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Found out my airflow was backwards after 3 years of building
I was at a local LAN party last month and a guy looked at my rig and just laughed. He pointed out my top fans were set as intake instead of exhaust. I argued with him for a solid 10 minutes until he showed me his temp readings with a laser thermometer. My CPU was running 12 degrees hotter than his identical build. I had been copying some YouTuber's setup without thinking about basic physics. Hot air rises and I was just pushing it back down into my GPU. Has anyone else made this simple mistake or am I the only one who skipped that day of class?
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olivere301mo ago
Yeah I did the same thing with my front panel fans. Had them as exhaust for like a year wondering why my GPU was cooking. Swapped them around and dropped 15 degrees easy.
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sagey691mo ago
12 degrees really isnt the end of the world though. @olivere30 a 15 degree swing sounds like you had zero airflow at all. Most hardware can handle 80c just fine for years. I ran my old 970 with a clogged heatsink for two years hitting 90c daily and it still works in my buddy's kid's PC right now. People act like a couple hot fans is gonna melt the chip but these things are built with pretty big safety margins.
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