type heat sinks but not so well on the True/Tuniq/etc type tower heatsinks.
Silverghost
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2002
- Messages
- 2,627
Hes asking about a fan between the panel and duct. He already has the shround.
I think will help. It'll get the shroud closer to the heatsink and bring in fresh air. Those shroud are 80mm though I think.
I think will help. It'll get the shroud closer to the heatsink and bring in fresh air. Those shroud are 80mm though I think.
I went ahead and installed a fan between the side panel and the duct. I wen't into the bios and adjusted the speed of this fan to match that of the CPU fan. A friend told me if I run the fan on the panel faster than the CPU fan, the air blowing through the duct can interfere with the CPU fan. Is this true?
BillParrish
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2006
- Messages
- 7,519
Yes it is true, the question is will it interfere in a good way or a bad way. With the downward (toward the motherboard) blowing stock Intel CPU cooler it almost always helps to shoot cool room air into it. The duct without a fan helps, especially if it has an adjustable collar so you can extend the duct to just above the Intel fan but the Intel fan still sucks in a lot of internal case air that is warmed by the other components in the case. That blast of forced cooler room air should make a noticeable difference in a good way. Thats my experience anyway. I always install a side cpu fan on any case that will accomodate one when using the stock cooler.