Cooling entertainment center

adding a fan to the entertainment center, I got one AC fan off of Amazon, it doesn't move tons of air but it's better than nothing.

My question is do I set it up as an inlet fan or vent fan? It's going to go on the back wall of the Cabinet, behind the DVR (left side) because the DVR is always on.
Here's a pic of how everything is laid out.


DVR is always on, DvD/surround sound is on ~30% of the time, and the PS3 and Wii rarely get used.

I try to keep the front "door" open but we babysit a 2 year old who likes to close it so it's not always open, it has a solid glass window but if I can find it I will swap the glass out for mesh so everything breathes better.

 

Exhaust..... DVD prolly has a very small 40mm fan already exhausting it, I know ours does, so get that air OUT.

U can usually power a small case fan off of the USB port on the DVR if if has one.....we did

Reciever prolly has heatsink and no fan right?

Heat will rise on its own, so again exhaust that shit out.


I got lucky and my onkyo rec has a large sink and a 100mm fan on if.

 

Yep, DVD has a 40mm on the back, DVR has just a heatsink with 5V 500mA USB on the back, it also has a 110 plug on the back.

Ok, I will set it up as an exhaust fan and see how the temps go, if it still is warm in the cabinet I'll get a 2nd fan and put in as an input fan.

 

Just cut couple of holes in the back. Or cut a bit one and cover it with the window screen to keep the dust out. No need for fans. It will just add noise. I would also add some spacers between devices sitting on top of each other. Honestly, though, I would not worry about this stuff getting too hot.

I have all my equipment in the closet, up at the ceiling and it gets hot there. Haven't had any issues and there are alot of things there....

Receiver (gets hot... or very hot when running 2 HDMI zones at the same time),
Cable Box (gets really hot),
AppleTV,
Amazon FireTV,
HDMI Transmitter (powered),
S/PDIF Transmitter (powered),
Firewall (gets really hot),
Synology DS412 network storage (gets really hot),
Cable modem,
Network switch,
PDU,
UPS

 

You also have a lot more air volume surrounding the equipment.
I'm gonna cut 2 holes, one for an inlet and one for the exhaust fan and I think it'll stay a lot cooler.

 

I also agree with using it as an exhaust. You don't want a fan blowing dirt and pet hair into that area.

 

..i'd think cutting a decent sized hole in the rear backboard of the cabinet should be sufficient for what you've got in there... but if you want a fan back there, it would seem logical to configure it for exhaust, ...that way the warmed air isn't being blown across the electronic devices front-to-back...

 

Got the fan installed several weeks ago, lots cooler inside with just the hole for the exhaust fan.
Temp is ~15 degrees cooler on average.

 

I have a similar cabinet with more equipment then that running and it used to get pretty hot until I cut most of the back off. I would just open up the rear and not worry about fans or leaving the door open.

 

just curious, ..are you running from some kind of fan control device, ...I.e so it switches on/off automatically based on some temperature sensor/reading?..

 

No, I'd like to but when I ordered the stuff I was trying to spend as little as possible.