How to Determine PC Fan Airflow Direction  

That is exactly right - the Air comes out of the end where the hub support brackets exist. However, there are newly released 'High End' fans that come with a second set of blades to reverse that 🙂

​@@PE4Doersmontech offers the rx120 with reversed blades as well (as opposed to the ax120) :)

@@JustCarnivorousCupcake I've heard about those. I need to get some - hint hint Montech (I will dedicate a whole video to them if you sent me a couple or a hundred.

Oh no

I have my fans the wrong way 😐 thanks short but helpful video

Haha 445 am and I’m switch fan orientation

Don’t know if you’ve changed it since this comment since it’s a year old but you wanna have fans sucking air into your GPU rather than blowing, if the fans have the branding visible on the GPU they’re in the correct orientation. If they’re the other way around, with the specs of the fan visible, your gpu is being suffocated as the fans won’t be pushing as much air around and the only air that’s being pushed by them would be all the hot air inside the gpu’s heatsink already. Hope you’ve got it sorted by now though :)

I assume you mean the part about the air coming out through the Fan 'bracket' end. That is how I usually make all 'snap' decisions about the Air Flow direction.

You are quite welcome

Thank you.

just be careful the Fans don't hit your fingers. Generally though, the come out the side of the fan that has the frame holding the hub of the blades.

Very few will work that way, most will just not work, others will overheat. If it a a three or four-wire it will most likely NOT work. If two-wire, then it rarely works, and some will just overheat. I did it once by accident on two-wire and it did not work.

There are Pros and Cons. Water-cooling is able to focus it's primary cooling strength on the areas needed better than regular fan coolers, however they require lots of monitoring and maintenance.

There is nothing technically or electronically wrong with doing that. It may actually keep you monitor cooler.

It is all very confusing, for sure. When I do my next high-end build as a replacement for my primary editing rig, I will be spending some time not only discussing my choices for fan airflow, but I will also do some testing of that airflow with something never intended for that purpose. To give a quick summarize here though. All the case fans I have worked with push the air through the grill-side. I have heard there are some exceptions, however I never encountered them, even on those that use 110/120v to keep audio component cabinets cool. As far as placement, I have found that it works best to have all fans at the front and bottom blowing in, and all those at the back and top blowing out. Finally, every attempt should be made to filter all fans blowing in, and to have more of them blowing in rather than out. This will generally keep a positive airflow into the case with a minimal of dusk build up that could cause some components to overheat over time. The logic behind the positive airflow is to push excess air through all the small cracks and openings rather than sucking dusty air in. All hospitals tend to do this to reduce germs in the air.

@@PE4Doers thanks a lot for the thorough reply! The build I’m doing now is fairly basic without all the flashiness you’d expect from a custom build. I’ve only ever done one other build before and it was for myself. logically some parts are going to be less labeled than high-end brand name components. It is strange when I look this stuff up on Google and I’ll see images labeling the opposite along with placement for fans being totally different from the standard. It didn’t help that I sort of placed a time limit on myself by taking the parts to my in-laws to show my brother in law the process. I had to stop short and pack things away safely when I realized Newegg gave me an AMD cooler mount for my Intel CPU/monitor. I’ll be sure to sub to keep myself informed!

@@bigman7856 You are very welcome. I depend on comments to keep me focused on what content I should focus on (since my niche is quite large), so you comment helps me enormously. I wish you all the luck with your build Sir.

You are very welcome.

Yes, that is a key aspect. Just try to have more air blowing in than being sucked out (such as three fans in and two out). If you do the reverse you will create a negative pressure in the case which will not only get hotter, but will lead to air coming in through unfiltered opening in the case.

@@PE4Doers what if i have only one fan should it blow in or out

@@Mo3tez That depends on where you are able to put it. Ideally I would say at the front of the lowest position and that should blow in. If you are only able to place it at the top or in the back, then it should be at the highest or rearmost point position and blowing out. I always suggest at least one of each, with the one blowing in having the highest air movement capability (either in speed or size).

That would work, as long as you pick the correct spin direction.

That would create unnecessary electric ehich probably won't but break the fan

@@flintfrommother3gaming In the first year of this channel (early 2019) I did a test of that theory, which showed spinning the fan does not generate any electrical current. This is due to the isolation diodes that most manufacturers include in the circuitry to prevent all the fans from blowing out during a power surge.

Yes, I have used chalk (a former teacher - or Adjunct Professor in my case, never throws out chalk - even with a prevalence of White Board Markers, since they fail a lot). I also believe I mentioned that 'White Out should work as well as long as you wiped off the excess.