How Do Computer Fans Work?

Video Transcript

"Woohoo yeah man! 2, 4, 6, 8 who do we appreciate? Computer, computer, what? Oh not that kind of fan? Oh hi, today we're going to show you how computer fans work. Whoa there's no way this can fit into a computer. How do computer fans work? Its quite complicated. The kernel instructs the CPU to withdraw heat from the heat sink away from the processing unit. Now look, its not quite that easy but its not quite that complicated either. OK, so we want to know how do computer fans actually work? Well here's one right here. Woot woot. Now usually you'll find a fan built into the power supply of the computer but there can be other fans like on your video card. Now if you've ever looked at the back of your computer, you've probably seen areas like this or areas with little holes in it. This is where the fans are mounted and where the air is coming out from the fans. Today's processing chips are so powerful they produce enough heat to cook an egg on top of. So actually even before the fan on the processor comes the heat sink. Now the heat sink is actually just like a radiator. It radiates heat away from the processor. But that's not always enough so we often will see a fan or need to put a fan right on top of here to continue to draw heat away and of course whoa, we have other fans to continue to pull heat out of the case. But still maybe you're asking so what? Maybe I'll just cook eggs. Well my friends, if you don't take heat away from the processor, eventually it'll just shut down and stop working and woops, there goes your investment. So built onto the motherboards are also little temperature sensors and little thermostats. They can tell when the processor gets too hot for it specifications. That kicks the whole system into gear, the fans start spinning, they start sucking that hot air right on out of the computer. Now of course the more intensive the thing you do on your computer is like playing lots of games, the more you're going to need lots of fans. So regardless of how they work, hey keep that puppy cool and don't forget read the flipping manual."