Hi Guys, I'm a newbie to self-build and have bought a Fractal Design Define R3, P8P67, and Gelid Tranquillo heatsink. This will probably sound a stupid question, but which way round should my heatsink fan be pointing? Up, down, back of case, front of case? Thanks!
Thanks. So basically the fan should be pointing towards the front of the case (ie: on that side of the heatsink), but blowing air through the heatsink towards the back of the case? (Where there is an installed fan exhausting hot air out) Is that right?
You want it to be pulling cool air through the heatsink and out the back of the case. Air from the memory area is much cooler than air that has just been heated by the graphics card below.
Pulling the air through the heatsink? Isn't it better to have the fan pushing air through the heatsink towards the back?
Ip rob1 - You rig them up in a push/pull configuration. One fan is pushing fresh air over the heatsink (from memory area of motherboard), the other fan is pulling hot air out of the heatsink and towards the rear of the case. You wouldn't want them both pushing air over the heatsink though, because they'd be pushing the air towards each other.
It is a Gelid Tranquilo cooler so only one fan can be fitted. Fit the cooler so that the fan is between the heatsink and the memory/front of the case. Look closely at the fan and you will see arrows on it. One shows direction of rotation, the other shows the direction of the airflow. Point the airflow arrow towards the rear of the case when mounting it on the heatsink. Make sure you don't have any cables blocking the space between the motherboard and the front of the case, use cable ties to tie them back out of the way if needed (do it last after making sure everything works first). With the Fractal case you can route them behind the motherboard by using the rubber protected cable routing holes in the motherboard tray. Edit: Like this...
Hey! I migrated to the FD Define R3 in December. The way the 2 included fans are installed I would install the CPU HSF with the air being blown out the back (so the sequence would be gelid fan, gelid heatsink then case exhaust fan), which in fact works in conjunction with the installed exhaust fan... But if you install an optional 140mm in the top of the case like i did, since heat rises and the installed intake fan draws in cool air from the bottom, in this configuration it may be preferable to have my HSF blow the air upwards. I have not yet tried this because I was too lazy to reorientate my HSF but lot of new cases seem to be championing this type of configuration, would be interesting to see what others did as this case is popular and often gets case fan upgrades.
This is the proper setup: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showpost.php?p=2407833&postcount=1 (forget the content, look at the picture of the first post)
Thanks very much all! its now installed as advised. The only thing I'm worried about now is I only used a peas sized blob without spreading on the CPU (i5-2500k) but have now read that you should use a line for quad-core. Should I lift the HS and check for coverage? I've not done a first boot yet .. still installing things
Looks pretty familiar, but i just realised I have my hard disks the other way round (connectors would be showing on your photo angle, empty caddy between each, all cables routed round the back then through an empty caddy) I reasoned I would be able to unplug them quickly if I needed to swap them out, but it looks super neat your way, might need to rethink that...
Will probably be fine as the preassure between the heatsink and CPU will spread the paste, check your temps when stressed using prime 95 and coretemp, if it looks too hot then re-apply the paste. Make sure you give it a thorough cleaning so as little as possible of the old paste is in the microscopic holes. Whatever you do, don't break the seal and then put it back together without cleaning and re-applying.
Thanks Deders. It's all up and running now. Temps are 35c idle, and cores are between 59-67c on Prime 95. I presume these temps are Ok and I don't need to redo the TIM?
No - those figures were stock speed. I've now overclocked it using the Asus turbo function to 4.3Ghz and the Prime95 temps are now between 64-71c (there seems to be a quite difference between the 4 cores).
I'd re-apply the paste, those temps are similar to my overclocked i5 750, should be waaaay lower at stock speeds. still not hot enough to do any damage to it though.
