HSF question: Exhaust or Intake?

[Skoodog]

Let me lay down the specs first and what I've done so far:

Athon XP 1700+ Tbred currently o/ced to 2000 Mhz 166x12.5 (1.65V)
Crucial 512MB PC2700 RAM
Alpha PAL8045 w/ Vantec Stealth fan + Ducting Mod
Abit NF7-S rev2 mobo
Ahanix Black Knight case w/ 2 120mm case fans

I want to take it to 2400 with this new Mushin PC3200 2-2-2 Special ram I bought, but I don't want to roast my CPU (temps already pretty high at 55 no load, 57ish after playin Far Cry for an hour). Sys temps are pretty high too (40).

So my question is this...should my HS fan exhaust or intake air to the HS? I want to keep temps as low as possible. I"ve been running w/ temps like this for a while now. I have a hell of a lot of dust in my HS, so I'm gonna hit that w/ a can of compressed air soon.

Please give advice! Thanks

 

[Nemesis2038]

Why not spend 50.00 and get a faster CPU and overclock that instead. As long as your motherboard will handle it. This Should allow you to go even higher and allow you to run it with lower cooling making it even quieter. You already have a good overclock on that chip I suspect you wont get much more without your PC possibly creating a black hole effect sucking in everything around it.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Mellman]

This question has been asked 500000000000 times on 5000000000000000000000 forums....SEARCH!

but anyways....i dont know what common OC are for 1700's on air, i've seen 2.2 pretty common, but i think 2.4 seems a little steep for you, especially with your temps already at 55C, good gawd, is that your diode temp? i dont think with a cpu temp that high you should be trying to OC anymore.


but the answer to whether or not the hsf fan should be up or down.....it depends, different people get different results.....trial and error

 

[Skoodog]

I know it is possible to get 2400 Mhz on my cpu, it's a matter of having the cooling to do so. The question wasn't really what else could I buy to make it work, it was whether I should exhaust or intake my CPU fan. Thanks for the reply, anyway.

 

[Avalon]

Set the fan on your HS to intake air to the HS. I unknowingly had my HSF on exhaust for months, found out, and flipped it to intake. My temps dropped like 8C. I don't know if you'll have the same results as me or not.

 

[thetman]

Ah, to blow or to suck, that is the question. Different people say different things, but I've always found it better to blow air onto the hs than to suck air away. Especially with that ducting mod, you want to blow the cool air from outside your case onto your cpu. If you are planning on up'ing your oc, you really should look into bringing those temps down. You using AS5? And maybe you should try to put a stronger fan on there.

 

[3LEMENT0]

AFAIK with ALPHA HSF it's set to SUCK air from the HS, that's what they were known for.....but don't know about their current offerings if it's suck or blow....

 

[AristoV300]

Most HS recommend that you have the fan blowing on to it. If you can duct two fans to intake air that would be the best.

 

[saechaka]

i've found that blowing air into the cpu heatsink produces better results for me. using slk-700 and stock amd heatsinks.

 

[3LEMENT0]

Here ya go.... http://www.alphanovatech.com/cgi-bin/an/support.cgi I knew ALPHA is usually set to suck air from the HSF but it states that it depends on the environment of the CPU. Good Luck

 

[MattressTester]

Running my 1700+ 'B' @ 2300 MHz with a PAL8045 on my home theater computer. Paired with an 80mm Enermax fan at 2250 RPM. Nice combo as it is quiet and fast.

I found temps to be a degree or two cooler with the fan set as an exhaust (blowing away from the CPU).

Not sure how this would work with your ducting though. I have a blow-hole set as an exhaust directly over the CPU (12v 92mm fan @ 7v). Probably the best thing to do is try it both ways. You can eaasily reverse the fan on the PAL8045 without removing the HS from the CPU.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Most of the heatsink-fan combos I've worked with blow air onto the heatsink fins, from which it exhausts around the processor socket onto the motherboard.

Intuitively, I always thought if you sucked air through the fins, they would more easily clog with dust and "woolies".

I've taken to cutting blow-holes in the sides of my cases -- but for intake by the CPU fan. I see that they sell plastic tube ducts for this purpose at FrozenCPU.com, but I discovered you can collect low-amperage fans of 80mm, 90mm and 120mm at cyber-junk sites, cut the fans out of the shrouds, and knit the shrouds together with glue and plastic-cable-ties to form ducts -- which can then be pop-riveted or screwed onto the case panel or a bracket together with a fan-screen or filter assembly.

It's a bummer when you cut a blow-hole for a specific motherboard and it's CPU placement, only to discover that it's a defective board (if used or purchased at auction), and you can only replace it with another model.