Sucking Or Blowing

[Abandon]

Seems my hanging problems are heat related.

using an AMD XP 2200 in a non air conditioned room.

Do you find that it is better to have the chassis fans blowing air into the case, or blowing out of the case, or try and balance it.

Currently have the Power supply, 1 large chassis fan, and an old CPU fan blowing out, and 1 large chassis fan blowing in.

There is a dust filtered pipe aimed directly on to the CPU, so in theory the air is sucked in from the outside directly on to the CPU.

[Darknight]

it needs to stream from out to in to out preferably

So you need to provide that stream.

If you have heating problems and your fans can't handle it just take off the case itself. Worked ever since the 486 hit the market. The more closed the worse it gets. also clean your pc inside regularly dust sticks to the fans like mad.

[penzman]

I`ve had overheating problems in the past and solved them by removing the side panel. I`ve never bothered adding fans.

[francois]

hi'

heat is a common problem among AMD users, so it needs case opened or a fair good ventilation, one in (on the side or front) and one or two out (top and back), for the processor setup a good heat-pipe as well as a good fan ...

should be ok

you may also setup a shutdown temperature in the bios .. for safety

francois

[waldwolf]

Basically, one should attempt to keep the internal temperature of your computer case no-hotter-than 10 degrees F above ambient room temperature. (If your room is uncomfortably hot, your computer will be too.)

First, I'd attempt to determine if the "hanging" problem is from overheating of the CPU or one or more chips on the motherboard. (If your system doesn't supply "software" temperature readings, a regular mercury or digital fever thermometer will give you a good indication, when held against the CPU heatsink or a motherboard chip itself.) If the problem is the CPU, then a larger heatsink or multi-fan setup, or combination of both, may eliminate the problem.

If CPU overheating is the problem, you may want to look into one of the new "liquid cooling" cpu kits, which are becoming quite popular. (Sony uses one in their latest 3.6Ghz model as do many mfr's of those special-built "gaming" computers.)

Case fans (power supply, slot, hdd, etc.) should, whenever possible, exhaust (blowout/suckout) air from within the case. Earlier suggestions on removing case cover(s) will, many times, also solve overheating/lockup problems.

Another important item to check is; if you have added additional power consuming items to your original setup, such as another HDD, a CD/DVD burner, high-speed video card, etc., is your PS (power supply) designed to handle all these new power requirements? Power draw from the PS should not exceed 80% of its total rated output. Above 80%, the PS may not provide sufficient current to the various sub-systems, causing them to operate at higher temperatures, compounding your overheating problem. PS and component "life expectancy" will also be shortened considerably.

Good luck

[RDN]

...Do you find that it is better to have the chassis fans blowing air into the case, or blowing out of the case, ....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

My lap top has warm air coming OUT.

[Abandon]

I removed the side of the case and the computer didn't hang while the room fan blew right onto it.

I put in an old CPU fan sucking out (blowing out of the case) and it is holding up so far. I forgot to check for overloading of CPU. Water cooled heat sinks, I might try that, I usually go to IT Bank Kae as it is quieter and better for software, but I havn't seen them there. I'll take a trip to Pantip and have a look.

Strange thing is that after a crash, the bios reads normal 42 odd degrees, and the main board also at normal. And the computer will work again immediately without cooling off first.

[stumonster]

like most things its all about surface area.

the first thing you might want to do is redo the connection between the CPU and the heatsink, buy from pantip etc a 10 baht tube of heat transfer compound. Clean the back of the cpu well with a rag( I wouldn t recommend solvents) or a lightly applied razor blade. do the same to the base of the heatsink. apply a liberal dob of heat tranfer paste and reseat the heat sink. be careful with the heat transfer paste as most are hiighly carcinogenic. wipe away the excess.

you may want to investigate getting a bigger heat sink( more surface area ).

the airflow direction is not important unless you are controlling dust ingress, or the air is being heated before it comes into caontact with the heatsink.

[monty]

If the temperature readings are normal right after your crash you might take a look at your graphics card.

Most cards generate a lot of heat, and can have problems dissipating it if there is a pci card inserted right next to the agp port. It's best to leave one or two slots empty between your videocard and the rest!

[griser]

If you head over to one of the IT malls, you can pick up a nice heat sink and high CFM fan for your CPU.

I brought my computer over from the US and had to install one to keep it from hanging. haven't had a problem since. and BTW the fan for the side panel? If you install it. make sure it blows Into the case, otherwise you negate the cooling effect the powersupply is providing.

I think those CPU fan/heat sinks run between 500 and 2000 baht. Try to get one with a copper heatsink.

Greg

[Abandon]

I reseated the CPU as the boy who installed it put it in and took it out so many times before he could get it to boot (even though I told him why it was not booting)

Got covered in the silicon.

I did wonder about the VGA as the crash would be a total freeze, rather than shutdown. It has lots of space around it, but that could be the reason the CPU reads a fair 42-45 degrees which is way inder the max right after a crash.

Turned the spare CPU fan around to blow out of the case. So far running for 15 hours without problem.

Might try the copper heat sink or the liquid one anyway though, as it sounds like a good idea.

[Firefoxx]

About case cooling in general:

You should have a flow of air in and out of the case, preferrably in from the front and out throught the back (and/or from bottom to top, since that's how hot air flows). This to to keep a constant flow of cooler outside air going through the machine. There should be as few obstructions as possible. There should also be "positive pressure", which is that the total CFM of the fans blowing air into the case should be more than that blowing out. This is so that dust doesn't accumulate around the openings of the case. When possible, increase airflow by CUTTING OUT those annoying metal fan covers. Replace them with grills, and airflow will increase dramatically. My friend didn't take my advice on keeping his harddisks cool with fans (proper fans, not the gimmicky harddisk coolers) and his harddisk full of precious data overheated and died a few days ago. RIP. Also remember that those fans you find at Pantip (and the ones on most power supplies) will probably die within a year or two of use. I've had three PSUs die that way.

About heatsinks:

I once had a problem with my VGA card hanging the system on graphics intensive games. I solved it by re-doing the heatsink. First I took it off along with the fan and cleaned it up. There was gummy gunk (probably adhesive, since stock heatsinks are really shoddy) on the bottom side, and I cleaned up the area where the heatsink made contact (had to clean the gunk off the chip too). I also sanded it a bit to get a smooth surface. Then I applied just enough heatsink compound (never apply more than that) to the heatsink to thinly cover the contact area. I reseated the heatsink carefully so that it was level with the chip. I also checked my p4 heatsink, which had an aluminum sheet applied over the contact area. I removed that, cleaned it up, applied some heatsink compound to the area, and reseated. Voila, no more lockups.

[waldwolf]

......My friend didn't take my advice on keeping his harddisks cool with fans (proper fans, not the gimmicky harddisk coolers) and his harddisk full of precious data overheated and died a few days ago.  RIP.

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