I remember reading somewhere on here that the case temps should be about 10 degrees cooler than the CPU. According to my monitoring program the CPU and case hovers at roughly the same temp (35C to 45C). I do have an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro heatsink so I'm doing good with keeping the CPU cool.

When I put my hand over the fan port in the back I don't feel much for a breeze. The fan normally runs at a low RPM, 700-800, so that could be why I don't feel any movement.

My question in summary, is this normal or did I accidently put the fan in backwards and it's sucking in air instead of blowing it out? No impairment to computer functionality, it's just something that's been bugging me for a while.

the outer edge of the fan surround often have an arrow in the moulding to point in the direction that the air is pushed out.
the side that is normally on the outwards direction is the fixed part where the wires go into, with the spinning centre of the fan towards the inside of the case

"When I put my hand over the fan port in the back I don't feel much for a breeze."

If you are talking about the power supply fan and if the fan is installed the right way, no air flow could be caused by the input holes of the power supply (inside the case) being clogged up with dust.

I'm taking about a seperate case fan, not the PSU fan. And it can't be horribly clogged with dust as it's only been in use for a couple of months and I make sure to maintain my equipment properly. That and the fact that I can feel flow from that.

@cliffpage

Thanks, I'll check that the next time I have the case open.

Some fans have no arrow on the sides of them. All the case and cpu fans I've seen pull air in from the side where you can see the entire fan blade with nothing in the way, and blow it out towards the side that has the supports for the center of the fan and and it's motor. All the cpu fans I've seen blow towards the heatsink and cpu.

Some locations for fans, especially on cheap cases, do not have enough free opening area, and airflow from a fan mounted there is greatly resticted by that and the fan cannot achieve the airflow it was designed to produce. In that case you need to enlarge the holes (relatively easy), or remove the metal entirely (relatively difficult), from most of the location it is supposed to blow through - you don't need openings where the motor is - both methods produce tiny metal bits you must rid you case and all components of, so that is best done when the case is empty. If you remove the metal entirely, the fan may make a lot more airflow noise - installing a wire or other less restrictive grille will make the noise normal again.

If in doubt, remove the fan from it's mount, hold onto the fan, start the computer, place your other hand near each side, and it will be obvious which side the air blows towards, and whether the fan location is restricting the air flow too much in relation to what you feel when it has been installed.

A VERY general rule of thumb is the case temp should be within 10C of the room temp & the CPU should be within 10C of the system temp.

So if the avg room temp is 21C (approx 70F), the sys temp should be no higher than 31C & the CPU no higher than 41C @ idle.

Here's my temps for an overclocked A64 3000+ (2.5GHz) with a single 120mm rear exhaust fan - room @ 24.4C (76F), sys temp @ 32C, CPU @ 35C.

A friend gets about the same temps as jam does, with an AM2 mboard, two hard drives, AMD OEM heatsink/fan/6000+ (3.0 ghz) 64 X2 cpu, no case fan, Enermax PS with two fans, modest PCI-E video card (ATI AIW X600 Pro with it's own fan but does not need an extra power connection). The heatsink has heatpipes and is very efficient. I have never seen the cpu temp go above 45 C.

I usually take tin snips to the case and cut out the perforated section completely. A wire grille is in order after that to protect forgetful fingers.

While on the subject of fans and grilles I would point out that shopping for these kinds of items (under $10) you can frequently spend more for shipping than you did for the item.

I suggest when one of us finds a vendor that ships cheap or free and actually delivers what is promised, that we post the vendor info here as a courtesy to others.

Most case/PSU fans will have a sticker on one side of the center hub, over the bearing. In all the ones I've checked, that sticker is on the exit side of the fan. So if you see the sticker through the grill then the air is blowing out.

The grate in front of the fan has plenty of large holes so I don't think they're blocking airflow. The case fan is only 80mm however.

@dave

Thanks! Ya, I can see the sticker through the grate. That solves that problem, lol. Was just something that was bugging me.

If the grate is typical there is more metal than holes. If you don't want to bother there are probably millions of cases like that somewhere.