re cpu fans russest ampex com steve russell writes deletions the attached fans look slick and work well but i m bothered by the potential loss of cooling if the fan goes out at least with the power supply fan you can reach back there every few days and feel the fan blowing yes this is a valid concern imho with the directly attached fan units i ve seen it looks like if the fan were to stop the chip cooling would be a good bit worse than no heat sink at all in other words if the fan stops the unit turns into an insulator and the chip might get hot enough to suffer permanent damage not just stop working temporarily i prefer to put a stock fan off the drive brackets or front panel to blow air across the cpu depends a lot on case and board layout though my zeos dx tower case has a passive heat sink on the cpu and it s located so the front fan which sucks air into the case blows right on the heat sink if that fan stops the heat sink is still cooled by convection air flow so should not see too dramatic a temperature rise essentially the arrangement you re talking about and a good idea imho on chip fans from fry s electronics in the sf bay area are about i get the stock power supply fans for about steve al devilbiss al col hp com
