Is my fan supposed to be blowing on or away from my CPU?

[UncleRonnie]

I have the Retail fan that came with my AMD 1.2 gig processor. Is the air supposed to be sucked to the CPU or blown from it?
My processor runs @ 133 Farenheit. THe air is beubg sucked to the processor...is this right?

 

[jcmoran]

Yes, the heat is pulled from the CPU into the cooling fins of the heatsink through a process called induction. Then the fan should be blowing cooler air into the fins to get rid of the heat. If you use a product like Arctic Silver II between the CPU and the heatsink, you will help more heat to be transferred to the heatsink. It's thermally conductive. Check out Acrtic Silver at www.arcticsilver.com to find out more.
It's also important to keep your cooling fins clear of dust. The more dust, the hotter your CPU. Hot is bad. Cool is good.

 

[NiceSocks]

so your fan should blow ONTO the heat sink and not away from it??

 

[DJBOB]

For the most part yes. However there are some HSF out there that blow hot air off the heat sink (instead of cool air onto the heat sink) and dump the hot air into the case allowing cooler surrounding air to enter the fins. However IMO blowing air onto the HSF is the best approach.

Bob

 

[CStroman]

Post in °C please. Most HSFs I've seen have the fan blowing onto the heatsink. I've tried having the fan suck from mine but I got worse results.

 

[riprock]

I have an Alpha Pal-Fc on my C900 and I get better temps sucking air away from the sink. Now, this setup has a little shroud that does affect this. I took the shroud off and tested it both ways and the best way was with the shroud on, sucking air away. PLUS, the fans blows directly on my RAM This has helped the OC a bit

 

[UncleRonnie]

i appreciate all your help guys!

 

[bozo1]

What riprock says. Try it in both directions. I've gotten better results with some HSF's by reversing the flow from the default, others it made it worse.

 

[MoFunk]

I guess it also depends on the specs of the HS. I had a taisol and the fan was set to blow into the HS, I now have an Alpha PAL8045 and it is designed to suck air away from the HS. I would assume that because it is a stock HSF, it is probably made to blow onto the HS.

 

[NiceSocks]

wow all this time i've had the fan blowing away from the heatsink. I'm still running a 300 celeron at 450 and have been for a while. my boards an abit bh6 and the temp guage is down between the pci slots so i can't really tell how hot the cpu is. i guess i'll try a touch and feel method and see if blowing air onto the heatsink will help