Over pressure vs under pressure and it's impact on dust

Control: management of fans, temp/rpm monitoring via soft/hardware

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horizontalshine
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Over pressure vs under pressure and it's impact on dust

Post by horizontalshine » Mon Jan 06, 2014 2:19 pm

Currently configuring my fans and and a few thoughts on what seems logical to me.

We all want to minimize dust aculmination in are cases right? Would it not be better to have more intake pressure then exhaust pressure? With too much air leaving the case and not being replaced it will drag air in threw any place it can ( unfiltered places). If we can localize incoming air only to one spot ( front of case,filtered area) would this not be superior for dust reduction? This principle would ofcourse mean that you would want less exhaust volume then intake volume thus achieving the over pressure scenario. Has anyone here also thought this? Any experience with it?

CA_Steve
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Re: Over pressure vs under pressure and it's impact on dust

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Jan 06, 2014 2:29 pm

Do a search with the term "positive pressure". :)

mkk
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Re: Over pressure vs under pressure and it's impact on dust

Post by mkk » Mon Jan 06, 2014 5:25 pm

Yes, and I would like to add the idea of avoiding excessive airflow as well. If the system can control the fans in an advanced manner then one can let the case fans go as low as possible while temperatures inside are low. In some situations it's even possible to turn some fans off, though it's not a commonly available feature.

Many cases also have some redundant, unfiltered openings in them that can also be blocked off.

edh
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Re: Over pressure vs under pressure and it's impact on dust

Post by edh » Tue Jan 07, 2014 10:19 am

Hospitals and other places where you need clean air use positive pressure. If it works for them it must be OK for computers too.

rotor
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Re: Over pressure vs under pressure and it's impact on dust

Post by rotor » Mon Jan 13, 2014 3:45 am

Positive air pressure works, absolutely no question. As long as the input fans have filters in front of them, that's the only place where dust will accumulate, and as long as you keep them clean, you will enjoy many years of virtually* dust-free computing.

I say virtually, because no matter how good they may be, the filters always let through a small amount of dust. But comparing a positive-pressure PC with a non-positive-pressure one, the difference in amount of dust accumulated internally is massive.

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