best fan positioning for silent operation

[Deleted]

Hi!

I wonder which way i might achieve the biggest improvement in terms of airflow AND (most important to me) silence in my case.

Here's how i thought it would work:



The Picture:
- All my drives (DVD drive, HDD and SSD) are located in the 5.25" bays and i've removed both lower drive cages for better airflow.
- The yellow fans are be quiet! Pure Wing 2s ... and came with the case. The two on the front are 140mm and the one in the back is 120mm.
- The green "fan" is the PSU, a SeaSonic X750 KM3.
- The orange-green marker is for my GPU, a MSI GTX 970 with zero-fan mode.
- In red is my Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler.
- The purple markers show possible locations for additional fans.

This is my rig:
http://geizhals.at/eu/?cat=WL-423384

Western Digital WD Black 512e 3TB, SATA 6Gb/s (WD3003FZEX)
Crucial MX100 512GB, SATA 6Gb/s (CT512MX100SSD1)
Intel Core i7-4790K, 4x 4.00GHz, boxed (BX80646I74790K)
Kingston HyperX FURY schwarz DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR3-1600, CL10 (HX316C10FBK2/16)
MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G, GeForce GTX 970, 4GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort (V316-001R)
ASUS Z97-Pro Gamer (90MB0KZ0-M0EAY0)
Noctua NH-D14
be quiet! Silent Base 800 schwarz, schallgedämmt (BG002)
Sea Sonic X-Series X-750 KM3 750W ATX 2.3 (SS-750KM3)

For those of you who read my latest "building a new rig post" i've made some last minute changes that i didn't share with you, so plz don't wonder ^^

My thoughts:
- The SeaSonic PSU is semi-passive, so i figured it might be better to let the heat go into the case instead of being stuck at the top of the PSU while the fan isn't spinning.
- BUT with the PSU pointing upwards my zero-fan GPU will get the heat from the PSU ... I'm not sure whether that will make a difference...
- recently i've often seen people (especially Linus ^^) having the CPU fans point up ... why's that?
- If i had the CPU fan pointing up too my guess is that it will pull heat through the front and the PSU, drag it across the GPU and CPU and push it out the top of the case ... if that is really the case the CPU fan would cool almost everything - which would be great, but i'm not that confident.
- I have an ASUS Motherboard that can turn off case fans if the interior is cool enough.

What do you think would be the best setup for best airflow and (most important) quiet or silent performance?

Thanks in advance!
Looking forward to your thoughts!

[Vash The Stampede]

That's fine, just make sure to put filters on the input fans.

[Remilia]

Don't worry about the heat from the X-750. Playing games on it, my X-650 fan doesn't turn on at all and placing my hand over the grill there's practically no radiating heat at all.
I have about the same fan set up except only one intake from the front and no bottom one if you added one. "Loudest" thing in my case is the HDD when it's seeking stuff (or whatever it's called).

[Deleted]

Don't worry about the heat from the X-750. Playing games on it, my X-650 fan doesn't turn on at all and placing my hand over the grill there's practically no radiating heat at all.
I have about the same fan set up except only one intake from the front and no bottom one if you added one. "Loudest" thing in my case is the HDD when it's seeking stuff (or whatever it's called).

to reduce HDD noise i can only recommend that: https://geizhals.at/sharkoon-hdd-vib...9-a108251.html
you strap the HDD to rubber bands that hold the drive firmly and insert the whole thing into one of your 5.25" bays.
that way you get ZERO noise from HDD-case interaction and only slight noise from reading.

[Remilia]

Oh don't worry about that, the case I got came with some rubber thingy you place with the HDD to reduce vibration. The only noise like I said is coming from the HDD when reading stuff and even then it's very faint.

[Deleted]

That's fine, just make sure to put filters on the input fans.

all intakes have filters - the case comes with them.

[Arbiter]

If you've seen Linus point the CPU fan up it's probably either because A) The logo on the cooler is oriented a certain way that probably annoys him so he sacrifices effectiveness for it or B) The only exhaust fan is at the top.

I'm not sure how much heat would honestly come off the PSU with the fan facing up, but I do know that facing it down is not going to be a problem for the PSU's heat within itself. It was built to be able to handle that orientation.

Is your set up honestly still not quiet enough though? o.0

The only thing I could really think of it create manual fan curves for everything and swap to a single fan CPU cooler like the Dark Rock 3. That and sack the HDD.

[Deleted]

If you've seen Linus point the CPU fan up it's probably either because A) The logo on the cooler is oriented a certain way that probably annoys him so he sacrifices effectiveness for it or B) The only exhaust fan is at the top.

I'm not sure how much heat would honestly come off the PSU with the fan facing up, but I do know that facing it down is not going to be a problem for the PSU's heat within itself. It was built to be able to handle that orientation.

Is your set up honestly still not quiet enough though? o.0

The only thing I could really think of it create manual fan curves for everything and swap to a single fan CPU cooler like the Dark Rock 3. That and sack the HDD.

yeah ... it probably is extremely silent already ... but if there's a way to make it even quieter i have to try. maybe that's because I'm nuts ... i've got one or two OCDs and maybe noise is adding to that right now ...

on another board i posted this scatch and got quite possitive responses:



It's an awful lot of high pressure but the case should be able to handle it since there is an opening in the top that would normally fit 2x140mm fans.

also: you kind of always mention the HDD ... actually the HDD is only for data storage ... music, movies, personal files.
the OS and the games all sit on the SSD (it's 500gb ...) ... and yes, i could have taken another not so high-performance HDD for file storage ^^ i'm nuts as i've already said.

[Remilia]

By the way, the WD Black may actually get pretty loud that the case can't muffle the whirrrrr sound.

[yurano]

Orient the bottom fan down, otherwise it will pull in a significant amount of dust.

[Deleted]

I would lose the bottom red fan from the second version, it isn't needed at all. If you are as ocd with your cabling as I am, system/card cooling won't be a problem at all. You may need the second cooler fan though, probably suck it and see. fans cope poorly with drag (static pressure), but convoluted coolers result in better cooling, the two barely moving may be quieter than one going crazy.

[Deleted]

Orient the bottom fan down, otherwise it will pull in a significant amount of dust.

all intakes are dustfiltered and i vacuum regularly.
having the bottom fan point down would be a major disadvantage ... cause it would take fresh air that just entered through the front fans and push it down into the base of the case. the base of the Silent Base 800 serves as a kind of air tunnel ... PSU and bottom fans don't get their directly from the outside of the case but rather channel it through the base from the back.

so indirectly, a down facing bottom fan would only feed the PSU with fresh air from the front ... that would be completely unnecessary.

- - - Updated - - -

I would lose the bottom red fan from the second version, it isn't needed at all. If you are as ocd with your cabling as I am, system/card cooling won't be a problem at all. You may need the second cooler fan though, probably suck it and see. fans cope poorly with drag (static pressure), but convoluted coolers result in better cooling, the two barely moving may be quieter than one going crazy.

i just ordered two Noctua NF-A14 140mm PWM fans. And i'll try to put them on the CPUcooler, maybe they'll perform better than the stock ones, if not i can use them in the front of the case.

[fixx]

Since you've been watching LTT there was just recently a video of doing super-silent gaming rig. One neat idea there was pointing the fan at the back of the case inwards so that all three fans are intakes and just skip the CPU heatsink fan completely. It will make CPU run slightly hotter but still way below safe normal operating temperature.

Also you should be able to skip the bottom case fan too. Those very rarely do anything useful unless your case airflow is bad to begin with and something blocks the front intakes like HDD cages.

[Deleted]

Since you've been watching LTT there was just recently a video of doing super-silent gaming rig. One neat idea there was pointing the fan at the back of the case inwards so that all three fans are intakes and just skip the CPU heatsink fan completely. It will make CPU run slightly hotter but still way below safe normal operating temperature.

i saw that video ^^ and i was quite impressed. i planned on OCing once it is summer, so i'll likely not remove the CPUfans.
as far as i understood Linus connected the only exhaust which he put in the top to the CPUfan header. i'd also have to get a dustfilter for the back ... well, maybe i'll try that anyway someday - if my OC runs stable and has some headroom for higher temps.