Thanks! It sucked to have that PC all apart again, but it went well. I like how the fan attaches with those clips, if not for being such a cramped case that would have taken all of 45 seconds to unhook it and flip it over.
As expected, it's cooling better this way too - lol.
One thing I noticed is that the fan itself actually works better upside down. On this machine (Gigabyte 780G AMD) with PWM enabled, the fan won't spin up properly until the CPU heats up a little providing enough voltage on that circuit to get it going. It just sputters around a bit for a few seconds. I tried all 3 that I have in hand, they all behave exactly the same way.
Not sure if that's due to the motherboard not providing the proper output voltage when the system is at room temperature or a limitation of the fan itself, but it does look like the fan assembly could use a bit less drag on the spindle, or perform better at extremely low voltages.
I'm happy with it, I don't mind if it a cold CPU runs sans-fan for a few seconds, as long as this isn't damaging the fan. I'm looking forward to getting the second one finally installed in my main living room PC this coming weekend .. can't wait for silence in there again.
Commentary aside, I do have one follow-up question ... this fan had been running upside down for about 45 days, 4-5 hours a day. Would this have caused any undue wear on the bearings/spindle, or can I still expect a few good years out of that thing?
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