Help with fan direction in a portable mame cabinet/control panel

[Pioneer]

I have two holes cut for fans out the back of my portable mame cabinet/control panel. 

I was wondering if both fans should blow out or if one should blow in and one out for air flow?

[javeryh]

I'm not sure but my guess would be one in and the other out to create some circulation.

[SlyDog]

AHH the age old questiong,, Is it better to blow or to suck.

Depends on how much time you have to test it.  I only use one fan and i found it was cooler to flow into the cab than flow out.  with two fans you have 3 choices 2 in, 2 out, or 1in 1out.  Try each one wait about 10 min (doing something strenuous of course) and see what the core temp is.  I personally would "guess" that one in one out would be the best way to go.  You would blow in cold air and suck the hot air outside.

[Pioneer]

Yeah it sounds good but I heard that if you're pulling in air that it's going to bring alot of dust onto the mobo (No I'm Sayin') Is this true.

[RetroACTIVE]

Generally IMHO you would want to move air across whatever you want to keep cool, transferring the heat from it.

With that...consider using only one fan, blowing fresh air in and the other hole is the exhaust port where the warm air is evacuated... Adding a dust filter of some sort on the fan port will help keep crud out.

[vrf]

It's not a very good airflow setup to have both your intake and exhaust right next to each other. You need cool air moving across the entire case, and especially the CPU area. So... cool air in on one side, hot air out the other.



In your situation, I'd have some several small intake vents (covered with mesh) in the front (or bottom front) of your box, and have BOTH back holes with a fan blowing out.

[Necro]

I have to agree with VRF.

Although, depending on your setup just having two rear fans blowing in might bring down the temp enough that it wont matter.  A big part of the heat in the case would be the overall airspace available.

If you want all things on the rear, and want to do both in and out, your best bet would be to have the intake at the bottom, and the exhaust higher up.  Since hot air rises, it would result in better exhaust of hotter air, and the cooler air would hit your components directly.

and you could put in a baffle type thing (board) above the PC components and intake, forcing the air to take a path past the PC, and around to the exhaust.  Although now your just going overboard.

As for dust, put a few mesh filters over your fans and clean them every 2-3 weeks.  It'll keep dust to a minimum inside...though it won't make it perfect.  If you just do exhausts, your going to get dust also because you create negative pressure inside the case/cab and it will suck air in from wherever there's a gap in the case - and with it dust.

[PetitMorte]

This is how you want your heat to go..



The way cabs and vents are set up, is like a chimney for heat.  This is why the old cabs didn't have fans.

[kelemvor]

It the fans are on opposite sides of the cabinet, or one is at the bottom and the other is at the top, then you should have one goig each way to help with the circulation.  However the one blowing IN should be blowing directly onto the moutherboard and such to keep it cool.

However if both are near each other, than I would have them both blowing in (and still directly on the MB) as long as there is another vent somewhere that the air could then go out.

And like Petit said, heat rises.  So you could just have an opening up at the top and a single (or even no) fan in the bottom and the heat would rise up by itself and your fan would just be giving it some help.  But by blowing directly on the stuff thta's getting hot, it will help to cool it faster.