PC case cooling problems/question

[orangeman]

I just made a new pc, which worked/works ok but... the inside of the case gets hot, so much so that it hard a hard drive problem one time. The hard drive is mounted near the lower half of the tower. The power supply is mounted at the rear top of the tower with its own exhaust fan. I have two exhaust fan ports below the power supply for the purpose of mounting a case fan.

OK, the single case fan I had was installed so that it was sucking air into the case instead of expelling the exhaust (hot air) from the case so I reversed it.

Question - Should I install a second fan and have that blow the exhaust out as well, or should I install it so that it sucks air into the case?

As I mentioned, both ports are next to each other (one lower than the other) with the power supply exhaust right above them...

powersupply

fan1

fan2

I/O

slots

What way is best for a fan 2?

 

[orangeman]

Thanks for the suggestions. As it turns out, there is a temperature monitor in the bios for the cpu and motherboard. I tried the fan both ways and monitored the temperature. It seemed to work best with both fans blowing out and settled at a cpu temp of 35C and motherboard temperature of 24C.

 

[orangeman]

I found the solution. Purchased this cooling device just today. Basically it is the same size as a cd-rom and it installs into a 5" bay. It has a vent in the front and fans inside plus a big heatsink. The hard drive can mount directly onto it so it has a double funciton of sucking cool air through the front of the case and also cools the hard drive. Not bad for cdn$24. I think I will get one for my other computer as well.