Ways to keep my mid-tower computer cooler when gaming?

[David Maynard]

OK. I guess I will have to research for one if I need one.





Isn't that dangerous? Like flammable?

Flammable? For heaven's sake man, what are you *doing* with that case? LOL

Use adhesive backed metal tape if youre concerned about ambients hitting 232C.

 

[Ed Medlin]

Flammable? For heaven's sake man, what are you *doing* with that case? LOL

Use adhesive backed metal tape if youre concerned about ambients hitting
232C.

The good old standby duct tape works just fine. If that bothers you, those
new gummy type bandaids that look invisible when you put them on and a pair
of sissors to cut the middle out would work too but I keep duct tape here on
my bench all the time and never had any probs using it for almost anything.

Ed

 

[Mxsmanic]

Another problem is that my small room is always warm due to the location
and it is upstair. I do not get sufficient cooling from the air
condition. Opened window is useful when the weather is cool, but useless
when it is warm or in a middle of a heat wave (100+ F/37.7 C degrees
outside!). Big fans for my room and myself don't really help much
either.

The higher the ambient temperature, the more air movement you need to
keep the machine cool. As the ambient temperature approaches the max
temp you'll tolerate inside the machine, it will become impossible to
keep it cool with air movement alone. At that point, you need air
conditioning or active cooling systems that are based on air
conditioning; there is no other option.

On days that are too warm, I just don't play any games. There isn't any
way to keep the machines safely cool if it's too hot, and my air
conditioning isn't powerful enough to compensate the weather these days.

 

[kony]

Ahhh. I was expecting a really simple cheap tyoe, not a fancy one with LCD
screens and stuff. Thanks.

Having a probe on a wire to measure temp, necessitates an
electrical measurement type sensor. Since that portion is
electrical, the user feedback "display" portion would be
also, meaning either a digital or perhaps panel meter
"needle" type, but a panel meter would be no cheaper nor
easier to use, and probably much more expensive as it would
be used mostly for laboratory instruments.

I assume this full-tower ATX case is designed since I used it
for P3, P4, and Athlon XP CPUs and DFI and ASUS motherboards.

"is designed"?
No, the system builder must choose and/or configure the
system, rather than just buying any random ATX case. That
is _why_ they make the recommendations, because it is NOT
"automatic" to get this result simply by having an ATX case.

However, I do not recall seeing the case box saying it was
certified or anything like that. To me, all case interiors
look similiar. Mine is like that. Power supply in the back,
vents back and front, etc. The only thing is I don't have USB
plugs in the front like some cases like Dell's.

Many cases are not engineered for optimal airflow. There
can be cutting and other mods necessary. The criteria is
still the same though, an unimpeded PSU and case exhaust
fans plus ample front bottom intake.

OK. I definitely need to get more inttakes (too weak) and
outtakes (beside the powersupply fan).

Not just "outtakes", the exhaust fan directly under PSU.
There is not room for creativity here, the basic
configuration is needed to route the airflow properly and
remove it most immediately from the CPU region. THEN if you
found you had other hot-spots, like southbridge or bottom
(front) of video card, those would be secondary concerns
only addressed afterwards. Most people don't have nor need
anything more.

 

[ANTant]

I have a Radio shack indoor/outdoor thermometer. The 'outdoor' reading

The good old standby duct tape works just fine. If that bothers you, those
new gummy type bandaids that look invisible when you put them on and a pair
of sissors to cut the middle out would work too but I keep duct tape here on
my bench all the time and never had any probs using it for almost anything.

OK. Just checking.
--
"Be thine enemy an ant, see in him an elephant." --Turkish Proverb
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net (offline)
\ _ / Please remove ANT if replying by e-mail.
( )

 

[ANTant]

(e-mail address removed) writes:

The higher the ambient temperature, the more air movement you need to
keep the machine cool. As the ambient temperature approaches the max
temp you'll tolerate inside the machine, it will become impossible to
keep it cool with air movement alone. At that point, you need air
conditioning or active cooling systems that are based on air
conditioning; there is no other option.

On days that are too warm, I just don't play any games. There isn't any
way to keep the machines safely cool if it's too hot, and my air
conditioning isn't powerful enough to compensate the weather these days.

Yeah, and summer isn't even here yet and I already have problems. I
never had these problems in the past with older system. Ugh. I hope
future computer parts are cooler, but they're not with my experiences.
Video cards, CPU, etc. are getting too much power and heat for each
upgrade.

I should move to Canada or something. [grin]
--
"Be thine enemy an ant, see in him an elephant." --Turkish Proverb
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net (offline)
\ _ / Please remove ANT if replying by e-mail.
( )

 

[ANTant]

A follow-up...

My friend and I worked on the computer case setup last Saturday (perfect
weather too because it was 85F/29C degrees in my room!). This old case
really does suck due to its limitations. There were no ways to improve its
airflow. For now, we replaced all the case fans and CPU fan with new ones.
They were much cooler than the old dusty ones. However, CPU still got hot
when tested (140+/60C with cpuburn).

Since my friend build computers for living and we don't have another full-
tower ATX case to switch to at that time, he tried lowering the CPU power
usage and memory timing. He says it won't be that noticeable in performance
(didn't notice anything slower when tested). The CPU was much cooler like
up to 130F/54C degrees during stress tests like games and cpuburn.
Motherboard's temperature sensor still got warm: 105+F/40.5C degrees like
before.

So far, I have not any blue screens from gaming/3D mode (e.g., screen
savers) as of this post. However, I did had one lock up when quitting
World of Warcraft after 2.5 hours of nonstop playing. Also, WoW frozed
for 15 seconds during gaming twice already. I don't know if this is where
blue screens tried to happen.

I will keep testing. I don't want to conclude that the blue screens are
gone because I have had blue screens that didn't show up for a week
nonstop. They are unpredictable. They show up in 3D mode like games and
screen savers (only once with an ATI screen saver).

If this doesn't fix the problem, then I will research more like a new
case.

Now, I need to fix my other Debian/Linux backup machine which its power
supply died (I think). Ugh! So many problems, so little time.

If you still have comments and ideas, then please feel free to post. I
check my newsgroup threads from Google.

Hello!

I have a dilemma. I seem to have an overheating problem with my computer
setup when I play games (e.g., World of Warcraft, Battlefield 1942,
Half-Life 2, etc. Windows would crash with mostly blue screens (random
errors like PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (50) with fwdrv.sys (still get
crashes without Kerio's Personal Firewall v2.1.5),
KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (8e) with ntkrnlpa.exe, BugCheck 50,
{fffffff1, 0, 805b0109, 0} with ati2mtag.sys ( ati2mtag+d0d49 ),
BugCheck 8E, {c0000005, c458bf4, b7df7938, 0} with portcls.sys (
portcls!CPortPinWavePci::GetKsAudioPosition+1c ), BugCheck 7E,
{c0000005, 1d58c920, f7a5fcb0, f7a5f9ac} with win32k.sys (
win32k!ESTROBJ::vInit+357 ), etc. The crashes can take 30 minutes to
hours to happen.

I have NO problems when I am not gaming, using 3D (openGL and Direct3D)
screen savers, running atitools to stress test my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
AIW (128 MB) card for hours, cpuburn by itself for hours (highest was
154 F/67.8 C degrees, memtest86 for hours (all passed), etc. To me, it
sounds like a combination of everything in game makes my computer too
hot instead of individual compontent. What else can be getting hot
beside the video card and motherboard during gaming? I doubt a sound
card could. I have a HDD cooler so HDDs should be fine. You can see my
full detailed system specifications at
http://alpha.zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/computers.txt (primary
computer -- note that I have old stuff like old Quantum HDDs, CD burner,
etc.).

I notice my system would become unstable if my ASUS K8V SE Deluxe
motherboard's temperature was at about and over 110 F/43 C degrees.

Another problem is that my small room is always warm due to the location
and it is upstair. I do not get sufficient cooling from the air
condition. Opened window is useful when the weather is cool, but useless
when it is warm or in a middle of a heat wave (100+ F/37.7 C degrees
outside!). Big fans for my room and myself don't really help much
either.

Would getting a Thermaltake Silent Boost K8
(http://www.thermaltake.com/coolers/venus/rs/a1838.htm) to cool the
AMD Athlon 64 CPU down help at all? Again, going up to 154 with cpuburn
did not have any problems. However, BIOS and ASUS PC Probe say 140+
F/60+ C degrees is overheating so I might as well get a better CPU
cooler. I was thinking of readding my old squirrel fan blower (used it
for my old Voodoo2 card that kept overheating years ago) in the PC case,
but would it help and where would I put it? Would these be enough? I
already have Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer revision 2 for the video card
(had dot problems in DOOM 3 due to heat issue), a 3 fan HDD Peeze
cooler, two 80 mm case fans, and an Antec Model SL400 (400 watts; 80mm
and 92mm fans) power supply. Isn't this enough? I have two front vents
(HDD cooler in the middle of the full-tower ATX case and at the bottom
that is part of the case). The power supply fans blow out the heat in
the back (1/4th down from the top of the case and feels like a heater
(not hot; very warm though)), and there is another vent at the top (no
air blow out -- maybe a good place for the squirrel fan?) Note: I have
had this case since July 1998 and I never had problems with P2 300 Mhz,
P3 600 Mhz, and Athlon XP 2200+ setups before getting an Athlon 64
3200+.

The fans speed to be working normally according to ASUS PC Probe and
BIOS:
-CPU Fan (the one from the retail CPU box): 59xx
-Chassis Fan: 2556 (forgot which fan is connected to this -- don't
have a chassis fan)
-Power fan is not hooked up to the sensors, but I know it is blowing.
-Note: Voltage graphs looked stable when gaming and not.

Any suggestions on how to make my system cooler during gaming? I don't
want to go overboard like getting water cooling system. I need to fix it
before summer comes alone and so I can get back into gaming. Thank you
in advance.

--
"Ladies and Gentlemen, hoboes and tramps...Crosseyed Mosquitoes and bow-legged ants...I've come to tell you the story..." --unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Please remove ANT if replying by e-mail.
( )

 

[kony]

A follow-up...

My friend and I worked on the computer case setup last Saturday (perfect
weather too because it was 85F/29C degrees in my room!).

That's not all that bad, my aunt didn't get A/C till
recently and the system I built for her ran in > 95F during
the summer.

This old case
really does suck due to its limitations. There were no ways to improve its
airflow.

I kinda like old cases... for one they're "free", at least
to me as I have stacks of them. "Often" they're sturdier
too. Airflow is certainly a problem though, you pretty much
HAVE to take a nibbler, sabre saw or
whatever-your-weapon-of-choice and knock out a few new
holes, which of course has to be done before a system is
built in the case, and that is the key- assess and prep a
case even before ordering parts for it, at the very worst it
will have too much airflow and you can just throtte back
fans till they barely spin.

For now, we replaced all the case fans and CPU fan with new ones.
They were much cooler than the old dusty ones. However, CPU still got hot
when tested (140+/60C with cpuburn).

60C is not that bad, especially in an 85F room running
CPUBurn, I'd say you did pretty good given the poor case.

Since my friend build computers for living and we don't have another full-
tower ATX case to switch to at that time, he tried lowering the CPU power
usage and memory timing.

You can test the memory for stability, but just reducing
it's timings is probably of no benefit if it was stable.
That doesn't reduce it's power usage or heat generation.
Lowering the CPU voltage is the most significant (and along
with that, the frequency as needed to keep it stable at the
lower voltage in addtion to the far lesser heat savings from
the lower frequency itself. However with it running at 60C
in aforementioned test, I'd consider it fine, it should be
completely stable if it only got up to 60C, that is, from
the CPU perspective.

He says it won't be that noticeable in performance
(didn't notice anything slower when tested). The CPU was much cooler like
up to 130F/54C degrees during stress tests like games and cpuburn.
Motherboard's temperature sensor still got warm: 105+F/40.5C degrees like
before.

Northbridge I presume. That's cool enough but you might
touch-test the southbridge... i dont' recall your system at
this moment but some didn't have heatsink on SB but could
use one in higher ambient temps. Since there may be no
mounting method you'd have to use frag tape or thermal
adhesive (epoxy), the latter voiding the board warranty if
applicable.

So far, I have not any blue screens from gaming/3D mode (e.g., screen
savers) as of this post. However, I did had one lock up when quitting
World of Warcraft after 2.5 hours of nonstop playing. Also, WoW frozed
for 15 seconds during gaming twice already. I don't know if this is where
blue screens tried to happen.

Which video card?
Some modern cards will dynamically switch to lower speed &
voltage when they overheat, or ironically enough, when the
voltage is too low! Funny how they designed it to almost be
self-defeating but sure enough I've carefully observed it
happening on an nVidia FX5900 while monitoring core voltage
on a multimeter, temp with a probe, and adjusting the core
with a POT. Don't try this at home! Risky but I couldn't
help myself but to find out what was going on.

Anyway, I suspect that your video card is too hot and that
causes the stutter ("frozed" as you put it).. It could just
be a game or driver bug though, and the error when exiting
the game would probably be a game or driver bug as well
(though probably unrelated to the stuttering bug).

If you have a spare fan (even a desk fan), you might try
leaving the side-panel off the case and pointing the desk
fan at the bottom side (face) of the card. Leving the
adjacent PCI slot empty and that slot-position's case
bracket cover off might help too, but beware that this could
reduce airflow in other passive areas, like through the hard
drive bay?

I will keep testing. I don't want to conclude that the blue screens are
gone because I have had blue screens that didn't show up for a week
nonstop. They are unpredictable. They show up in 3D mode like games and
screen savers (only once with an ATI screen saver).

Voltage and temp readings during these occurances might
help.

If this doesn't fix the problem, then I will research more like a new
case.

Try that fan idea- in a well-cooled case leaving the
side-cover off will often make cooling worse but in this
situation it could help to troubleshoot it.

Now, I need to fix my other Debian/Linux backup machine which its power
supply died (I think). Ugh! So many problems, so little time.

If all your systems are facing elevated ambient temps,
they're all more susceptible to problems. Power supplies
too, even a good one won't respond well after awhile if it
runs too hot.

If you still have comments and ideas, then please feel free to post. I
check my newsgroup threads from Google.

A temp sensor (thermometer) is still a good idea. The
person using the sysetm(s) might be happier with an air
conditioner though, and the systems will like that too.

 

[ANTant]

I kinda like old cases... for one they're "free", at least

to me as I have stacks of them. "Often" they're sturdier
too. Airflow is certainly a problem though, you pretty much
HAVE to take a nibbler, sabre saw or
whatever-your-weapon-of-choice and knock out a few new
holes, which of course has to be done before a system is
built in the case, and that is the key- assess and prep a
case even before ordering parts for it, at the very worst it
will have too much airflow and you can just throtte back
fans till they barely spin.

Yeah, it is a pain to cut through this case. It might be
better to get a new one.

60C is not that bad, especially in an 85F room running
CPUBurn, I'd say you did pretty good given the poor case.

Northbridge I presume. That's cool enough but you might
touch-test the southbridge... i dont' recall your system at
this moment but some didn't have heatsink on SB but could
use one in higher ambient temps. Since there may be no
mounting method you'd have to use frag tape or thermal
adhesive (epoxy), the latter voiding the board warranty if
applicable.

I believe so for ASUS K8V SE Deluxe (VIA K8T800 Socket 754 ATX). It says
"The K8T800 combined with the VIA VT8237 South Bridge" on
http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socket754/k8vse-d/overview.htm ... Hmmm,
that part overheating. I don't know if it is get any cooling.

Which video card?

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro All-In-Wonder (128 MB). It has an Artic Cooling VGA
Silencer v3 -- http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=41 ...

Anyway, I suspect that your video card is too hot and that
causes the stutter ("frozed" as you put it).. It could just
be a game or driver bug though, and the error when exiting
the game would probably be a game or driver bug as well
(though probably unrelated to the stuttering bug).

Maybe. Could be a driver problem, but I tried various already.

Voltage and temp readings during these occurances might
help.

That won't work if my Windows freezes forever/crashes and require a
reboot. I will check if it didn't freeze and lets me return to
Windows. Is ASUS PC Probe enough for this?

If all your systems are facing elevated ambient temps,
they're all more susceptible to problems. Power supplies
too, even a good one won't respond well after awhile if it
runs too hot.

Yeah, that's a problem in my small room and upstair.

A temp sensor (thermometer) is still a good idea. The
person using the sysetm(s) might be happier with an air
conditioner though, and the systems will like that too.

Yeah, I haven't looked for the therometer yet. A/C is there, but the
ventaliation sucks due to being upstair.
--
"Ladies and Gentlemen, hoboes and tramps...Crosseyed Mosquitoes and bow-legged ants...I've come to tell you the story..." --unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Ant @ The Ant Farm: http://antfarm.ma.cx
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links: http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Please remove ANT if replying by e-mail.
( )

 

[kony]

Yeah, it is a pain to cut through this case. It might be
better to get a new one.

"Pain"?
If it's very thin a nibbler (or even tin-snips if you don't
care as much how it looks) will work. If it's hard because
it's thick, that is _IDEAL_, a much sturdier case that will
still have a lot of structural integrity after cutting out
holes for large 92, 120, mm fans, which can of course move
more air at a given noise level or same air with less noise
and fan wear. Sadly I don't think one can even buy "PC",
midtower cases anymore that are as sturdy as some I have.
There are some relatively expensive server cases but they
tend to be bigger, which is great if that's what you want
but a bit large for the avg. person's needs.

I believe so for ASUS K8V SE Deluxe (VIA K8T800 Socket 754 ATX). It says
"The K8T800 combined with the VIA VT8237 South Bridge" on
http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socket754/k8vse-d/overview.htm ... Hmmm,
that part overheating. I don't know if it is get any cooling.

It's relatively easy to just touch-test it. It need not
feel "cool", warm to moderately hot is fine and expected
without a 'sink on it but if you can't leave a figure firmly
planted on it for more than a few seconds you migth consider
a heatsink... but frankly the problems you had mentioned
(game-related) are probably driver or overheating of card.
But, I don't have the system, you'll have to try a few
things till you're satisfied.

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro All-In-Wonder (128 MB). It has an Artic Cooling VGA
Silencer v3 -- http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=41 ...

Was it flat on the bottom and is it mounted good?
I've seen them around but never felt the urge to use one
myself, as the fan looks cheap... i hate cheap fans & feel
most of the point when _I_ replace a cooler is to get a
better, more reliable fan installed where it wouldn't go
otherwise. That is, unless the goal is to o'c too.

Maybe. Could be a driver problem, but I tried various already.




That won't work if my Windows freezes forever/crashes and require a
reboot. I will check if it didn't freeze and lets me return to
Windows. Is ASUS PC Probe enough for this?

No, not software.
Voltage readings with a multimeter.
Temp readings with a thermometer. Realtime feedback on the
system while you TRY to reproduce this problem.

Yeah, I haven't looked for the therometer yet. A/C is there, but the
ventaliation sucks due to being upstair.

Your call... 85F isn't very comfortable though and assuming
summer is coming soon in your neck of the woods, temps may
only climb higher.

There are ways to improve airflow of the environment too.
Pusher or puller fans for the ductwork. Dampers for the
OTHER rooms to restrict flow to the lowest impedance areas
(short duct runs near the blower). An additional air
conditioner can be needed in some situations, or move the
system.