Choplol

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Aug 31, 2019
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Hi guys, i have a q300l and have some temp issues. i have 2 120 mm fans in front (intake) and 1 rear exhaust plus top rear exhaust 120 mm (both noctua).

but the temps rise still to 70-76 while gaming. especially the gpu. so i was thinking if it would help, if i just duct tape all the holes in front, top and bottom and only leave the fan holes open?

alternatively, i could cut out holes or drill more holes? (which i would not prefer)

my system: Ryzen 2600, 1070
 
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Ok thank you for your answer and the warm welcome. maybe i can work around if i add/reduce the amount of fans i have and try some other exhaust or intake constellations. weird thing is, after i added 1 noctua fan at front on the lowest position, the gpu temps were getting higher. really weird!

i will try 2 fans top exhaust, 1 rear exhaust, 2 top intake.... i will see how it will work out.
Once again, if you are reaching top temperatures of around 75 degrees, you don't NEED to change anything.
The throttle temperature of the 2600 is around 91 degrees.
And keeping the CPU below around 85 is perfectly safe and it is made to endure as such.

Personally, I wouldn't go changing anything unless you need to, and based on what you've...

PC Tailor

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Welcome to the forums my friend!

Absolutely not! If you're referring to literally covering up all vents and air spaces with duct tape to leave just the fans left, there will be no benefit in doing this.

Ultimately, don't fix what isn't broken. 76 degrees under heavy load with a stock cooler is perfectly fine! If you were hitting temps above 85 degrees, then you may need some upgrades, but covering up the case with duct tape would not be the appropriate way to do so my friend :)
 

Choplol

Commendable
Aug 31, 2019
13
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1,515
Ok thank you for your answer and the warm welcome. maybe i can work around if i add/reduce the amount of fans i have and try some other exhaust or intake constellations. weird thing is, after i added 1 noctua fan at front on the lowest position, the gpu temps were getting higher. really weird!

i will try 2 fans top exhaust, 1 rear exhaust, 2 top intake.... i will see how it will work out.
 

PC Tailor

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Ok thank you for your answer and the warm welcome. maybe i can work around if i add/reduce the amount of fans i have and try some other exhaust or intake constellations. weird thing is, after i added 1 noctua fan at front on the lowest position, the gpu temps were getting higher. really weird!

i will try 2 fans top exhaust, 1 rear exhaust, 2 top intake.... i will see how it will work out.
Once again, if you are reaching top temperatures of around 75 degrees, you don't NEED to change anything.
The throttle temperature of the 2600 is around 91 degrees.
And keeping the CPU below around 85 is perfectly safe and it is made to endure as such.

Personally, I wouldn't go changing anything unless you need to, and based on what you've described, you don't need to. Your components are made to endure those temperatures .
 
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Solution

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Also to clarify, air flow should look like this:

ideal.png
 
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Choplol

Commendable
Aug 31, 2019
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After some testing and research, it looks like, that my case (q300l) is just terrible for larger GPUs. My Gainward 1070 cant breath enough i guess. is there any optimal Fan Setup for my case? (stock cpu cooler)

i some games with full settings and my gpu reached 81°C. i know, you guys said, its nothing to worry about, but there are also people, who play with under 70°C without problems.

maybe i should try to focus on negative Pressure cause my case has so many holes, so it can get rid of the hot air asap. dont know if thats smart tho...

my next test is gonna be 1 upper Front intake, 1 rear exhaust 1 bottom intake, so the GPU gets more cooling. i tried 2 front intakes, and the gpu gets bit hotter that way... really weird. or maybe put a custom fan curve for my gpu...
 

Karadjgne

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The 1070/ti runs hot anyways. Just the nature of the card. But gpus generally run @ 10°C ± higher than cpus, so your temps are fine, if a little toasty.

If you add a lower intake fan at front, use a higher static pressure fan, not a higher cfm fan. You don't need air volume as much as getting the air there to the gpu.

Play around with your fan curves. Amd/intel only care about a functional system, that means temps below throttle, they don't care if it's warm or cooler. Only you do. So adjusting case fan curves to put a little more air into the case, and shoving more air out the exhausts will only be to your benefit.
 
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Choplol

Commendable
Aug 31, 2019
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The 1070/ti runs hot anyways. Just the nature of the card. But gpus generally run @ 10°C ± higher than cpus, so your temps are fine, if a little toasty.

If you add a lower intake fan at front, use a higher static pressure fan, not a higher cfm fan. You don't need air volume as much as getting the air there to the gpu.

Play around with your fan curves. Amd/intel only care about a functional system, that means temps below throttle, they don't care if it's warm or cooler. Only you do. So adjusting case fan curves to put a little more air into the case, and shoving more air out the exhausts will only be to your benefit.
do you mean front bottom or bottom of the case, cause the supports 1 fan at bottom. i put a noctua nfp12 redux 1700 at the bottom. should i use the case horizontaly with a fan at bottom? or would be 2 fans front intake 1 rear plus fan curve enough (till i get a new case in a couple of months)

do you happen to know how a good fan curve might look like? (1:1 ratio? or something else?)
sorry for asking so much
 

Choplol

Commendable
Aug 31, 2019
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Not temporarily, it's just identifying if allowing ambient air to enter the case helps, because if so, you know that residual heat inside the case is causing an issue.
Well after some testing with 2 fans front intake, 1 rear outtake, with 3d benchmark and 45 min full settings on fortnite my temps were 80-81C° max on gpu and 70-72C on cpu max
 
Those temps are within spec. Not terrific, but just barely acceptable.

For the record, in the future, call them exhaust fans, not outtake. No such thing as outtake. Intake or exhaust. Just so you sound like you know, which now, you do.

I'd highly recommend for that case that you have 2 140mm fans in front as intake, a 120mm fan in the rear as exhaust and a 120mm fan in the top rear as an exhaust. Keep in mind that intake fans, while important to bring cool air in, are almost of no consequence without having an adequate number of exhaust fans to get heat OUT of the case and to reduce the build up of pressure that the intake fans will have to struggle against in order to continue bringing fresh air into the case. Positive pressure, with more intake airflow than exhaust is a good configuration for dust suppression but a negative or neutral pressure arrangement is better for optimal cooling performance. Right now you are about double the intake as you are exhaust, so your front fans are going to not only struggle to get air in but you are also not getting heat out fast enough for the exchange of warm for cool air to happen fast enough to be of much benefit to your graphics card and CPU. Another fan for exhaust in the rear or top rear, whichever doesn't currently have a fan installed, might drop those temps another 5 degrees or so, potentially.
 
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Choplol

Commendable
Aug 31, 2019
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Those temps are within spec. Not terrific, but just barely acceptable.

For the record, in the future, call them exhaust fans, not outtake. No such thing as outtake. Intake or exhaust. Just so you sound like you know, which now, you do.

I'd highly recommend for that case that you have 2 140mm fans in front as intake, a 120mm fan in the rear as exhaust and a 120mm fan in the top rear as an exhaust. Keep in mind that intake fans, while important to bring cool air in, are almost of no consequence without having an adequate number of exhaust fans to get heat OUT of the case and to reduce the build up of pressure that the intake fans will have to struggle against in order to continue bringing fresh air into the case. Positive pressure, with more intake airflow than exhaust is a good configuration for dust suppression but a negative or neutral pressure arrangement is better for optimal cooling performance. Right now you are about double the intake as you are exhaust, so your front fans are going to not only struggle to get air in but you are also not getting heat out fast enough for the exchange of warm for cool air to happen fast enough to be of much benefit to your graphics card and CPU. Another fan for exhaust in the rear or top rear, whichever doesn't currently have a fan installed, might drop those temps another 5 degrees or so, potentially.
i will try to install another fan top rear exhaust and will post the results next week.

should the front intake fans be high pressure optimized or high cfm? same for exhaust?
 

Karadjgne

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Exhaust : high cfm. There's nothing behind the fan but a grill, so all an exhaust needs do is move a maximum amount of air.
Intake : high pressure or balanced. It's always nice to move a lot of air into a case, but, not if it doesn't go anywhere. High pressure fans move a smaller amount of air but move it stronger, so it'll go further into the case (better for gpu) and will push through stuff that's in the way like hdd bays, ton of wiring etc. Balanced will move more air than a high pressure fan, just not as hard, so if there's really no obstructions a balanced fan gets more air to the gpu than high cfm.
 
Or, you can just use fans that are both high static pressure AND high CFM, like most of Noctua's fans are. So long as you have an adequate amount of exhaust flowing out, the need for high static pressure fans in front intake locations isn't quite as critical unless you're pushing through a lot of blockage or a radiator. It's still a good idea to have something with at least 1.5mm H20 static pressure though if you're using it as an intake fan.

And the more exhaust you have, the lower the internal case pressure will be and the less the need for the front fans to have a high static pressure rating will be. In fact, as an extreme example, not that you'd want to do this, but if you had four decent exhaust fans and only two intake fans, there would be such a negative pressure equalibrium anyhow that practically any fan would work in front as an intake fan so long as it had decent airflow (CFM).
 
This is my normal spiel on fans.

High static pressure fans are desirable for all intake fans, radiator fans or heatsink fans. All of those types of fans will usually encounter significant resistance to airflow, so having fans with higher static pressure is desirable in those applications.

Exhaust fans do not face much resistance, so using fans with high static pressure is not necessary in those locations, however, USING them will not hurt anything either. Technically, you generally want fans with the highest CFM and highest static pressure you can reasonably afford to purchase for intakes, heatsinks or radiators. Exhaust fans, the static pressure is not very important but high airflow (CFM) is generally desirable.

For most configurations 2 x120mm, 2 x140mm or some combination of the two for both intake and exhaust are sufficient. WHEN possible, using a 140mm fan is much preferred as you are able to move an equivalent amount of air as a 120mm fan at a lower RPM resulting in a lower overal noise level.

A purely negative pressure configuration offer the BEST cooling performance, IF you are also bringing in enough ambient air for the graphics card and CPU cooler (IF you are using an air cooler on the CPU, otherwise, much of the configuration design mentioned here might need to be mildly altered) by way of intake fans.

Positive pressure configurations offer dust suppression. Neutral pressure, with an equal, or nearly equal amount of airflow coming in as what is going out, offers a good solution that meets both types halfway. This is the MOST recommended configuration. If you want the best cooling performance, then you might not only add another exhaust fan to that top rear position like I said, but make sure it is a high CFM model AND also maybe replace the current rear exhaust fan with a model that has a higher CFM rating as well.

In reality we like to see a NEUTRAL pressure arrangement, where there is roughly the same number of intake and exhaust fans with somewhat similar airflow characteristics aside from the fact that we want or prefer to see higher static pressure specs on intake fans.

BeQuiet fans are only good in regard to noise levels, and that is only because they tend to run their fans at a maximum RPM that is significantly lower than most other comparably sized fans. They are good for systems that don't need great cooling and silence is more important, although you can technically do that with any fan by adjusting the fan curve in the bios and capping it at a speed that is acceptable.

If performance is more important, I would stick to fans by Noctua (And yes, they have black models now so you are not stuck with baby poop brown), Thermalright (Not to be confused with Thermaltake) or even possibly the EVGA FX 140 or 120m fans which move a lot of air but are a bit noisier than these others. Corsair Maglev fans are also fairly good.

There are many fans out there which are more than sufficient for an average build without the need for an particularly high performance fan, but when you want a good fan you can't go wrong with the above recommendations.
 

Karadjgne

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Hmm. I'm gonna have to slightly disagree with you db. As far as exhaust vrs pressure fans goes. Fans work by creating a low pressure cone in front, and nature abhors a vacuum, so any surrounding air that's higher pressure will move to fill the void. You slap 4x exhausts up top, that's a very strong low pressure area and any air coming from the intakes in front will move to fill it. On a diagonal, low front to high rear. And guess what gets no air? The gpu sitting low rear. You'd absolutely need high pressure fans as intakes to get the air to the gpu before the exhausts grab ahold of it.

A really long card like some of the triple fan designs wouldn't be so bad off, but the newer shorty's with single fans will cook.

Not going to argue about the Noctua A series or the old NF-F12 etc, they out class just about every other fan across the board lol.
 
It doesn't matter though, it is STILL better than not having ENOUGH airflow through the case. By effect of residual movement at least some of that heated air coming from the graphics card is going to get sucked out and some of the warmer air below the graphics card is going to be displaced. Guess what is happening if all you are doing is trying to stuff more and more air into the case but you are not getting any of it out.

Nothing, that's what. A big fat nothing burger. Mostly you'll just end up with your intake fans floundering and not doing much of anything at all because they can't overcome the pressure they've already created inside the case because you have too many burgers going in and no burgers going out. Just like you. You can't eat more burgers unless you get rid of some burgers you already ate. Eventually, and rather quickly, the whole works will get backed up and you know this.

Besides whichit doesn't matter that my example, which I SAID was an extreme and not recommended by the way, wouldn't specifically result in an optimal airpath through the case, it wasn't supposed to. It was only intended to be an example, and I specifically said this as well, of how ANY fan COULD be used as an intake fan if you had enough exhaust fans dropping the internal air pressure to the point where there was little to no resistance against the flow of air coming from the intake fans. In essence an arrangement like that would mean that the intake fans would be unlikely to encounter any more resistance than the exhaust fans, because there would already be a tremendous negative pressure situation inside the case.

None of which had anything to do with graphics card cooling or creating an optimal airflow path. It was ONLY intended to show cause and effect on the static pressure requirements of fans based on what else is going on in the system.

Also, you'd be surprised how much a pair of 90mm fans flying at 2500rpm can alter that diagnal path, at least well enough to borrow what it needs. Especially if there are drive cages in the case that block a direct flow from intake to top rear fan locations and force the air to navigate around the drive cages nearer to the graphics card. But that' irrelevant to what I was I was trying to explain and also irrelevant if it's case without drive cages on the main side of the tray.
 
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Karadjgne

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A big fat nothing burger? Damn, I actually did laugh out loud at that. And I do get what you mean about extreme. Just to my way of seeing things, higher cfm fans loose a lot of sp at lower rpm. So the air goes in, but doesn't go anywhere but up towards the exhausts. Granted some does float towards the gpu fans, they have suction of their own, but conversely if they aren't running high rpms either, they too loose Alot of draw. A higher pressure fan at intake doesn't loose as much pressure at lower rpm, so will feed the gpu far better at any rpm range.

Nobody runs fans maxed, even gaming loaded cpu/gpu fans unless something is really out of whack with temps being pushed over normal usage. My gpu fans rarely see over 1300rpm,case fans sit around 50% (600rpm) and cpu might reach 60% (700rpm.)

So from my perspective, getting a decent portion of air at the gpu is more important. I'd rather get a solid 30cfm at the gpu from 50cfm pressure fans than get 10cfm from 100cfm air volume fans.

If that makes any sense.
 
When did you ever see a graphics card with thermal issues that wasn't running it's fans at full speed? If you did, then you saw a system that was poorly configured in the utility being used to control the fan curve for the graphics card, because if the card is getting hot, the fans should be running fast or at full speed.

And again, you are missing the point. The point wasn't about the cooling configuration AS A WHOLE. It was ONLY about the fact that if there isn't any resistance behind the intake fan, it doesn't matter whether it has high static pressure or not. But since there will almost always BE resistance and back pressure behind an intake fan, then it pretty much always DOES matter whether they have good static pressure characteristics. Go back and read what I was explaining and you will see that it had nothing to do with recommendations for a cooling profile or an airpath configuration. It was only an explanation of how, when and why you MIGHT want or not want, high static pressure fans.

If there is nothing behind the intake fans, then they are essentially the same as exhaust fans. But, there will always be something behind the intake fans, unless the side panel is off or it's an open air case.
 
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Choplol

Commendable
Aug 31, 2019
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1,515
I have to thank all of you for this much Information !! Very helpful.

Right now i have
120mm Noctua 12x25,
120mm nf p12 redux 1700
120mm nf s12b reduziert
And a 140mm pure Wings 2 lying Around!

I know they are all different but i Wanted to Test around.

Should I get different Fans or can i make it work with what i have ?
 

Karadjgne

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I'd put :
the s12 as rear exhaust.
The A12x25 as low intake.
The Purewings as high intake.
The P12 as top rear exhaust.

DB, I think we are basically saying the same thing, from 2 different directions, which is not uncommon for me as I don't think like neuro-typical ppl. So plz don't take it personally.
 
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