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Mount Powersupply fanside up or down?

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If there is room between the floor and the bottom of your case, I would make the fan face down, that way it will have its own supply of fresh air, allowing for cooler temps. Also, I dont think its the best idea to have an exhaust fan at the bottom of your case, because you want the hot air to rise.
 
I wouldn't suggest facing it up either. The hot air will be exhausted out of the back of the case regardless of which way you mount it. The cooler air from the lowest point in your case will give slightly better performance.
 
I'll go with the fan facing down too, but for a different reason. If you have the fan facing up, then anything you drop inside the case has a decent chance of falling through the fan blades into the psu while you are working inside the case, giving you a chance of a short inside it next time you start your computer. Also, I would think that the dust issue might be a little worse with the fan facing up too. Personally I don't think it will make much difference in temps in the psu either way. And this also depends if the case will let you mount the psu in either orientation too.
 
Probably doesnt matter which way it is. Try it both ways and see if GPU/Case temps change at all.
 
I think mudd makes a valid point. No matter how careful you are working inside your case, sooner or later a screw will fall. If your case doesn't have a fresh air intake hole in the bottom below the psu fan I would be tempted to take my saber saw and make one. On the other hand if there is some space below the underside of the PSU and the bottom of the case and there is a fan blowing fresh air in that direction from the bottom of the case front then it may be getting enough fresh air already. I would not mount it with fan up because of the interruption in bottom to top air flow it would create.
 
I have opted to face it downward since many of you brought up good reasons.

As for the screw possibly breaking and my powersupply falls, the antec case has little rubber pads that the power supply sits on, keeping it permanantly up off the floor. It then screws in to secure it.

I have no fan on the bottom of my case, not sure how that point came up. The fan I was refering to in my first post was the power supply's fan.
 
I don't think mud was talking about the screws holding your psu, he was talking about other screws that you might be putting in or taking out that might fall into the pus fan if it was facing up with the psu being at the bottom of your case. Screws like the ones that hold a hard drive or a cdrom in a bay or a video card in a slot. Maybe you can't picture this because you might have a screwless case where everything is held in place by clips. My mention of a fan at the bottom of the case was referring to the ones you typically see in the front behind the bezel in the area where the power switch is. Maybe you don't have one.
 
If there is room between the floor and the bottom of your case, I would make the fan face down, that way it will have its own supply of fresh air, allowing for cooler temps. Also, I dont think its the best idea to have an exhaust fan at the bottom of your case, because you want the hot air to rise.

While your advice about PSU mounting was right, holding to the "hot air rises" rule in a computer case is very inaccurate. Convection causes hot air to rise and cooler air to sink in a static environment, but when you've got big 120mm fans blowing, that rule no longer is in force. The fans direct the air where to go, as the force they impart is MUCH stronger than convection. Anyways, just wanted to point that out. You can have intakes/exhausts wherever you like, they'll work just fine.
 
I've seen a lot of people with their PSUs upside down in those antec cases. That's the way I would do it. It really doesn't make any sense pointing a fan at the bottom of the case.

Furthermore... I don't even know why they design cases like that. I prefer the traditional method of having them at the top.
 
I've seen a lot of people with their PSUs upside down in those antec cases. That's the way I would do it. It really doesn't make any sense pointing a fan at the bottom of the case.

Furthermore... I don't even know why they design cases like that. I prefer the traditional method of having them at the top.

Most of the cases with PSUs at the bottom have a hole in the bottom to draw cool air from outside.

I have both types (top & bottom mount PSU) and the bottom mount PSU will be the only type case I will buy in the future.
 
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