Datasheet

Identifying Purposes and Characteristics of Cooling Systems
73
Memory module fan The more capable our memory becomes of keeping up with our
CPU, the hotter it runs. As an extra measure of safety, regardless of the presence of heat
spreaders on the modules, an optional fan setup for your memory might be in order. See the
following section for more.
Ideally, the airflow inside a computer should resemble what is shown in Figure 1.55.
FIGURE 1.55 System-unit Airflow
Case Fans
Case Fan
Motherboard
= Airflow
NIC
Video card
CPU
Power Supply
Hard Drive
Note that you must pay attention to the orientation of the power supply’s airflow. If the
power supply fan is an exhaust fan, as assumed in this discussion, the front and rear fans will
match their earlier descriptions: front, intake; rear, exhaust. If you run across a power supply
that has an intake fan, the orientation of the supplemental chassis fans should be reversed as
well. The rear chassis fan(s) should always be installed in the same orientation as the power
supply fan runs to avoid creating a small airflow circuit that circumvents the cross-flow of air
through the case. The front chassis fan should always be installed in the reverse orientation
of the rear fans to avoid fighting against them and reducing the internal airflow. Reversing
supplemental chassis fans is usually no harder than removing four screws and flipping the
fan. Sometimes, the fan might just snap out, flip, and then snap back in, depending on the
way it is rigged up.
Memory Cooling
If you are going to start overclocking your computer, you will want to do everything in
your power to cool all the components in your computer, and that includes the memory.
There are two methods of cooling memory: passive and active. The passive memory
cooling method just uses the ambient case airflow to cool the memory through the use of
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