How can I prevent air from getting trapped by my video card in my case?

Question

This is an overview of the airflow in my case.

Anyway, I'm concerned that the air is getting trapped in the bottom left side of the case, under the GPU. First of all, there's no vent for it, so the air gets trapped in an endless cycle. Also, heat rises, so it doesn't really go down, just blasts against the side of my case.

There's a couple of things I've been thinking of:

• Adding a vent to the back (with an expansion slot plate) so the air can get pushed out. Although this would help, the air would be still be pretty restricted. A shroud may help in this instance, but I don't really have the skills to make a nice looking one.
• Adding a fan like this (picture below). This would definitely remove air from the area. There are two (potential) problems with this:
  • Only removing cool air (heat rises)
  • "Fighting" with the other fan, making both fans useless. This might not be a big problem, but it might cause issues.

As my GPU is, it gets fairly hot during idle. It's only 39 degrees C, but that's a lot more than my CPU's temp. It's a low profile fan, not a dual slot one. It may actually be fine, since some air might bet moved up the sides. However, it's still nowhere near ideal. As a last resort, I could add a fan attached to the side panel, but I don't want to have air blowing at me feet all the time. Also, it'd be a pain to take of the cover.

How can I cool my GPU down? If using the fan method, should I put it as low as I can or leave only a slot or two between it and my video card?

Solution

Cut a hole in the side of the case , add a fan to the side, many cases use/have that method to cool the PCI type slot area. Bringing cool air in for the GPU cooler to move around , would be sufficient. It also will be pushing cool air into the Motherboard itself to, which could be just as important if there is cheap capacitors there in the heat.

I have done it with a hole cutter that attaches to a drill before, the one with a cutting arm that is adjustable distance from the center bit. In both plastic and in a steel case.

While I agree completely that hot air rises, and designing flow with that, is better than a flow design ignoring that, the forced air from the fans is much stronger than convection flow. Some of the designs fail the convection flow issue with the heat that leaves the case, the hot air going right back in again, you do not seem to have that problem.

By adding in a side fan you would still mostly have a balance of intake to outgo, while that isn't nessisary, the 2 fans for each should work out good. I cant tell from the pictures, but your 120mm front fan could be adding in enough turbulance and air exchange for the gpu, if the flow from it is not blocked to badly.

I would not want to pull the cool air (for the GPU) from the back, just because the designs usually have the hot air being exhausted out the back, and because my computer is under a desk. Your Idea of sending the hot air out the PCI slots is an ok plan, but slamming cool air TO it will usually be way better. (I do not really like those PCI slot fans, tried them there had to be a better way, never had the space for them either)

Your GPU isnt even hot, and computers have had really bad hot pockets for many years and many different ways, and still survive ok. I have done the same thing including rearranging the GPU cooler so the heat from it's own fan go straight out the PCI slots in the back. What I am saying is , while you can improve all this stuff by a lot usually, how about you get to 80C first :-)

Comments

[Anonymous Penguin]

Yeah, I wouldn't pull from the back. :) Side intake still doesn't sound ideal and, like you said, my card isn't exactly sweating. It just seems like a bad design IMHO. Anyway, I'm thinking about buying some vented PCI covers and drilling a hole on two of them to mount a fan for blowing air out. That sounds even better than the PCI fan I found because that fan might "fight" with the GPU's fan. I agree that intake would be better, but I don't want to have to attach a fan to my cover, making it a pain changing anything.