How To Cool My Desktop Computer

[mac.wheeler]

Sorry but I have to chime in on this topic, case cooling is one of my little passions ever since I had some problems with a rather warm AMD 3500XP some time back.

There are some good ideas posted previously in reply, also a lot of that cooling kit being presented is very good too.

But if you want a cheap way to drop the ambient internal temperature of an older case here is a little trick I've learned.

It's all about airflow, specifically getting cool air in and hot air out, I had an old case myself with this toasty AMD and I had all sorts of problems trying to cool it. So I sat and took a long look at the case. I realised that the PSU fan was just about managing to cool the PSU, no point thinking it was any help at all, so I was going to need both intake and extraction fans. But where to mount them? Well, I ended up cutting a hole in the side of the case to mount a 120mm intake fan, it was fairly simple as the bezel I bought to go with the fan covered up my butchering. Then I started wondering where to put an outtake fan, I didn't want to put it at the back of the case as that would have left a large area with almost no airflow. Then I had this bright idea, heat rises right? So hot air is already flowing upward naturally, why don't I just give it a hand? So I butchered the top of the case and mounted the 80mm outtake fan there, it worked a treat. It also makes a very nice hand warmer

These days I always include a top mounted outtake fan when designing airflow for a case, it''s free cooling as you don't even need to push the air there with another fan, just pump it straight out.

In many cases water cooling is not required if you just plan your airflow well, make sure major heat generating components like the CPU, GPU, certain parts of the motherboard (my current Abit NI8 SLI has a really hot northbridge) and HDD are all adequately cooled by localised fans pushing the air in the right direction.

Take my current setup, in theory it should need more extreme cooling than I have now, I certainly know a few people with similar components in the same case who have gone the water cooling route. But I planned well and it runs sweet, if a little noisy. CPU hardly ever rises above 35 degrees, system temperature always below 40. I run:

1 x Abit NI8 SLI Motherboard

1 x 3.0Ghz Pentium D (930 if I remember correctly) (overclocked)

2 x 1Gb DDR2 Corsair RAM (overclocked)

2 x 160Gb SATA II HDD

1 x 160GB IDE HDD

1 x IDE DVD ROM Drive

1 x IDE CD-RW

1 x IDE DVD-RW

2 x Nvidia 7800GTX SLI (SLI mode and overclocked)

1 x 600W Enermax PSU

1 x Soundblaster Audigy

1 x Gigabit LAN card.

Now that's a hel_l of a lot of heat being generated right there, so this is how I cool it:

I use a coolermaster centurion full tower case, lots of room (well there was when it was empty), the video cards fit in the centre of the motherboard, so right above them in the case are two back mounted 80mm extraction fans, the idea being that they are sucking hot air out that was generated by the VGA cards, in the side of the case directly above the VGA cards is a 120mm intake fan.

At the front of the case, there are two 80mm intake fans mounted in front of the HDD rack, these blow cool air through the HDD rack and into the interior of the system, the real problem here was the first thing this air hits is the RAM, I really didn't want to blow hot air onto my already hot RAM, so I made a cardboard thing that routes the air upwards, where it is extracted by my ever present top mounted outtake fan.

The CPU is cooled by a rather large heatpipe made by vapochill, it's basically a huge radiator with a standard 80mm case fan mounted on it, it's rated to cool 1KW of heat, it seems to do the job pretty well, here's a link to the manufacturer http://www2.asetek.com/default.asp?showPag...2&menuID=-1

And that's it, a total of five 80mm fans and one 120mm fan and I'm running as cool as most watercooled systems. Although I will say it's somewhat more noisy

Edited May 22, 2007 by mac.wheeler

[yeti]

You don't need to be sorry

Do you have pictures to go with your post?

Well, I ended up cutting a hole in the side of the case to mount a 120mm intake fan, it was fairly simple as the bezel I bought to go with the fan covered up my butchering.

I guess this side fan was to blow cool air on the HDDs? But the metal part to which HDDs are screwed would prevent air to go there, no?

[mac.wheeler]

You don't need to be sorry

Do you have pictures to go with your post?

Well, I ended up cutting a hole in the side of the case to mount a 120mm intake fan, it was fairly simple as the bezel I bought to go with the fan covered up my butchering.

I guess this side fan was to blow cool air on the HDDs? But the metal part to which HDDs are screwed would prevent air to go there, no?

No, on that old case I just wanted air into the thing, it only had the one HDD and a CD Drive at the top, it was the CPU that was causing most of the problems, along with a badly designed motherboard, so I was just dumping cool air directly onto the centre of the motherboard, then pumping it out from the top. This was back in the days when we didn't have extreme CPU coolers to help us out

Luckily cases today are better designed to deal with airflow.

[mac.wheeler]

You don't need to be sorry

Do you have pictures to go with your post?

Not of that particular build no sorry, I do have an interesting little project now though that I will take some pictures of, I am basically going to try and fit everything in the PC I mentioned above into this:

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2005/07/20/silve...sh_flexibility/

I just used one for an older PC and it's great, I'm going to order another one and try and get my workhorse into it, should be quite a challenge, I might have to give up my SLI pair though and just run with a single VGA card, not a problem, I seldom do anything that benefits fully from having a SLI setup anyway.

[fisherd3]

i just stick a household fan in front of my closed case and I get good temps all round, even buyng fancy coolmaster cpu fans does not keepmy pentium d940 consistently low.

Obviously things need investigating but for a cheap simple and successful solution I like it.

[brianinbangkok]

This is what intel has to say about air flow :

http://cache-www.intel.com/cd/00/00/06/20/62085_62085.pdf

I just added some fan's into an old housing , one extra one at the back and one in the side panel.

Just like Intel suggests.

Edited May 26, 2007 by brianinbangkok

[brianinbangkok]

I forgot to warn you about using compressed air to clean the inside of your computer.

Static electricity caused by the airflow from a compressor or aircan could kill your motherboard.

Actually I have seen my ex boss do this and I fell off my chair laughting as he did it

He killed the motherboard !

Edited May 26, 2007 by brianinbangkok

[click2delete]

Wow, what nonsense. Take the side off the case that allows you access to the inside. If you test the temperature, you will find that the insides remain cooler with the cover off.

The only fan you need, is the one on top of the processer and maybe the one on top of your video chip.

That's it.

Buy some compressed air to blow the dust out of the inside and use it every few months.

The most simple solution is usually the best one.

And the wrong one. Many computer cases are manufactured in such a way that the case is designed to maintain a certain airflow around critical parts. By removing the side you eliminate the forced flow of air that travels from one end of the case to the other. This can lead to hot spots and component failure.

I know at least three of the respondents above are very knowledgeable in what we are discussing here. To refer to their expertise as nonsense just brings your own into doubt.

Wow, more nonsense. Seems to be lots of hot air here but none of it in my cases - as the sides are off.

We have repaired many computers whose components have fried because of a fan failure in the case. Cannot happen when air is allowed to flow freely. We have tested this - the components run cooler without the sides.

All major players have come to the same conclusions.

Do you sell fans or hot air?

[cdnvic]

Pretty clear you don't know what you're talking about here.

[Gary A]

My machine is in an Antec box and it has a large fan in the back drawing air through a large filter on the front. I think Antec is a premium box but my 3 ghz Pentium 4 processor fried after warning me once in a while by re-booting by itself. I replaced the processor with a Celeron 2.66 GHZ and it too started re-booting once in a while. Right, wrong or otherwise I have the side off the box and a 12 inch fan blowing in whenever the computer is running. I use compressed air to blow the dust out whenever I can see any buildup. So far no problems.

[brianinbangkok]

If you take care to read the link to the Intel pdf I posted you can see they also advise a direct intake and conduct to the CPU so the CPU fan gets its air directly from the outside.

Seen these for about 200 bath in Pantip.

For now with my 2 new fans on the case the temp read 38 C for the motherboard and 40 for the CPU about right according to Intel ,and I think they know best. (after running it all day).

Reasonably yes without the sides on the case in a aircon room that should also work , but not if you have any kids ( or people with nice big drinks that put em next to your PC) around.

Besides that there is also a thing called Electromagnetic Interference that requires a closed box.

Wonder whats interfering with my radio

Edited May 26, 2007 by brianinbangkok

[dave_boo]

If you take care to read the link to the Intel pdf I posted you can see they also advise a direct intake and conduct to the CPU so the CPU fan gets its air directly from the outside.

Seen these for about 200 bath in Pantip.

For now with my 2 new fans on the case the temp read 38 C for the motherboard and 40 for the CPU about right according to Intel ,and I think they know best.

Reasonably yes without the sides on the case in a aircon room that should also work , but not if you have any kids ( or people with nice big drinks that put em next to your PC) around.

Besides that there is also a thing called Electromagnetic Interference that requires a closed box.

Wonder whats interfering with my radio

The CPU blowhole is a great idea for Netburst processors. However, Intel has done an exceptional job of lowering the TDP of the Core processor, making them irrelevant.

As far as electromagnetic interference goes, that's a minor issue, especially at any distance between your tower and other electrical equipment. I'd believe the problems with your radio comes from Thailand's crappy wiring rather than you box. However, if it really is your box, root around in your computer's bios and look for a "Spread Spectrum" function. Enabling it cuts down on the amount of EMI released.

[brianinbangkok]

If you take care to read the link to the Intel pdf I posted you can see they also advise a direct intake and conduct to the CPU so the CPU fan gets its air directly from the outside.

Seen these for about 200 bath in Pantip.

For now with my 2 new fans on the case the temp read 38 C for the motherboard and 40 for the CPU about right according to Intel ,and I think they know best.

Reasonably yes without the sides on the case in a aircon room that should also work , but not if you have any kids ( or people with nice big drinks that put em next to your PC) around.

Besides that there is also a thing called Electromagnetic Interference that requires a closed box.

Wonder whats interfering with my radio

The CPU blowhole is a great idea for Netburst processors. However, Intel has done an exceptional job of lowering the TDP of the Core processor, making them irrelevant.

As far as electromagnetic interference goes, that's a minor issue, especially at any distance between your tower and other electrical equipment. I'd believe the problems with your radio comes from Thailand's crappy wiring rather than you box. However, if it really is your box, root around in your computer's bios and look for a "Spread Spectrum" function. Enabling it cuts down on the amount of EMI released.

Well I have no problems with EMI other then my old monitor , so I got a new one

My PC is closed so no problems there , was just giving an example of a problem EMI could cause.

My other hobby is amateur radio , playing with a software defined radio and weak signals , so for me EMI is never a minor problem

But I must admit I have never seen the "spread Spectrum function" in any bios !

[katana]

i just stick a household fan in front of my closed case and I get good temps all round, even buyng fancy coolmaster cpu fans does not keepmy pentium d940 consistently low.

Obviously things need investigating but for a cheap simple and successful solution I like it.

I used to read a DVD forum where a somewhat frequent problem when using the cpu-intensive DVD Shrink was overheating and crashing. The standard fix was to remove the cover and and use a household fan to help cool things. Invariably the posters wrote back that this worked.