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My current AirFlow? Advice Please

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Johndong888

New Member
Joined
Jun 5, 2009
Hey Guys! First Post! Been only lurking around lately! I just finished building my first computer on Wednesday. Thus far, the computer is running great however I do have some doubts about my current airflow. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I have a XigmaTek Dark Knight Heat-Pipe Direct Touch Heatsink cooler for my i7 920. My Power supply box is a ABS Tagan BZ1300W with what I believe is a bottom intake fan. (link - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817814011 )

My PSU is mounted on top of my case with my Heatsink and CPU directly below it if I am looking at my side glass directly. Here's where my doubts come in, I believe my PSU is actually giving (fresh?) air to my CPU area BUT... my heatsink fan is ALSO blowing into that general area. My question is if this cooling method is contradicting one another? (PS: The Blue ovals is the exact location of the fans)

I do apologize if the above made no sense what so ever. Therefore to better illustrate, I will try to attach a picture of my current layout:







In my opinion, it doesn't look like that is working really well UNLESS the PSU is actually venting true FRESH air towards the CPU right? Please advise.

ALSO one more thing and it is pretty off-topic in this section but I figure I'll give it a try. My Windows 7x64 is indeed showing 6.00 GB of memory however it is saying only 4.99GB is usable! How does that work? I have Mushkins XMP profile active and have already tried to manually change the voltage to 1.65, both yielding the same exact results of only 4.99 GB usable.

Once again, any help is greatly appreciated and I thank you for your time,
John D.
 
I guess my question really pertains as whether my PSU is an bottom intake fan that does something like a push/pull effect..

thanks again

John D.
 
That bottom fan on your PSU should be pulling air from inside the case where the fan on the back should be pulling the air completely out. Of course the whole idea behind this is to try to effectively pull all of the heat out of the PSU, but from what I have seen in quite a few cases, it doesn't always work this way. The only thing I have ever noticed from a dual fan PSU is more noise TBH. From what I remember deom some reading somewhere, although I don't remember off the top of my head where, it is nothing more than a marketing gimmick. I will see what I can dig up later as far as a link to an article I read about it.
 
Thanks! So my powersupply is actually sucking air from the case then back out thur the vents right? For some reason I thought it was sucking from the outside. From what I have gather thus far, my current PSU mount is perfectly fine or will flipping the PSU upside down be more practical?

Thanks again
 
Leave it as is, as your airflow is good right now, as the cool air is pulled form the bottom of the case to the warmer portion, the top portion where it goes out. Perfect! :)
 
Leave it as is, as your airflow is good right now, as the cool air is pulled form the bottom of the case to the warmer portion, the top portion where it goes out. Perfect! :)

Based on my experiences, I tend to recommend intake at the front towards the bottom of the case and exhaust at the rear towards the top. The reason for this is that heat rises. As long as you keep your airflow in the direction it is going, you will be good. Of course if you haven't already, it helps to cut the pre drilled fan grilles off the case too, which will help cut down on the noise and airflow restriction. I have seen those things kill case temps quite a number of times, and if you have high case temps, you can also expect your CPU and GPU temps to increase as well.
 
I know nothing about that PSU, but I'd hate to think that thing would pull air in and down into the case unless it's made specifically for some case's Ive seen with a port in the bottom to expel air there ?

I guess if the diagram is right it would be routing the air to the rear fan on the case more or less, so probably not too large problem.

But the design of the whole PSU looks to me its made to be used in a bottom mount position really with vents there. So as far as being optimal like most people shoot for might not be the best. Nice big PSU though :)

Of course I have Sata and power cables and hard drives all over the intakes of my case so I can't say a lot hehe.

:beer:
 
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Once again, I cannot thank everyone here for taking their time and providing me with such valuable inputs. Very much appreciated!

I know nothing about that PSU, but I'd hate to think that thing would pull air in and down into the case unless it's made specifically for some case's Ive seen with a port in the bottom to expel air there ?

I guess if the diagram is right it would be routing the air to the rear fan on the case more or less, so probably not too large problem.

But the design of the whole PSU looks to me its made to be used in a bottom mount position really with vents there. So as far as being optimal like most people shoot for might not be the best. Nice big PSU though :)

Of course I have Sata and power cables and hard drives all over the intakes of my case so I can't say a lot hehe.

:beer:

MongGrel, you see when I first drew the diagram, I thought the intake was taking air from the case like a car, however after some research, I believe the fan is actually really TAKING air FROM the case and then expelling it outwards through the back of the PSU.

Correct me if I am wrong but I think that is how it really works. So far the computer is running great, I do think the temperature might be a little high, nothing too out of the ordinary; might have to reseat the heatsink or something. It is running aroundC CPU is running around 51C in Windows 7.

My plan will be going back to completely stock settings and running Vista x64 this time so I can utilitize my board's tweaking softwares and measure the temps more closely.
 
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All you really need to accurately monitor your temps is RealTemp or CoreTemp. I use CoreTemp and eVGA Precision to monitor all of my temps. They don't monitor my case temps, but I have a couple of thermal probes in my case for that. CoreTemp and RealTemp will read the temps directly from the on chip diode where most motherboard software will read from an inaccurate temp sensor. Also, if you look around the CPU, Memory, and Motherboard sections of OCF, you will not need that software to maximize your stable overclock. You just have to be willing to do some reading and learning. There is a huge wealth of information here at your disposal any time you want it.
 
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