I'm new to building computers and I'm reading some people here have 10, 12, and even 16 fans! I'm just curious how you can do that. My case has 3 fan slots, one in the front, one in the back and a hole on the side where I could put an extra fan. It's a pretty big case.

I'm mainly asking because my graphics card (6800gt) burned out. I made a thread a little while ago but before I could reinstall drivers it died. I believe it overheated since I was playing a lot of games at the time.

You probably have a mid-tower case. Full tower ATX cases are far bigger and some, like the Cooler Master Stacker, come with space for nine fans. More than that is possible, but you'd need to mod the case by drilling holes etc.

Most of the full tower "gaming" cases have many fan ports. Honestly, I don't know why you would want all those fans spinning in there, as it doesn't really "optimize" airflow or anything. Not to mention all the noise...

Just get cases with bigger fan holes and get lower RPM and wider fans. That makes equal or greater airflow with less fans, and almost always less noise. A 240mm fan at 1000rpm outperforms a 120mm fan at almost any speed.

Usually adding fans for an overheating GPU is not going to fix the issue though, you need to increase the airflow directly at the GPU or go towards the significantly more expensive option of water cooling. Certain cases cause problems though (the mid and mini towers in particular). Moving your system in a Full Size ATX tower might fix the issue on its own.

I've modded a few cases in my time, and I usually just add fan ports on the top ( since heat rises and it'll just stay up there unless you have something to vent it with ), exhaust, intake and sometimes a side panel fan. So total only about 5-6 fans, the fans on top are usually 90-120mm, exhaust / intake being 120mm and side panel would be mostly be anything from 140mm+.

I might try this fan for a side panel, it looks sexy.

Bloodman, many people may have full tower cases with up to 4-12 fan slots, but for others like me, which had mid-towers. I have 4 case fans, CPU fan, 6mini bay fans, power supply fan, GPU fan, 2 PCI slot-GPU cooler fans, and PCI exhaust fan. So in all I have 16, fans as mentioned, all fans in the PC, but the airflow is great, along with the setup.

Yes EXCellR8 is right that fans don't always maximize airflow, but it really depends on your setup and where the fans are located at. If they are positioned correctly and as long as your have enough power, than it should all run good.

I think Tiny Tim had 31 fans, but one was his wife so I don't know if that counts.

31, holy shite muslim!!!

I was being a little silly.

I also use a 6800 - a GT O/C; the key issue is to take excess heat away and replace the hot air with room temp air as efficiently as possible.

In a large case with several drives and 4 sticks of ram and a game playing from a running cd/dvd rom you could possibly use 4 fans, 2 bringing air in and 2 taking it out.

Your cpu has a fan or fans (I count that as one regardless) blowing out and that means one blowing in from the front or front-side across the hard drives and another blowing in at the GPU and then a good place for number 4 is on top over the GPU blowing out.

Or something like that.

Opinions on fans and placement and direction are like opinions on politics.



edit: I also do not count the CPU fan at all since without it BOOM! in most cases. Thus 5 MAX!