Power Supply Cooling Question

Well, I've been up and running now for the last week or so with no major issues.
I'd like to thank all of you that answered my previous questions during my search for parts and helping me put a good plan in place so that the building of this system was painless.
I have a question though that kind of concerns me.
I noticed one day that what should be an exhaust from the power supply is not an exhaust at all.  The air flow is actually into the power supply.  I thought this was very unusal.  Years ago I actually did have a power supply that had a fan mounted backwards, but that was some cheap case/ps combo in the P2 days.  
My power supply in this system is an Enermax EG465P-VE.  I said to myself "no way could it be mounted backwards".  After checking things out very closely I found that when I removed the side case cover, the power supply started exhausting in the right direction.  Put the case cover back on and the air flow went into the power supply again.  Ifinally came to the conclusion that the 120mm fan in the back of the case about 2-3 inches below the power supply was actual exhausting so much air out the case that this 120mm fan was actually drawing air against the power supply's fans and causing a slightly negative flow of air (in the wrong direction) through the power supply.  I hope I have clearly described the situation.  
What concerns me is that the negative flow results in very little air flowing within the power supply, which could  potentially result in the power supply overheating and failing resulting in a MoBo and processor frying.
To clarify again, the power supply is trying to push air out, but the 120mm fan is slightly stronger and is more than neutrallizing any flow through the power supply.  
Just a little more info... I do have one 80mm fan in the front of the case sucking air into the case, blowing over the hard drive.
There is another spot for a second 80mm fan in the front, but since I'm not over-clocking and really not producing a lot of heat I didn't think I needed two fans in front.
The only other solution that I can think of is to somehow rig up a verister or sensor on the 120mm fan, but to cover all temperture combinations could result in something very complicated for something that shouldn't be that complicated.
Maybe someone has noticed the same problem and has a solution.
Thanks.
//PantherFan

When you see the specs on a cooling fan it says so many CFM. But really what it should be saying is how many CFM at a given speed and at a given pressure ratio (exit to inlet pressure ratio). For a given speed the relationship between flow rate and pressure ratio is on a negative slope. That is if you reduce pressure ratio, flow rate goes up and vice versa.
Using your example suppose I put in two intake fans that on spec each draws 10 CFM and one exhaust fan that does 15 CFM and lets assume that the case is so sealed that air can only enter and leave the case via the intake and exhaust holes. When you turn this system on both intake fans try to pressurise the case but as the case pressure goes up, so does the pressure ratio acrsss the fans. Recall the slope relationship. What happens is that the flow rate drops across the two intake fans. Similarly as the pressure inside the case goes up, it become a lot easier for the exhaust fan to do its job because its pressure ratio is dropping. So what does really happen in this situation? Well the overall system reaches an equilibrium condition where the two fans deliver just enough air that the exhaust fan takes out. You can also consider extreme cases where you have massive intake fans and a weak exhaust fan. In this extreme case you'd be better off by removing the weak exhaust fan because the pressure across it becomes so low that you would not need it. You can take the argument around and make the case for a powerful exhaust fan and obviate the need for an intake fan.
Then why do we need so many fans if all we need is one powerful exhust or intake fan? This happens because as air enters the case, it follows its least resistance path inside the case. This implies that you may end up with "dead air" areas in some regions of the case which won't be good for heat duild up. Now this does not mean that by a careful rearrangement of the components you would not be able to come up with a configuration that only uses one fan. To that you'd need to use computational flow techniques and mathematically model each component in terms of blockage and the amount of heat being put out. This is quite expensive to do so but this is how its done for the high power computers.

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    Quote
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  • MDD power supply and fan upgrade kit question.

    Hello, Its been a few years since I posted anything here and I'm getting ready to (possibly) trade in my mirror drive door 1GHZ dual processor machine on one of the current imac-s.
    I'm not real hopeful that putting much work into my current machine is worth it. Here's why:
    1) crazy levels of noise - I wear woodworking hearing protectors when I surf the web. Listening to music on itunes is fine so long as you like a background of low level blow dryer noise!
    2) I'm still running OSX version 10.2.8, I have been too cheap to buy the latest OS. I'm tempted to go out and spend the $119 on 10.5 but I only have the original 256mb of ram installed and since the min requirement of ram is 512, I know I'll need to spend an extra ~50$ on a 512mb PC2700 ram chip. My price tag to do a minimal update is rising...
    3) I would love to neutralize the noise and install the Apple provided MDD power supply and fan retrofit kit that they sent me at no charge several years ago while I was still under warranty. But I never did because the tech at my local (Dayton Ohio) reseller told me that the kit only addressed high noise levels when rebooting in OS9. So I never bothered. Looking on ebay, I see where power supplies for G4's could fetch 75 or 100$ or so.
    In summary, here are my questions.
    1) Has anything come along recently to tame MDD G4 fan noise that is easy to install, cost-effective and most of all, something that actually works to decrease the noise?
    2) To get the quietest, quickest performance with the current OS 10.5 should I cut my losses now and trade (or sell on ebay) my MDD, sell the new power supply and just purchase a new machine with the OS already installed?
    Thanks a bunch in advance for any assistance...
    from Bill.

    Bill,
    Carl has some pretty good points that I'd agree with - trying the replacement PSU and fans should quiet it down somewhat and replacing the stock main fan with a newer, quieter unit will also help. But I'm going to disagree with him on running Leopard on the G4's with a few reservations.
    As you might notice from my profile, I'm running Leopard on my dual-867 MDD and find the performance acceptable; perhaps a little slower than Tiger in some respects but it does run well enough within the limitations of the G4's capabilities. The reservation I have about recommending Leopard on a G4 is the graphics card - without Core Image support (which you won't have unless you upgrade the video card) Leopard is going to tax the CPU more and may bog down in some tasks like Quick Look and Cover Flow.
    In the end, whether to continue upgrading the G4 is a matter of use and economics. Tiger would be a fine upgrade with minimal cost and squeeze a few more years out of your G4 if you're not requiring software that needs an Intel CPU (like certain iLife '08 apps).
    -Douggo

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