CPU Fan facing wrong way - help?

[Fanhelp]

I had my friends brother build it for me and I've noticed it seems the cpu fan is facing the wrong way.

If it is, how would I go about changing it? Could I just clip off the fan and put it on the other side of the heat sink or do I need to unscrew the whole thing and turn it around? If so how do I deal with the thermal paste already applied? Do I wipe it off and reapply or leave it? Also would I need to remove anything else (graphic cards etc) to do this?

https://imgur.com/Y6GzBJT Photo here of what I'm talking about. Please excuse the cables I'm still waiting to do cable management but wanted to wait till I figured out the cpu fan situation. I'm not really sure why my friends brother put it on that way, for all I know I might be wrong and it can face this way!

But regardless, a thorough answer on what I need to do to fix this would be super helpful.

 

[DRagor]

If you can remove just fan from heatsink, and put in on the other end, then it is definitely simplest way to do it. Otherwise, you will need to remove the whole cooler, clean thermal paste from both CPU and heatsink, apply new paste and mount the cooler in proper orientation.

 

[gasaraki]

Depends. Is the fan doing a pull method now? If not here are the options.

1- Unclip fan and switch orientation to the pull method. The fan will stay on the left side of the heatsink.
2- Take off heatsink and rotate heatsink so the fan is on the right side pushing air through
3- If heatsink supports fans on both side you can unclip fan and then mount it on the right side in the push config without taking the heatsink off.

It really depends on how hard it is to unclip the fan when the heatsink is still mounted.

 

[coozie7]

You won't be able to swap the fan side-for-side, the memory modules will be in the way.
Check the fan is blowing out, towards the case exhaust fan, if it is all is fine, if not you should be able to just unclip the fan and turn it round so it is blowing out.

 

[synphul]

I can't tell from the photo which direction the fan is blowing. With the pc on, try placing a small piece of paper near the heatsink along the front where there is no fan. Does the paper gently pull against the heatsink fins or does it blow away toward the ram?

Agree completely with gasaraki, the fan can more than likely be unclipped and using those wire clips, reattached to the other side. The trouble is whether or not you can get your fingers in there to release the clips without uninstalling the cooler. It appears they did install the cooler backwards, I have a bequiet cooler as well and installed the way it was intended the 'bequiet' logo faces the other way with the 'b' on the bottom rather than the top.

It shouldn't make any difference if you can move the fan to the front side of the cooler next to the ram as far as the logo is concerned and tower orientation. It just would have been easier to have installed it the right way from the beginning. Generally if using a single fan with a tower cooler, the best performance is with the fan at the front in 'push' (pushing air from front to rear toward the case's rear exhaust fan). If the fan is blowing the right direction toward the rear of the case it can be left alone in 'pull' configuration but may reduce cooling by a few degrees C.

If your friend installed the cooler as it comes out of the packaging in that orientation I can almost bet it's blowing air from back to front which is fighting with the rear case exhaust blowing front to rear. That's not very effective for cooling.

This page may help and shows pictures of how the cooler will fit in regards to ram etc when the fan is mounted properly.
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/6131/be-quiet-dark-rock-3-cpu-cooler-review/index5.html