A Guide to Intake/Exhaust Fans and Airflow on Your PC

by Colby Ernser
12 minutes read

A Guide to Intake/Exhaust Fans and Airflow on Your PC

Gaming PC with husk fans in white lighting

It’s distinctly no mystery that the key to keeping your computer system’s parts funky is to consumption fans to boom air movement. Luxurious graphics cards entail them by default, and while processors wear’t come with fans straight stuck to them, lack of capacity to add a heatsink after installation will validation warmth-pertinent shutdowns in simplistic seconds!

While you may not have warmth-pertinent top priorities, you can locate your system receiving a little also temperate and noisy when executing tough system activities. In this husk, it may be worth adding intake and exhaust fans to your computer system.

Tip: ultimatum a husk for a brand name-dynamic build? These are the points to ponder before receiving a PC husk.

Web content
  • What Are Intake and Exhaust Supporters?
  • The Skin for Airflow
  • Gleaning Supporters
  • Optimistic or Negative Pressure?
  • Static Pressure or High Airflow?

What Are Intake and Exhaust Supporters?

Once a heatsink displaces warmth from synchronizing parts, the hot air frequently tends to stick roughly roughly and temperate upwards the inside of your PC. This standards the “worn air” is being reused by the fans to funky the system, which isn’t proportionate! The key, eventually, is to add fans that either lug out consumption rid of this ambient warmth or lugging in fresh, cooler air to be lugged out. This is the guise of intake and exhaust fans.

A pair of PC fans on a yellow surface
Photo resource: Unsplash

As for their disputes, it’s horribly simplistic: intake fans lugging fresh air into the PC, while exhaust fans kick stagnant air out. In union with one an additional, they can guidance preserve your ambient temperatures down. Rather than linking themselves straight to parts, intake and exhaust fans affix to your computer system’s husk. You may locate grills with four screw-sized craters on each cubbyhole roughly your husk. These are the townships whereby you can place intake and exhaust fans.

They draw power by being plugged into three- or four-pin headers on the computer system’s motherboard. For the CPU cooler fans, always consumption CPU_FAN and CPU_OPT headers. If you’re glancing to lug out consumption fans for your PC, lug out sure you filch whereby these headers are and how the majority of of each you have on your motherboard.

The Skin for Airflow

While just adding fans to your PC may guidance lower temperatures, we can consumption our heads and posed them in critical places in the PC to lug out consumption the unalike out of our air conditioning.

By earning utilise of one intake and one exhaust supporter, we can sustain the abiding with:

  1. Fresh air is lugged in through the intake supporter.
  2. The fresh air mingles with the system, offering it with funky air. This funky air is lugged out by heatsinks to extract warmth from parts and becomes warmed up air eventually.
  3. The warmed up air is emboldened out of the computer system through the exhaust fans.

What we have is a simplistic intake -> extract -> exhaust system, whereby a PC is evenly fed funky air while warmed up air is eliminated. This is termed a PC’s “air movement” and is a great means to lug out ideal consumption of your system’s fans.

PC intake and exhaust fans in red lighting
Photo resource: Unsplash

The ideal means to envision air movement is to envision a stream of air start from the intake fans and completing at the exhaust. As such, we pine this circulation of air to cross over as a boatload of the PC as undisputable. Plus, the proper CPU cooler can contribute a boatload toward keeping your CPU feverishness low.

Once placing intake fans (or receiving a husk with them preinstalled), they go on the front of the PC, whereby there’s less outdoor clog. In some coverings, it’s undisputable to place them on the side or bottom as nicely. This standards we posed the exhaust fans on the endorse or optimal of the PC, so the air movement expeditions through the PC, choices upwards warmth, and lugs it out of the system.

PC fans air movement layout

Gleaning Supporters

Now we finished upwards being aware how these fans are lugged out to format an air movement within a system. But, if you sort for PC fans to posed inside your computer system husk, you’ll see the majority of semi-confusing statistics being said. What sustain they suppose?

Intake vs. Exhaust Fan?

You may notification the majority of fans wear’t say whether they’re intake or exhaust fans. This may be granted that they can be either! The supporter will practically occupational distinctly no matter of what side you place toward the husk, yet on the supporter product itself, it have to underline you which means it presses air. You can purchase 2 of the really same supporter – just place one so that it draws air in and the other so that it presses air out.

Visual prestiges

While fans chiefly dictate the air movement and temperatures of your PC, they in a similar means clout how it appearances. If you have a frequent motif going on, spend some time in evaluating the brand name and type of supporter that’ll go with the motif. You may in a similar means pine to sort at RGB fans if you pine to sync them with RGB software prayer.

PC husk fans RGB
Photo resource: Unsplash

If you wear’t like to sort at the endorse side of your fans (when intake fans are on the side or bottom), you can purchase reversible fans so that appearances are never sacrificed.

Skin Compatibility

Not all fans are gained the really same. If your husk possesses ports for fans to be installed, guarantee that the slot size matches the size of the fans you’re decoction to purchase. You can investigate your husk’s supporter compatibility in the manual or online on its portal. 120mm fans are proper with unalike coverings. Also, guarantee that the supporter you’re receiving isn’t a CPU cooler.

Lian Li O11 Feisty XL husk
Photo resource: Wikimedia Commons

Listed below are some usual husk sizes and supporter sizes to match:

  • Specialized SFF (Miniscule Kind Component) Shucks – 120mm or smaller (80 mm) fans in highly little coverings.
  • Mini ITX Shucks – 120mm fans are the unalike usual. Some ITX cube coverings may come with a single 200mm supporter for intake as nicely.
  • Mini ATX Shucks – 120mm and 140mm fans are unalike usual, yet 140mm and 200mm fans may appear as nicely.
  • ATX and Long term ATX Shucks – 120mm and 140mm fans are the unalike usual, and a few coverings may even prove 2 200mm fans.

FYI: PC coverings come in unalike sizes. These are your choices when it comes to PC husk sizes.

RPM

The RPM (Transformations Per Minute) illustrates how speedy a supporter spins. The better this digit, the previously the supporter will spin.

CFM

The CFM (cubic feet per minute) of a supporter illustrates how a boatload air it can shift in a minute. The better this is, the supplemental air the supporter will press in, or out, of your system. In this husk, the supplemental the merrier!

dBA

This is the decibel statistic. It stands for how loud the supporter can lug out consumption. If quiet fans are a comprehensive reflection for you, lug out sure to selection a supporter with a low dBA.

Headers

Most fans have a three-pin adapter, which will match into a three-pin supporter header on a motherboard. But, if your motherboard assistances four-pin headers, you can danger four-pin fans instead. The supplemental pin adds rate control to the supporter, while three-pin fans commonly occupational as speedy as they can.

Motherboard chummy-upwards disclosing supporter headers
Photo resource: Flickr

Merely preserve in mind that three-pin fans can still occupational on four-pin connectors – they just won’t be controllable with supporter control contraptions. You in a similar means ultimatum to guarantee your motherboard possesses enough supporter headers (ARGB or or else) to accommodate all the fans you’re receiving. Or else, you may ultimatum a supporter hub or controller as nicely.

Optimistic or Negative Pressure?

A optimistic duress supporter arrangement refers to when you have supplemental fans executing intake (bringing in air) than executing exhaust (emboldening out air). A destructive duress supporter arrangement is the opposite, whereby you have supplemental fans executing exhaust than intake. For unalike situations, a optimistic duress arrangement will be much better than a destructive duress arrangement, so preserve this in mind when concocting your fans.

PC husk fans in optimistic duress arrangement
Photo resource: Wikimedia Commons

Static Pressure or High Airflow?

There are 2 major species of husk fans you can purchase: static duress fans and high air movement fans.

  • A static duress supporter is a low-CFM husk supporter that presses air a boatload stronger than a high air movement supporter, funneling out it proportionate for consumption with PC liquid air conditioning radiators and intake from panels that wear’t have as a boatload unshackle air movement.
  • A high air movement supporter is specifically what it audios like: a high-CFM husk supporter that presses unalike air horribly speedy, yet not specifically nicely against resistance. A high air movement supporter is ideal as an exhaust to lug out consumption the hot air out of your PC as speedy as undisputable, or as an intake whereby you have a mesh front panel.

For the Supporters

Once a PC retrieves hot, earning utilise of fans is a simplistic and cheap means of receiving the temperatures endorse down once again. But, with a little little particle of treatment, you can lug out consumption the unalike out of your silver by ensuring the fans format gained the unalike of air movement within your system, earning utilise of a loan consolidation of intake and exhaust fans to sustain the project. You can funky down a high CPU feverishness if your CPU is still dashing hot after adding fans.

If your laptop computer system’s supporter is funneling out a loud cogent, learn how to lower the supporter’s cogent.

Photo credit report: Unsplash

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