I recently took down my Liquid cooler and replaced with Air Cooler, but i told the shop to put a fan to take the air from inside to out, but they insisted that its not needed. I need your expertise, should i put a fan?
I recently took down my Liquid cooler and replaced with Air Cooler, but i told the shop to put a fan to take the air from inside to out, but they insisted that its not needed. I need your expertise, should i put a fan?
36 Comments
“Not needed” depends on working environment. I would definitely put a fan in there.
Only put an exhaust fan if you already have 1 or more intake fans. Also it’s 4 screws and a plug, you don’t need a shop.
If you have top exhaust it is not needed, it is optional.
Personally, I’d put a fan there for good measure
you got any other fans? front, top? it might be not needed if you have like 2 front, 1 or 2 on top
i’d rather just get a decent cpu cooler if i was you. It’s not technically needed if temps are fine, but it’s good to keep the direction of the airflow.
Thank you guys… will definitely put an exhaust fan.
Needed? No. Optimal with a air cooler? Yes.
It depends. Do you have fans in the front pushing air through? Then it might not be necessary. Or fans up top pulling air out? Again, probably not necessary. If you don’t have air getting pushed in or pulled out from anywhere, then, sure, you can do it, but it’s not going to produce a meaningful temperature difference. Maybe a degree, maybe two. i’d rather have fans pushing cool air in from the front than pushing luke-warm air out the back. in the end, if you have the fan header, it won’t hurt anything. It’s your build, it’s ok to do it just because it looks cool.
Depending on your GPU and CPU, it may or may not be necessary.
However, its better to be over zealous than under zealous. I would put a Fan there and any other spots available for one.
Ideally you want the total air intake from your fans to be slightly higher than the total outtake from your fans. At a simplistic level this can mean having an equal number of the same types of fans pulling air in as pushing out, but it’s not always that simple, e.g. maybe some of your intake fans or outtake fans are attached to a radiator, which will affect the airflow from those fans. In your case though, you don’t have a radiator in your build, so it’s a lot easier to achieve a good balance by just matching the number of intake fans with the number of outtake fans.
You want a balance between intake and outtake to limit dust build-up inside the case. If the total airflow out of the case via exhaust fans exceeds the total airflow into the case from intake fans, then you’ve got a negative pressure situation and extra air will be pulled in from gaps all over your case, bypassing the case’s dust filters. If you can’t have a balance, always go for the positive pressure scenario, e.g. if you have five of the same kind of fan, you’d want three on intake duty and two on outtake. If you did it the other way around, you will probably see a tiny extra bit of extra cooling as it’s more important to get hot air out of a case than it is to bring cool air in, but any small gain will be wiped out in time with far more dust build-up.
So if you already have two intake fans and two outtake fans, adding an extra rear exhaust fan is going to give you an under-pressure and lead to more dust build-up, so you wouldn’t really want to add it, unless you also add an extra intake fan too, to maintain a balance.
There’s diminishing returns in stacking fans too, so it’s not just as simple as add as many fans as possible for better cooling. You can even make things worse if you’re creating clashing air currents that harms airflow within the case, or having fans that just end up pulling the air coming in straight out again without brushing over your components and heat-sinks first, which is just wasted airflow.
Yes, I would put a fan there
Mine dropped 10 degrees with an exhaust fan. I’d go for it.
Not needed does not mean optimal, also they probably made you a favor as they are not expensive nowadays and you’ll save by installing it yourself.
A very classic configuration is 2 or 3 fans as intake at the front, i as exhaust at the rear and another one as exhaust at the top/rear (just above the rear fan).
Overkill, in many scenario not at all, in some yes, but it sure won’t hurt either the PC or your pockets so why the hell not ?
Your case has forced intake but no forced exhaust, the components might be choking a little. A good exhaust fan will do the computer a world of good.
The aircooler on there is well known. It is absolutely crap. Useless. No good.
I hope your CPU is very low powered! If so, it will not get hot enough to need much exhaust.
Depends, do you have enough air pressure to move through the entire case? IF so yes having a fan back there could help, but you’d already would have a negative air pressure in your case at that point.
It depends on your casing setup. Is dust a bigger issue or temperature a bigger issue for you? A fan will suck in dust even if you have it as exhaust if your casing is having negative air flow pressure.
It is best to have an exhaust fan there. While a fully positive air pressure build can still cool, you will need to run the fans at a higher RPM and make much more noise and actually use more power to achieve similar cooling. Fan speed vs power consumption does not scale linearly. Within reason, having more fans at slower speeds, provides good cooling at less noise and lower power consumption.
Your liquid cooler had a fan right? Why didn’t they put it back?
Your gpu looks pretty hefty. I would def add a fan for that at least.
Your computer, your build, your choice. I run a shop. I give advice but do what the customer requests; especially for a $15 fan! The installation of a fan doesn’t harm the machine, it only helps, so why say no? I’d find another shop. Also, I prefer DeepCool AK400 ZERO DARK PLUS that points the fans towards the back fan, then have the back fan take it immediately out of the case – but that’s me. It’s a much cooler run. They make RGB as well, or you can swap the fans for RGB fans if you’d prefer.
You should learn to do this stuff yourself.
If you temps are high, yes. If they are not high why bother.
Your liquid AIO cooler already had some fans that came with it that the shop has removed. Why didn’t they reuse one of those fans? Did they throw the extra fans away or something?
Depending on the number of intake fans you have they might have suggest “no fan needed” to ensure the system had positive pressure – i.e more air being pulled in than is being pushed out by fans, which helps with minimising dust build up in your case.
If your exhaust fans eject more air than what your intakes pull in – you’ll get negative pressure and any gaps in your case will suck air and dust in to try and balance the pressure. On the flip side with positive pressure, air is going to try and escape out of those gaps.
I have an exhaust fan at the back of my rig and I keep it off at low temps, when the system gets hot it kicks in to help shift more air. I’d put one in and you can always have it idling, it will help move air through which, even if only a little, will help the heat exchange over the components.
As others have mentioned, a fan install is super easy and is a great DIY step if you’ve not build this yourself.
What’s the rest of the case setup? Do you have any other fans?
Maybe not *needed,* but certainly recommended
If you have the spce and connections then the more airflow the better imo. Can’t ever hurt (unless they are facing the wrong direction) and will always be better (unless they are facing the wrong direction).
Never too many fans…
(Well, I’m sure there is some upward limit where you would be risking collapsing space-time)
It’s “not needed”. Would it be better to put one though? Yes. Airflow is very important.
Yes, put a fan there, then find a new shop.
I bought a prebuilt and it didn’t have a fan for exhaust either, but I threw one in and noticed a temp drop of about 5 degrees! It can’t hurt really
Well, if you want a better option I’d change that CPU cooler for a better one.
Yes. Expertise granted.