Finally got my airflow right after a LAN party in Phoenix taught me the lesson

I went to this buddy's place last month for a big LAN. My rig kept throttling after like 20 minutes of gaming. This other guy there had a nearly identical setup but his temps were 10 degrees cooler. He just looked at mine and said "your top fans are fighting the front ones." I had three intakes up front and two exhausts on top, but the top ones were too close to the front so the air was just looping. Moved them back one slot and flipped one to intake. Throttling gone. I always thought more fans equaled better airflow. Has anyone else had a dumb airflow mistake that a second pair of eyes caught?

2 comments

2 Comments

nathanbennett25d ago

Dude, that exact thing happened to me. I spent weeks messing with fan curves and repasting my CPU, thinking I was losing the silicon lottery or something. Then a friend came over, took one look, and pointed out my rear exhaust was basically swallowing the top rear intake's air before it could even hit the case. It was just a mess of swirl. Moved the top fan forward a bit and flipped my front two to push through the radiator instead of pulling. Night and day difference. I felt like such an idiot for not just stepping back and looking at the whole picture. Sometimes you get so deep in the details you miss the obvious stuff.

sean_murray23d ago

Three years ago I watched a guy rebuild his entire garage setup cause his race rig kept overheating. Turned out his AC vent was blowing right into his intake. We all do it, @nathanbennett. Get tunnel vision on one thing and miss the 10 second fix right in front of us.