In which direction should an extra case fan be fixed?

Question

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Optimal Fan Placement and Direction for Air-Cooling a Computer

This may sound dumb but this is a genuine question.

I just bought an extra fan for the case and installed it. It's working fine. I would like to know the orientation of the fan placement.

Currently, it is blowing air out of the case. Is this the correct placement?

Apologies for not including a picture earlier. Here it is:

The fan is blowing air to the other side of the case. The side which is not shown in this photo.

Answer 1

It depends on the rest of your setup. There are many ways to route the airflow though a case, but all of these follow the next steps.

1. Air needs to enter somewhere. (Either via under pressure because all other fans are blowing air outside the case, or by using a fan which suck in relative cold outside air.
2. Air flow must pass over some components which get hot. The CPU is the most obvious, but not the only one. (e.g. chipsets can get hot. Drives usually require at least a slow airflow to remain cool. Dedicated graphical cards often require a lot of cooling, ...)
3. You do not want airflows to 'bump' into each other, working against each other. Usually this is solved by letting all cold air in at one end of the case and out at the other end. Since most graphical cards dump the heat at the rear, the most common design is to let cold air in at the front, and push hot air out at the rear.

If this (common case from point 3) is the case then orient the CPU fan to assist the airflow. If not, mount it in another way so it assists the common airflow and so it does not dump its (now hot) air on other components which need cooling.

Answer 2

Air should be taken away from the CPU.

Air should also (ideally) flow from the front of the computer to the back.

Answer 3

The key word is flow... as in Air Flow.

You need a good, solid, relatively uninterrupted flow of air into and subsequently out of the computer case. I am not sure, but I believe in this case, where you use the term CPU, you actually mean the computer case.

Typically, there is at least one fan mounted in the front of the case drawing air in. It is usually positioned near the hard drives and forces air against or over them to increase cooling there. Your power supply, or PSU, usually also has at least one fan inside of it, positioned to draw air from within the computer case and push it out of the back of the case. Thus, a single fan pulling air into the case from the front, and the fan within the power supply pulling air out of the case will create a flow of air through the case.

It is better to create negative air pressure within the case... that is to say, it is better to have more fans pulling air out of the case, than it is to have more fans pushing air into the case. However, you do not want to put fans in spots so as to have them compete against each other. Your overall goal is to have air move across as many components as possible, to draw the heat they generate away and out of the case. Most cases will have at least one spot on the back of the case to mount a fan... and you would mount a fan there to move air out of the case... or in the same direction as the air is moving from the PSU fan typically above this spot.

If the case has a mounting position on the side for a fan, the direction of air flow from this spot depends on the design of the case, how many other fans you have already mounted in the case, and the direction of airflow. For example, there are cases that have a mounting spot on the side of the case directly across from where the processor (or CPU) is expected to be, and some of these cases actually include a vent hose to be mounted around the fan you put on the side of the case, to force air directly onto the CPU heatsink.

CPU fans... meaning the fans mounted to the heat sink that sits on the processor, will pull air from inside the case, and push it down into the heat sink. This of course, deals with the heat sink design that has a fan sitting directly on top of the heat sink. More modern heat sink designs now will mount a fan on the side of the heat sink, so that air is pushed across it, rather than down on top of it. This design tends to work in conjunction with a fan being mounted at the back of the case... where the air being pushed across the heat sink is then pulled directly out of the case by the rear mounted fan.

In short, where you mount this fan, and what direction it moves air, depends completely on your existing case design. You should, however attempt to put it somewhere that it will remove warm air from within the case.

Answer 4

This ways so that the hot air can be blown out:

Answer 5

Better computer cases have the desired direction of the airflow marked somehow, either printed embossed on the case itself, or specified in the manual.

Usually, rack-mounted cases draw cold air from the front, and eject it from the back. With consumer cases, this is also most often the case, but not always. If your case lacks any documentation about how the air should flow, just examine the existing fans, and orient your additional fan in a way that it adds more airflow in the same direction.

Answer 6

A general answer to your question:

When adding fans to a case, you usually have a certain order (I'm only talking case fans, not CPU, GPU, or other component fans):

1. The primary exhaust. A fan placed near the CPU (the hottest component) blowing out of the back of the case. Note that the power supply is also blowing out the back of the case, so we vent all hot air out the same side. (If your PSU were venting in another direction, you may want disregard my advice.)
2. The primary intake. A fan near the front of the case that pulls in air from far away from the exhaust.
3. Extra exhaust/intakes. These need to be placed to support the main airflow from the front to the back of the case. (So you might have them at the top sides of the case to pull in air over the HDD. Or you could have additional exhausts at the back or over the GPU.)