• Hardware

  • Case temps,what are the best fan settings?

I have high temperatures in my case, my GTX 970 is 45c idle, CPU 35c idle
Today I added a thermaltake fan 12cm on top but nothing changed.
So I have 2 fans now, the one that came already with the case and the new one, the thing is that my CPU fan by thermaltake is facing the case front panel.
What do you think? should I invert the fans so the fresh air is pushed toward the CPU and GPU, and pulled out of the case at the cpu fan exit?
Here's my actual settings:

from what i understand the perfect condition is air being pulled from the front and being blown out from the upper and rear fans .. this also depends on what case you have .. for any more ideas search google for your case model and add "best fan configuration" in the search believe me the internet has the answer
first your temps are great, you should not having anything to worry about. also keep in mind your i5 is first gen those run a bit warm compared to current gen.

changing the fan on top from push to pull, might help the GPU, or if you have bottom intake next to the PSU, you can use that to pull air from the bottom of the case.

i doubt you can get CPU to run cooler, but maybe you can get couple of degrees of the gpu.
It's not the CPU I am worried about but the GPU, I inverted the fans and now the GPU is 37-38c idle, it's better but not the 28c I saw over many MSI GTX 970 gaming.
I think the new fan is not working at 100%, I can nearly not feel air pulled out of the case but it's turning. My mobo's only left fan plug was a 4 pins and the the fan is a 3 pins, perhaps with a newer mobo I will be able to control it
Most reviewers test GPUs in an open test bench not in a case, due to the ease of install and convince. This provides the best airflow for GPUs, especially open air cooling design where the heat from the gpu is dumped in the case, while blower style gpu exhaust the air from the back.

Another veritable is the ambient temperature of your room, and more specifically the area of the case.
Dust build up in the cooling fins could also hamper the cooling.

You could always adjust the fan curve or increase the rpm of the gpu fan manually, increase it a 100 rpm at the time give it 10-15min and check the temps. repeat this step till you reach desired temp. you can do this from nvidia control panel, or msi after burner, or any 3rd party tool.


3 pin fans are voltage regulated, you can adjust the voltage to the fan in your motherboard bios
4 pin fans are PWM the fan controller on your motherboard will control it.
4 pin is better as it allows better control, but both are controllable from the motherboard just using different techniques

again 45c is still acceptable.
Air should be drawn in from the bottom, and draw out from the top, because hot air has a natural tendency to rise.
I have noticed in your photo that the PSU is at the bottom of the case. Is that how your setting is? It helps to have a PSU at the top, with a big 12mm fan at the bottom of the PSU to draw out hot air.
Also if there are small opening in your case, leave them, I used to tape all the openings to better control the airflow, but it only made things worse. I have found that often just leaving the case open results in the best cooling but I don't think you want to do that, and I am not sure it applies to all case designs maybe for some cases it makes things worse, yet an opening it the case side panel can really help.
Oh and one more thing, axial fans (the normal type that you have) can easily stall when there is resistance in the airflow and they are at high speed. So there is usually little benefit in pushing them to max speed when there is resistance in the airflow, due to for example the opening in the case being too small. When they stall they turn quickly and seem to be drawing air but in reality not much air is moved. These fans work best in free settings, without any resistance in the airflow, but in practice these conditions are never found. Centrifugal fans have a much higher "static pressure" so they can push/pull air through much higher resistance and are more reliable, but I'm not aware of them being used in regular computer cases, I'm sure there will be some questions and problem in doing that. For one thing they are usually much more noisy.