Antec sonata case--which way shld fan blow?

[stars1234]

I have an Antec case & 350 fan.

The case has a 110 mm fan in front, pulling; and a 110 (or is it 120) mm fan in rear, pushing air out.

The Antec PSU has two fans, one exhausting the air out the case; the other, at the bottom of the PSU, pushing the air into the case. (where it mixes with the other air and is pulled out with the 110 mm rear fan.)

My AMD CPU temp is 100% higher than the air in the box--at 50 C, with no overclocking.

Is the bottom fan on the PSU blowing the best direction, down into the case, the best way to bet the heat down? Or should I see if I can turn it upside down so it pulls hot air out, into the PSU and lets the rear PSU push it out the case, along with my main rear-case fan. --BTW, the PSU fan hardly ever comes on. --If the case temp gets to 52C it'll kick in for a few minute. When the air in the case drops back to 50C, the PSU fan stops?

What's the best configuration for the bottom PSU fan for maximum cooling? push (as it is set up) or pull?

Thanks

 

[DerwenArtos12]

The power supply fan should be pushing air across the componets in the psu then the fan at the back of the psu pulls it out. I would be shocked to the point of a mild hear attack if it were actually going against the fan at the rear of the PSU creating a vacumn inside the psu as that is just asking for it to pick up smoking. What heatsink do you have on your processor? For that matter what processor is it and what motherboard is it on?

 

[Zepper]

As far as the PSU goes, the top(bottom) fan should be moving air into the PSU while the rear fan exhausts air from the PSU. Depending on how close the PSU is to the CPU fan, I might flip the PSU case so the fan is nearest the top of the case as long as there is enough room between the top of the case and the PSU to allow the fan to draw adequate air. As I recall, the Sonata is a fairly compact case which would place the PSU fan close to the CPU if it was facing that way. That could cause the PSU fan to scavenge air from the CPU fan so the CPU wouldn't be cooled as effectively. The original Sonata had a poorly thought out intake air plan as the intake fan mount was located on the back of the HD cage so a good part of the air it pushes comes from inside the case itself. I'm sure that many a Sonata were modded to move the fan to the front wall of the case where it belongs. The front of the case also needs to be opened up more on the original Sonata.

I think the Sonata II resolved that issue, but I'm not sure as the pix I've seen so far leave a lot to the imagination. Well, I guess they left the intake fan mount on the back of the HDD rack so still a lot (if not most) of the air pushed by it will be drawn from inside the case. I'd do whatever it took to move it to the front of the case. In fact I probably wouldn't buy or recommend a Sonata II because so many others have done this properly - no need to put up with poor design. Their SLK3000-B is much better in most regards. Besides, I don't care for sidesaddle mounted HDDs. That really only works well for SATA or SCSI HDDs.

.bh.

 

[pkme2]

The standard case design of front intake fan (120mm) and rear exhaust (120mm) works.
Adding an top exhaust (120mm) to case is recommended.
A side vent power fan (120mm) helps. 4 fans makes sense.
A slot fan for GPU is nice.

My summer ambient is 28C, my working CPU is 38C, mobo 33C and load at 44C.

 

[SparkyJJO]

I bet you are probably feeling a little backpressure from the fan on the bottom of the PSU. They blow INTO the PSU, not out. You can tell which way it is blowing the air by the curve of the blades and the direction it spins.

 

[mb]

Are you using the stock AMD cooler? If so, I highly recommend upgrading it to something like the Thermaltake Big Typhoon. I too have an Antec Sonata with a front intake and rear exhaust, and with the Big Typhoon I get idle temps of 27c with load temps of 36-38c (room temp is 72F or 22c).