WHy do video cards go in upside down?

[Xtasy672]

why do vid cards go in upside down, they block pci slots and you can see the gpu fan and heatsinks!! are there good reasons or what?

[Maxvla]

most pci cards go in upside down as well. i'd like to know the reasoning behind this.

[DManeKid]

im sure every1 is puzzled as to y they do that but dont worry about it

[hellrazrblade]

well, it keeps dust off of the vital parts, which tend to be on the "top" side (the bottom side when installed). thats all i can think of...

[JCLW]

Maybe we just all have our cases upsidedown...

- JW

[Maxvla]

Originally posted by JCLW
Maybe we just all have our cases upsidedown...

- JW
haha! very nice thinking out of the "box"

i guess the dust reason is good enough. makes sense.

[JCLW]

I like hellrazrblade's dust theory.

ISA cards are the other way up.

- JW

[DManeKid]

hehe i guess they just didnt think about dust back then

[Avatar28]

It may also have been so that in the early days of PCI when most cards were still ISA, that they were done the opposite way for shared slots. That way you could fit either a PCI or an ISA card were less likely to waste slots.

[Illah]

Well, I remember when towers were only for servers, all the computers were desktops (like laying the mini-towers on their sides). Back then it probably didn't matter which side you put the GPU's and stuff on, and it just so happened they picked the side that is now the bottom side.

--Illah

[Default]

you can still get atx cases that have the desktop style to them, but they require serious modding to make sutable for cooling and overclocking. as of right now i'm working on a home made case :D my goal is to take all of the advantages of a full tower atx case and squish them into the mother board conpartment of the full tower. Aslo trying to squish watercooling in there some how.....still working on that part of the design.

[GeckoBanzai]

Slow day?

[BmanG15]

i am only 16 but i magically appeared before they started desgining first pci cards for comps and i said "make em upside down" then eveyrone copied what i said...also for AGP.....so to answer question..its cause..I SAID SO.. :D

[Xtasy672]

well i guess the dust could do something but , ah , wahtever, just curious

[DRaZZ]

good points there actually, and if i was to turn my case upside down would i overclock more due to the whole heat rises thang ??? :P

[Penguin4x4]

Couldn't hurt..........................or could it?

[JCLW]

Originally posted by DRaZZ
good points there actually, and if i was to turn my case upside down would i overclock more due to the whole heat rises thang ??? :P

I was wondering that myself, I'd try it myself but #1 I'm on vacation and only have my laptop with me, and #2 I don't have any hardware temp monitoring stuff due to the antiquity of my system.

You'd probably want to flip your drives over if you try it for a long period of time.

- JW


Back before we had any of this new-fangled AGP stuff it was standard pratice to place your video card in the lowest PCI slot, as this was the coolest place.

[DRaZZ]

well i just turned my comp on its side so that the cpu is facing upward and i will let u know if the temp drops lol :D

[DRaZZ]

temp was wavering at 62.50C...63C........now its stayed stable 63C, curious !!!

[JCLW]

Is that better or worse? I'd think it would make more sense to have the motherboard horizontal, as long as you have enough airflow under it. And it would be easier to hold those huge blocks of copper everyone uses nowadays on.

- JW

[DRaZZ]

in theory it should be better, but i just tried and was a little set back i expected a drop in temo as heat should be drawn away faster, but then maybe the way the comp sits dont matter, i mean if u look at the heat sink even tho on its side heat will still rise to the highest part of the sink, that part makes no contact with the cpu at all so i think thats why it makes no difference

[Captain Slug]

I'm glad the AGP card is facing the way it does. Otherwise the semi-warm air that washes off the CPU an northbridge would be sucked into the GPU fan.

And yes, mounting motherboard the "Left-Handed" does make cooling a little bit easier. Especially since the warm air is rising to the area on the motherboard that isn't as effected by temperatures.
That and PCI card coolers work much better as exhaust fans that way.

[Xtasy672]

is there a way to put the card in the other way? if i get a window then that would be something to put up on here

[#13]

The "left handed" thing sounds neat, but I don't think it'll make much difference if you have good airflow. It would be disorienting to some people, though...

And remember -- HEAT DOESN'T RISE. It radiates in all directions. Only hot AIR rises.

[dansonang]

u will get things right when u flip yr mobo 180 degrees

[larva]

Originally posted by Avatar28
It may also have been so that in the early days of PCI when most cards were still ISA, that they were done the opposite way for shared slots. That way you could fit either a PCI or an ISA card were less likely to waste slots.

Precisely... At the introduction of the PCI bus the card orientation was reversed to allow the shared ISA/PCI slot to exit through the same opening in the back of the case. The number of openings available in the back of the case was limited by compliance with the AT case standard (preserved in this area by ATX), so reversing the PCI allowed one more total slot in the motherboard, giving you the option of either an ISA or PCI card in one case positon. You have to remember, in those days integrated components where very new. Often add in cards for serial and parallel ports, floppy and HD controllers, network cards, sound cards, scsi cards, et el at times filled all available slots, making the flexibility afforded by the shared slot valuable in some instances.

The integrated IO that became common with the advent of the original Intel Triton chipset (430FX) was a godsend. The integrated EIDE controller and its integration into the BIOS was infinitely superior to add-in VL-BUS and PCI EIDE controllers. We take this for granted these days, along with integrated 16550A uart serials and ECP parallel ports, but there was a dark age where fitting these components to your PC meant filling up slots... and dealing with the device drivers nearly all ad-in EIDE controllers relied upon for implementing the EIDE cycle times.

regards,
larva

[Diggrr]

Yep, Avatar28 and larva are correct. It's amazing what is still held over from the old days.

If you'd like a case that mounts the gpu upright, try searching for a WTX case. Of course the door would be on the right side of the case instead of the usual left side. Another reason to like the WTX standard is that all the cords don't rise so high on the case's back side (except card cords), thus making the cabling neater.
Intel started the WTX standard to improve cpu cooling, as the air in the bottom of a "not so well" ventilated case (Dell/HP/Compaq) is cooler at the bottom.

Yet another reason to like WTX is that your stealth watercooling doesn't have to have so much waterline in it. The cpu at the bottom with the pump and rad make for about 2 feet of tubing required.

And one more thing...I use one of Abit's Max boards (AT7 raid), so there's plenty of room between the AGP slot and the next PCI slot. I could probably fit a Swifty/Delta on my GPU if I didn't already have a waterblock on it.:cool: