Question regarding cooling

[robertwigfield]

I am building a custom wooden case. If I only have room for 1 fan blowing onto the top of the motherboard, should I make it an intake or exhaust? Is one fan even possible?
thanks

 

[neilhart]

I am building a custom wooden case. If I only have room for 1 fan blowing onto the top of the motherboard, should I make it an intake or exhaust? Is one fan even possible?
thanks

With the information that you have provided it is not possible to respond.

What motherboard, case design or sketch, power supply, GPU, and so forth.

There are many cases that contain only one fan... for example my scratch build case: http://www.tonymacx86.com/others/89452-neilharts-scratch-build-case-2-a.html

Good modding,
neil

 

[Dschijn]

Difficult…
Every case should have at least an exhaust fan. But of course a fan for the CPU cooler to blow on it is also very important.
If you can use a fan as an intake, directly blow onto the CPU cooler and have some openings to release the air.

 

[minihack]

Difficult…
Every case should have at least an exhaust fan. But of course a fan for the CPU cooler to blow on it is also very important.
If you can use a fan as an intake, directly blow onto the CPU cooler and have some openings to release the air.

I agree.

A single case fan to bring air in and focus it on the motherboard and then a lot of case holes to let air out can work well on a low power small build.

However, as there are no system details or other details of your actual box it is not possible to be specific.