Are Cpu fans intakes, exhausts, or both?

[W4RW1NG]

Are Cpu fans intakes, exhausts, or can they be both?

 

[USAFRet]

Are Cpu fans intakes, exhausts, or can they be both?

This question does not really make sense.

It depends on what CPU cooler you have.

 

[Woohoopy]

Every fan can be either, based if you place the fan "inside-out" or "outside-in".

CPU fans are designed for exhaust, as they blow the hot air away from the CPU, but some dual fan CPUs have two fans, one as intake and one as exhaust.

Cheers mate, hope this helps.

 

[techgeek]

Are you speaking about a tower style heatsink? If so, in a typical single fan situation, the fan is located on the side of the heatsink that faces the front of the tower (on the RAM side) and it blows air through the heatsink towards the back of the case.

In a two fan configuration (push - pull), the fan mentioned above is the same. The fan mounted on the other side of the heatsink is mounted to assist the first fan, so it is oriented to suck air through the heatsink.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

General Rules of Thumb:

Case Fans:

Front - Intake with filter
Bottom - Intake with filter
Sides - Intake with filter
Rear - Exhaust
Top - Exhaust *

* Your intake fans will have air flow restricted by inlet air filters. Maximum number of exhaust fans should therefore be between 2/3 and 3/4 of the number of intake fans. Example: Two front and one bottom intake fan x 2/3 = 2 exhaust fans. If you put on in rear and one on top, your fine. If you put three on top and one in rear, you will be pulling out twice as much air as you blowing in. This will result in sucking in air thru the rear case grille and slot grilles. And what comes in with that air ? ... all your hot GFX card and PSU exhaust along with dust.

CPU Cooler Fans:

Where possible, always blow to rear of case ... they are neither intake or exhaust ... one towards the front of the cases "pushes" air thru the heatsink, the other one "pulls" air thru the heatsink.

Radiator Fans:

Always intakes, no exceptions

There's nothing wrong with having 5 fans blowing in and 1 blowing out. Most peeps fail to acknowledge the effect of one of their cases best cooling features.... the rear case grille. You have an attic fan ?... is there a corresponding intake fan ? ... or is there a intake louver or grille ? When you continuously blow air into an enclosed container case, only two things can happen

1. The air gets out
2. The container explodes