Question Best fan direction in new case with Corsair H60?

[wdcook87]

Noticed my i7 4770k was hitting high 60's while gaming right away and that's definitely not right with my Corsair H60 v2 cooler.
I recently bought the DIYPC-BG01 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811353121&ignorebbr=1

I added the h60 to the top open front fan slot where the disk drive would normally go. with the fan pushing air through the radiator into the case. I've seen a lot of people install this model in the back by the i/o sucking air in but that would leave no exhaust fans unless I switch the front fan orientation. I also plugged the pump into the cpu_fan and the radiator fan into the cpu-optional. After doing some reading I tried it backwards to control fan speed better but it did not want to boot like that. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

 

[CountMike]

Try with pump connected to some other place where it would get full speed. CPU_FAN and cpu-optional are same so with pump and fan on same controller they'd be fighting each other and speeds would not be accurate, probably too low. If you have hot air coming from radiator, you can ad another fan to it so it's push-pull config.

 

[wdcook87]

Try with pump connected to some other place where it would get full speed.

Would the cpu_optional be fine or go with chassis? Do I also still try the radiator fan back on cpu_fan?

 

[CountMike]

Yes, get pump connected to CHA_Fan and set it to full speed and try like that. As for rad placement, it's double edged sword. If set as intake it pulls cool air from outside but tends to keep temps in the case higher. If set as exhaust, it pulls worm/hot air from the case and doesn't cool CPU as good.

 

[wdcook87]

Really appreciate your help CountMike! For the last part I meant should I attach the radiator fan pins to the cpu_fan after I move the pump to a CHA_fan?

 

[CountMike]

Really appreciate your help CountMike! For the last part I meant should I attach the radiator fan pins to the cpu_fan after I move the pump to a CHA_fan?

Yes, that's right place for it. You want to regulate it's speed by CPU temperature just like with air cooling so they are more quiet most of the time. Pumps don't make nearly that much noise.

 

[wdcook87]

Thanks a lot CountMike, will give a go when I get out of work and post results. Thanks again!

 

[wdcook87]

Setting it up the way suggested with the radiator fan in cpu_fan and pump in cha_fan left me with the CPU fan error on boot again. I did some reading and ended up disabling the check in bios and it worked fine after startup.
It does seem to be getting a little high in temps. After about 20 minutes of playing fortnite which is the only game on the pc atm it got to around 68 with 74 hitting once for a second at only 40% load. Is it alright with this case then that I have 2 intake fans below the h60 radiator also positioned to blow air over the radiator with only one exhaust?

 

[CountMike]

With now actually 3 fans blowing in, one exhaust fan may be too little, whole idea is to have as much flow thru the case as possible. If your case has place for top fans I'd suggest you put one in there as exhaust.

 

[wdcook87]

Unfortunately there is no top fan mount slots, it's a pretty budget case.

 

[Karadjgne]

Corsair directions state the pump goes to cpu_fan and the fan goes anywhere else. There's a reason for that. Cpus protect themselves via the cpu_fan header (dedicated pwm, so a 3pin automatically runs full 12v constant) which if it reads 0rpm will refuse to boot or shut off. Corsair has less faith in its pump than in its fan, so if the pump fails, cpu is protected.
But.
This leaves no cpu temp control on the fan, so popular habits are contrary to Corsair instructions, ppl use cpu_opt/aux or sys_fan header (set in bios for 100% duty cycle) for the pump and a pwm fan (not Corsair noisy stock fan) on the radiator. My own H55 is setup this way. Works fine. It's exactly the same setup as if you were using a standard aircooler, a fan is a fan. Doesn't change because it's attached to a radiator. Not sure why you'd get a boot error with a fan plugged into cpu_fan.

When mounted on the rear, it's not as intake, it's as exhaust, case air is shoved through the rad and out the back (or pulled). Same orientation at front is an intake. There's Usually a 2-3°C difference in temps, at front case/gpu temps are 2-3°C higher than baseline, cpu is cooler. At exhaust, the cpu is 2-3°C higher than baseline but case/gpu temps are lower. Not really a big deal overall. A fan at exhaust works just the same as exhaust whether it has a radiator behind it or not.

So you can front mount or rear exhaust, it's not going to make much of an overall difference, many new cases are using front intakes as 280/360mm possible mounts and leaving 120/240 as rear or top.

 

[wdcook87]

It is really odd that it was giving me the cpu fan error on boot but it appears to be a pretty common thing for some reason when hooking up the pump to a chassis fan and radiator to cpu after doing some googling on the problem. I saw another person wrote on another forum I was searching that the cpu_opt will also supply %100 speed so I'm trying cpu_fan connected to radiator fan and pump to cpu_opt with the check disabled in bios so I can get past the error.