Water cooler fan placement help.

[neb1006]

Hey all, I recently put in a water cooler for my cpu, a masterliquid cooler, but I noticed something, I mounted the fan on the top of the case using a push pull fan setup, but just recently I noticed an awful grinding sound when the fans run full speed - I removed the top fan “pull fan” and noticed it had actually been hitting and damaging the radiator fins, my question would be “apart from replace it” should I be mounting the top “pull fan” on the radiator, or should I have the top part of my case between the radiator and fan. There should be enough room on the top of the case for clearance for a fan and the case top itself “the lid”

 

[Math Geek]

should be room to keep all the fans inside the case. sounds like that is how it is now with only the rubbing as an issue, you may just need a small spacer for the "pull" fan to keep it from rubbing against the radiator. a simple little rubber/cork/metal/..... washer would easily do the trick of separating them. however, i'd look that fan over closely to see why it is rubbing. the fan may be messed up since they are obviously designed to allow for clearance when it is mounted. it should not rub at all. be sure it has not cracked the housing or something else to allow the fan itself to be outside the housing.

 

[neb1006]

should be room to keep all the fans inside the case. sounds like that is how it is now with only the rubbing as an issue, you may just need a small spacer for the "pull" fan to keep it from rubbing against the radiator. a simple little rubber/cork/metal/..... washer would easily do the trick of separating them. however, i'd look that fan over closely to see why it is rubbing. the fan may be messed up since they are obviously designed to allow for clearance when it is mounted. it should not rub at all. be sure it has not cracked the housing or something else to allow the fan itself to be outside the housing.

I’ve had the fan out and the radiator to see if I couldn’t find out why on Earth it’s rubbing. I cannot figure it out, there’s plenty of room for the fan, it almost looks like the fan had slipped down its bearing and was rubbing mostly on one side of the radiator. I’m thinking of switching the fans around and see how that does. Other then that I’m clueless.

 

[Math Geek]

interesting. never seen that myself but does not mean it is not possible. if the fan wants to slip down, perhaps moving it from pull to push side will let it hang that small bit and not hit anything. other than replacing it, seems like a valid option.

fans are pretty cheap though and a decent SP fan would not cost much to replace it with.