Heatsink & Fan Curious Question!

[JamesD]

Right, my mate was having temperature problems with his processor. He was getting bleeps whilst playing games indicating that it was getting hot. He took it to a computer shop (of which I won't name for obvious reasons) to get the problem fixed.

My mate has a ThermalRight SP-97 (Socket A) Cooler combined with a Zalman Stealth 92mm fan. This is the killer, I don't know whether this is right or not so don't come and own me The guys at the computer shop had said that the fan was facing the wrong way round, and that it should blow away from the processor.

From my experience I've only known fans to blow onto the heatsink. Is the guy at the computer shop speaking absolute b**locks or am I missing something?

[mike_w]

I always thought that the fan was supposed to blow onto the heatsink as well but I might be wrong.

[Zathras]

Usually the fans blow onto the heatsink. A few years back I remember someone doing some tests with the fan on the other way as he thought it would suit the airflow through his case better that way. He found blowing away resulted in circa a 3 degree increase in temperature. I wouldn't have thought swapping the fan round could increase performance to such a level to solve any temperature related problems.

[iMc]

Yeh in most cases the fan is meant to blow on to the heatsink. Some heatsinks can allow two fans and on these ive seen one of the fans facing away from the sink.

The only other place I've seen fans pulling through to aid cooling is on a watercooling radiator.

[Flash]

utter pap, my monies on PC World

[Byatt]

fan facing into CPU - low CPU temp, more ambient heat ambling around your case
fan facing away from CPU - higher CPU temp, better airflow.

I think :-s

[BUFF]

There is 1 mfr (Swiftech or Alpha iirc) that designs their sinks to be used with the fan sucking through the hs rather than blowing onto it.
Pretty certain that with an SP97 it should blow onto though.

[myth]

There is 1 mfr (Swiftech or Alpha iirc) that designs their sinks to be used with the fan sucking through the hs rather than blowing onto it.
Pretty certain that with an SP97 it should blow onto though.

Don't forget zalman!

[JamesD]

Haha cheers everyone!

[Shogun]

Swiftech are meant to suck through iirc.

[joely]

what you are likely to find is that if you have the fan sucking air over the heatsink is that you are going to have more turbulent flow entering the rotor deminishing fan efficiency where as the other way round you will have a better air stream in and therefor greater cooling.

[Zak33]

sounds to ME like a case of a hot CASE.

Tell your mate:

A: take side of case off, point big house fan into case, play games for long time.
B: If no beeping, then take house fan away but LEAVE side of case...play games for long time.
C: If STILL no beeping, put case on and if beeping starts you know his case airflow is cack and he needs to get some fresh air in and the hot air out.

Buy fans, experiment with fitting. On the whole, fresh cold air in bottom front, hot air out back top

[joely]

you forgot the most valuable piece of advice, dont go within half a mile of pc world with your computer!!

[Zak33]

oooh....thats nearly right. EXCEPT their new component web site is pretty good

[iMc]

yeh tbh PC World are at least trying to get better. There has been a couple of good bargains on the PCW site.

[joely]

yeah the website seems cool but wouldnt go near one of the shops if u paid me