Make CPU cooler blow air upwards?

[Xuvial]

I just realized that the "traditional" idea is to have your CPU cooler blow air towards your rear fan, which then exhausts out of the case. In my case, I have 3 problems with that:
1) The back of my case is 2 inches from a wall, no my arrangement does not allow me to pull it forward any further.
2) I have a 120mm rear fan and a 200mm top fan. The top fan exhausts a hell of a lot more air.
3) Heat moves upwards, not sideways. Another reason to have the cooler blow air up instead of sideways.

From what I've noticed, the screw arrangement for my Hyper 212+ is exactly square so it should be no problem to rotate it 90 degrees and have it blow air up. (And I think I've done a messy installation of the cooler, touching 75c+ with a 4.7ghz overclock. Overvolting maybe? Who knows).
It would line up almost exactly with my top fan too

It's just that I haven't seen or heard anyone doing this. Is it a good idea?

[DeltrusDisc]

I'd say try it and tell us if it works! If it does, I'll be doing it too. ;p

[theBest]

I use my Hyper 212 pointing upwards. People say it cools more efficiently since heat rises. *shrug*

You won't have any problem doing it.

[ispano]

Since all current heatpipes used in PC Air Cooling have wicks, the difference between the orientation usually won't be more than 1c, if that much.

[Enola]

Think the issue probably is having the fan sucking out from exactly the top of the gpu, even fully closed they irradiate always some heat. Tried it in the past with my old setup and it didn't make a lot of difference.
Don't go with "it cools more efficient since heat rises" in this case (forced air) the convection effect becomes negligible.

[Doylez]

I've got my Scythe Mugen 2 blow out the air to the top and don't even have a casefan there, shouldn't make much of a difference.

[TanAxys]

I did pretty much the same thing. I have a lot of space above the computer, but just a couple inches behind it.

My case came with a 120 fan on the back, and had an opening to mount one on the top. so I changed the back fan to the top, exhausting out. When I put my 212 in, I mounted it vertically with a fan on the bottom pushing air through, so my top case fan could pull it out the top.

==

Just to add a bit to the science lesson: the molecules in heated air will be farther apart and moving faster, making it less dense. If you blow up a balloon and put it in the refrigerator, it will shrink--because the molecules of air have moved closer together, becoming more dense.

In a sealed environment, the hot air would "rise" because it weighs slightly less because it's slightly less dense. This is how hot air balloons work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77Ej_Ayugxk

Basically if you had no fans, then it would be a much better idea to have the opening on the top of the case instead of the side. However, any computer fan will have more then enough muscle to overcome any of this air density stuff.

[ispano]

I did pretty much the same thing. I have a lot of space above the computer, but just a couple inches behind it.

My case came with a 120 fan on the back, and had an opening to mount one on the top. so I changed the back fan to the top, exhausting out. When I put my 212 in, I mounted it vertically with a fan on the bottom pushing air through, so my top case fan could pull it out the top.

==

Just to add a bit to the science lesson: the molecules in heated air will be farther apart and moving faster, making it less dense. If you blow up a balloon and put it in the refrigerator, it will shrink--because the molecules of air have moved closer together, becoming more dense.

In a sealed environment, the hot air would "rise" because it weighs slightly less because it's slightly less dense. This is how hot air balloons work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77Ej_Ayugxk

Basically if you had no fans, then it would be a much better idea to have the opening on the top of the case instead of the side. However, any computer fan will have more then enough muscle to overcome any of this air density stuff.

Yup, hot air does indeed rise. Although I think you meant to use displacement rather than weight.

[Deleted]

In a computer case, a laminar flow with little resistance between fans sucking air in and those expelling it is more important than any fancy configurations, unless you're going for the overkill one huge motherboard hugging fan approach. In other words, little clutter like cables and efficient and balanced in / out fans is just fine unless you're going for extreme overclocking.

As the OP's case is like the Antec nine hundred or twelve hundred with large fan on top, it would probably improve the air flow to have the cooler's air flow going upwards.

The cooler the OP specified can be used with dual-fan configuration too, many of the 90-degrees off-set coolers support that.
Though most computer case and CPU fans are optimized for "pushing" air instead of "pulling" it and move greater volumes of air by forcing it through the heat sink's grid. Larger volume of heat exchanging fluid, aka. air, is always better than less, and while simply turning the same fan the other way round wouldn't work too well, two fans could improve the flow as well, or lower RPM could be used.

Ugh, edited in between and mixed myself up with what I was about to say.

What of heat rising, indeed it's all about density and transfer of heat. In a sauna, you can clearly find that near the floor, the air can be cool as it is sucked in through the gap between floor and door, but is much hotter at the ceiling level. While it is certainly easy to observe in a closed environment, there's a density gradient already present in the atmosphere as well as a large volume of turbulent fluid in which the heat is transferred readily. On a hot calm day a boundary effect can be observed when mirages occur ^_^

[TanAxys]

Yup, hot air does indeed rise. Although I think you meant to use displacement rather than weight.

Well, I did use both to illustrate my point.

If you had a volume of air (i.e. the blown up balloon) and cooled it down then it would displace less space.

The hot air balloon is physically lighter than air, it doesn't float into the sky because of it's displacement.

[ispano]

Well, I did use both to illustrate my point.

If you had a volume of air (i.e. the blown up balloon) and cooled it down then it would displace less space.

The hot air balloon is physically lighter than air, it doesn't float into the sky because of it's displacement.

I only mentioned displacement because I didn't see it at all in your post, but did see you mention weight. So I figured you said one thing but meant another.

[Erous]

My rear fan used to be an exhaust, until I got the corsair H50. Now I'm pulling air in and through a push/pull method from the back. Now I also have 3 large fans. The side case fan blows air in, the front fan blows air in and my top fan blows air out. Keeps it pretty chilly in there. I have the option for a fan at the bottom as well but haven't decided what I want to use yet for it.

[theBest]

I didn't expect everyone to nerd out and try and disprove my simple comment.

The *shrug* meant I really didn't know/care, it's just what I've heard. All that should have been taken from my post is that an upwards heatsink works.

[Xuvial]

Alright, done!



The results, you ask?

Meh. I don't think facing it upwards did anything amazing, but my wall is noticeably cooler now so atleast the hot air isn't getting trapped behind the case and is going out out the right way. Also it turned out I was in fact overvolting, sorta explains the high temperatures (fixed now). I don't have extended periods of time to do repeated stress tests ok?

But it is fully plausible to turn your Hyper 212+ whichever way you want, so those who don't want their CPU's getting hot air blown into a wall 2 inches away, turn it upwards if you have a top fan