Heatsink:Blower or extractor?

bobthemoo · Apr 26, 2006

just out of interest, is the fan ontop of the cpu heatsink meant to blow air into it, or extract the hot air? mine blows it into, which i cant really understand - surly it would be more affective if it disposed of the hot air?

also, i made an exhaust tunnel (for the cpu HS) and it actually increase my temps by 5C :shrug:

*shakes fist* dam Heat!

]-[itman · Apr 26, 2006

To be honest, from what I've seen, it doesn't make much difference either way, but most are designed to blow onto. Although it's blowing onto, with the fins in the metal, the heat is still being dispersed as air gets pushed out and away from the hs.
As for your duct, perhaps you have too many intakes and not enough exhausts in your system? What is your case fan situation like and how did you make your duct?

bobthemoo · Apr 26, 2006

well, i just made it out of cardboard when i was bored with revising, i made it go from the HS to the grill at the back of my case.

as for fans, i have 4 80mm arctic cooling (standard case fans) installed already (2 for the psu, and 2 for the back) Thats it, apart from the stock 7800GT fan, and my igloo lite cpu cooler. oh yeah, and currently i have another 80mm and a 92mm on the outside of my case (on some books) blowing cool air onto the ram and gpu. (the side is currently off due to mods that i WILL get around to doing

)

Captain Slug · Apr 26, 2006

It really depends on the heatsink design and the airflow layout of your case. Iisolate the inlet of the CPU heatsink from the rest of the airflow by using a duct and the rest of the fans in the case will "get rid of" the warm air coming off of the CPU heatsink/fan.

itshondo · Apr 26, 2006

you will find very few heatsink manufacturers (if any) that recommend using a fan to draw air through the heatsink vs blowing into it.

If there is one, I haven't seen it.

]-[itman · Apr 26, 2006

bobthemoo said:
well, i just made it out of cardboard when i was bored with revising, i made it go from the HS to the grill at the back of my case.

as for fans, i have 4 80mm arctic cooling (standard case fans) installed already (2 for the psu, and 2 for the back) Thats it, apart from the stock 7800GT fan, and my igloo lite cpu cooler. oh yeah, and currently i have another 80mm and a 92mm on the outside of my case (on some books) blowing cool air onto the ram and gpu. (the side is currently off due to mods that i WILL get around to doing )

Do you have your duct on with your side off?

dfrost · Apr 27, 2006

you will find very few heatsink manufacturers (if any) that recommend using a fan to draw air through the heatsink vs blowing into it.

If there is one, I haven't seen it.

The Thermalright XP-120 (and presumably also SI-120) work equally well for CPU cooling with the fan blowing or sucking. When sucking, however, temps of the voltage regulator bits ("PWM") under the heatsink overhang stay 7C cooler, at least in my sig system.

muddocktor · Apr 27, 2006

itshondo said:
you will find very few heatsink manufacturers (if any) that recommend using a fan to draw air through the heatsink vs blowing into it.

If there is one, I haven't seen it.

A lot of Alpha Novatech's heatsinks are designed to suck air through the heatsink, but I haven't seen a bleading edge hsf from them for a few years now.

itshondo · Apr 27, 2006

I can understand a elevated heat pipe typ heatsink- I didn't think of that. I was thinking of your standard finned block type.

Heatsink:Blower or extractor?

bobthemoo

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]-[itman

bobthemoo

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Captain Slug

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itshondo

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]-[itman

dfrost

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muddocktor

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