Noctua Was Right: Top Exhaust Fans Can *HARM* Thermals

** If you enjoyed this video, please consider checking out my smaller second channel too:    / @shortertechoverwrite  

Since hot air rises, it's always been recommended to set your top case fans to EXHAUST - y'know, to remove all the warm air from your CPU and GPU. But I recently tested this, and this case fan configuration can actually harm your computer's thermals.

Which sounds counter-intuitive, but as I show off in this video, it actually sort of makes sense when you see the airflow analysis results (I used smoke matches - which are really fun to mess around with, by the way!).

I also done some stress tests with Prime95 and Furmark to record the exact thermal differences for four different fan configurations:

Fan Config #1 - both top fans are set to exhaust
Fan Config #2 - one top fan is intake, the other is exhaust
Fan Config #3 - both top fans are set to intake (not a good idea)
Fan Config #4 - zero top fans (I taped up the top fan grill)

For reference, you can find Noctua's airflow guide here - https://faqs.noctua.at/en/support/sol...

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The individual timestamps for this video are:
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00:00 Wait, Top Exhaust Fans Are BAD?!
00:44 How/What I Tested
01:48 Test Fan Config #1 - 2x Exhaust
03:36 Config #2 - 1x Exhaust, 1x Intake
05:25 Config #3 - 2x Intakes
06:02 Wait, What?
07:28 Config #4 - Zero Top Fans
08:43 What I Think Happened

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Credits
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Thanks to the following resources (sounds, images etc):

"Pop-up Sound" by BeezleFM (https://freesound.org/s/512135/ -- License: Attribution 4.0)

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'Road To The Top by Adam Drake et al', License ID: z8gyYaaRgBq


Whiskey And Rye by Adam Drake, License ID: 9R3g56mVvX4
https://t.lickd.co/ypDWwk7RvDa


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