Case cooling

[Asus]

I was looking around for ideas on how to cool my low power PC with 1 or 2 fans. I had a bunch of ideas in my head.
1 rear and 1 front fan in line with a passive cpu heatsink.
Or lower front fan with heatsink fan pushing air out top vent. I was really thinking I wanted to try this one if I could get a heatsink that could mount with the fan facing up or a mobo with the socket turned (there are a few).

There is not a lot of testing from review sites regarding general case cooling but a lot of people have strong opinions on their stance (balanced, negative, positive pressure). But I came across a few articles that might be interesting.
Pay attention to the graph showing time until idle temp.
The PSU used has a fan on the underside btw.
CPU fan used.

Now one thing this points out is the importance of the direction of the air flow rather than just CFM in and CFM out (aka balanced, positive, or negative pressure).

The best one is a even cooling but it has a single air direction.
2 top fans (1 psu, 1 case) and 2 front intakes.
No exhaust fans splitting the air flow like 2 rear, 2 front.

Top+Side would have the same in+out rate as the Top+Front but Top+Side doesn't have good direction from the side fans as they run into a wall (mobo+expansion cards).


And then a completely different link not dealing with PCs at all but it does talk about fan cooling. Half way down about Induced (w/duct) vs forced draft which could be applied to heatsinks.
(not like pull vs push for top down coolers but more like push vs pull for towers)

 

[Asus]

I bought a Thermalright HR-01 Plus for my system. Looks like this, not my pic. Had Arctic Cooling's Freezer 7 Pro (92mm fan) before. The HR-01 is quite a bit bigger. Almost out to the side of the case. No fan is included. The HR-01 was actually intended to be run passive and the HR-01 Plus is the same thing except they give you fan clips to add a 120mm fan if you like.

Recorded load temps, (idle temp) and RPM etc. Ran 2 instances of Primes95 and Folding@home on the GPU to stress test.
TIM used on the AC F7 pro was Ceramique by acrtic silver. Used Thermalright Chill Factor for the new heatsink.
Intel Q9300 (quad CPU)
4850 with Zalman heatsink/fan (half flower style heatsink)
Antec P180 case

First my old setup was 2 case fans (intake/exhaust) with the CPU fan/heatsink pointing toward the rear exahust.
CPU - 60c (package temp?) - 1920RPM
core 1 - 67c | core 2 - 70c | core 3 - 68c | core 4 - 67c
GPU - 84c - 2760RPM
Intake - 840RPM
Exhaust - 840RPM

Took the AC 7 pro off and turned it to point up at the top spot. Put the rear fan on top. Closed off the rear hole. Fans same RPM as above.
CPU - N/A (47)
core 1 - 65c (50) | core 2 - 68c (54) | core 3 - 67c (51) | core 4 - 65c (51)
GPU - 70c (51)
SYS - 40c (37)
PWM - 55c (42)

Then I removed the AC 7 pro and put the thermalright HR-01 on. Same way, pointing up with a 120mm fan in push position. Used the Chill Factor TIM included with the HS.
CPU - N/A (42) - 840RPM <---notice very slow RPM...very quiet
core 1 - 62c (47) | core 2 - 65c (53) | core 3 - 64c (50) | core 4 - 64c (50)
GPU - 72c (47) - 2900RPM
SYS - 41c (35)
PWM - 55c (41)

Then I took the intake and exhaust case fans out...2 fans in the system. CPU and GPU fan. So just isolated cooling on heatsinks (CPU happens to be pointed UP toward the exit). If I didn't have the GPU fan this would be silent.
CPU - 55c (38) - 900RPM (480RPM)
core 1 - 63c (47) | core 2 - 67c (53) | core 3 - 65c (50) | core 4 - 65c (50)
GPU - 72c (48) - 2760RPM
SYS - 38c (34)
PWM - 50c (39)

I'm going to try out different ducts and stuff. See if anything improves.

 

[CyberPitz]

Dear god...that's extensive. I just do a few fans of "In the front, out the back"....I'm a simple man with simple needs.

 

[Asus]

Yeah it was late when I posted. All data and no summary. Plus I was bored...

I changed my air flow from front in and rear out to front in and top out and my temps dropped.
And then of course I changed the CPU heatsink with a monster and am able to run the CPU fan silently instead of at 3000RPM. Even without case fans!

...now I just need to get rid of that GPU fan.