PC Cooling Issue

[DanoWeir]

Hey there, had a problem that's got me stuck, thought I'd shoot it out
and see if anyone could help.

My girlfriend has a homebuilt PC, which she keeps in the 'comp cubby'
that came with her desk, i.e. a small area under the desk where your
tower is supposed to go. Unfortunately, this cubby gets absolutely
zero airflow, so despite the fans (one on power supply, one for case
itself and the fan on the heatsink), the computer is overheating and
often shutting off erratically.

Yes, I realize the simple solution is to store the tower elsewhere,
but she doesn't want to do that (girlfriend logic is perplexing). SO,
I've been charged with solving this problem.

Simply: Is there any way to cool a comp that's in a tight spot, and
receives little airflow?

I did a quick search over at Newegg.com, and saw 'water cooling' and
'hard drive heatsinks', but I'm quickly moving out of my knowledge
zone, and don't want to waste money on something I don't need. If you
can help at all, I'd appreciate it. Cheers!


Dano

 

[Sjouke Burry]

Hey there, had a problem that's got me stuck, thought I'd shoot it out
and see if anyone could help.

My girlfriend has a homebuilt PC, which she keeps in the 'comp cubby'
that came with her desk, i.e. a small area under the desk where your
tower is supposed to go. Unfortunately, this cubby gets absolutely
zero airflow, so despite the fans (one on power supply, one for case
itself and the fan on the heatsink), the computer is overheating and
often shutting off erratically.

Yes, I realize the simple solution is to store the tower elsewhere,
but she doesn't want to do that (girlfriend logic is perplexing). SO,
I've been charged with solving this problem.

Simply: Is there any way to cool a comp that's in a tight spot, and
receives little airflow?

I did a quick search over at Newegg.com, and saw 'water cooling' and
'hard drive heatsinks', but I'm quickly moving out of my knowledge
zone, and don't want to waste money on something I don't need. If you
can help at all, I'd appreciate it. Cheers!


Dano

Perforate/remove any surface invisible from outside.
Start with the bottom, then the backside, then the side
partially hidden under the table surface.
Then put extra holes/fans in your computer, where you have
removed/perforated the most of the obstructing sides.
Then cross your fingers and hope that you get better performance.

 

[Paul]

Hey there, had a problem that's got me stuck, thought I'd shoot it out
and see if anyone could help.

My girlfriend has a homebuilt PC, which she keeps in the 'comp cubby'
that came with her desk, i.e. a small area under the desk where your
tower is supposed to go. Unfortunately, this cubby gets absolutely
zero airflow, so despite the fans (one on power supply, one for case
itself and the fan on the heatsink), the computer is overheating and
often shutting off erratically.

Yes, I realize the simple solution is to store the tower elsewhere,
but she doesn't want to do that (girlfriend logic is perplexing). SO,
I've been charged with solving this problem.

Simply: Is there any way to cool a comp that's in a tight spot, and
receives little airflow?

I did a quick search over at Newegg.com, and saw 'water cooling' and
'hard drive heatsinks', but I'm quickly moving out of my knowledge
zone, and don't want to waste money on something I don't need. If you
can help at all, I'd appreciate it. Cheers!


Dano

http://web.archive.org/web/20040201223228/http://www.chassis-plans.com/cooling_and_noise.html

CFM = 3.16 x Watts / Delta_T_degrees_F

That formula relates how much a device dissipating "Watts" will heat
up, compared to the room air. CFM might be interpreted as the amount
of air that should move through the case (and the cubby). My suspicion
would be, that the cubby should have forced air, either in the form of
butting the computer case fans up to the back of the cubby, then
cutting mating holes to accept their airflow. Or, if you want freedom
to move the computer around, with respect to the cubby walls, means
fitting a fan to the cubby itself. At some other point in the cubby, you
need an intake vent, and the intake vent has to have sufficient
cross sectional area (X * Y), such that the fan blowing the air out,
doesn't have to "sip through a straw". If you just had a fan, and
no intake vent, it would sound like what happens when you put your hand
over the intake on a vacuum cleaner hose.

Water cooling is fun, but doesn't solve all heat problems. Even if the
major hot elements in the computer (CPU, graphics card, maybe Northbridge
chip) had water blocks installed, there is still 50-60W coming from
some of the smaller emitters. And then you still need a flow of air,
although smaller, to remove that heat. Some people have used water
to "remote" a cooling problem (like having the water system outside
the computing room, for noise reasons). But then, you're probably looking
at $200 worth of junk, and unsightly hoses and a place to put the
radiator and fans.

In terms of fan types, if I go to the one good electronics store in town,
they have two types. DC brushless fans, from 40mm to 120mm, and running from
12VDC, are one type, and those are the ones used inside the computer
case for various purposes. But for venting the cubby, they also sell
AC 120V powered fans, some with rather large CFM ratings. Something like
that, AC powered, provides a means of powering the cubby fan, without
a power connection to the computer. But an AC powered fan will spin at
a rate related to power line frequency and number of poles, and generally
something like that will be on the noisy side. If the cubby is made of
particle board, it might even be resonant and amplify any extra noise
generated.

So your project will be a challenge, in terms of satisfying all parties
involved

Now that the problem is recognized, something else you might consider,
is making sure there is a good backup plan in place. If the hard
drive has been "cooked", that might have shortened its life, in which
case you don't want to be faced with losing all data. Purchasing a
bare hard drive mechanism, and a good quality USB enclosure for it,
and *not* storing it in the cubby, may be a way to do a backup every
once and a while, just in case.

Paul

 

[Ed Medlin]

I have yet to have a P4 "any" model run hotter than 35c under full load
even
when gaming Unreal 2004 for hours on end. 50c is getting way up there.

I haven't seen many later P4s able to idle at 35c much less max out under
stress there. That was one of the problems with the P4. I have a P4 EM64T
I630 that will barely get to 35c with a very good liquid cooling
system...and that is idle temp. With liquid, it will max out much lower than
air at 50c or so, but with air it will go up to 65+ but stays very stable. I
think you must be reading the wrong temps there. 35c sounds like a MB temp
rather than the CPU temp on any P4.



Ed

 

[Ed Medlin]

No, its the cpu temp as read by multiple softwares.

I use Cooler Master Hyper48 coolers in the two systems in question.

You must have a VERY cold room...........


Ed

 

[Ed Medlin]

You must have a VERY cold room...........

While it is in a basement, it hovers around 75f in the room .

That would only be a gain of 12-13c over room temps. I currently have a
Q6600 OC'd to 3.2Ghz and the temps are the same as at the stock 2.4Ghz.
About 30c idle and maxes out at 45-50c with a very good Swiftech liquid
cooled system in a P180 case. My room temps are a bit cooler, around 70f or
so. Just the heat of normal components in a box will raise the case temps in
an extremely well ventilated case 6-8degs C and workload on the CPU, even at
idle would bring that up to 30c or more. Your temps seem more indicative of
MB or even ambient case temps than CPU temps, especially with the hotter
running P4s. Over at alt.comp.hardware.overclocking we have had a lot of
discussions over the years on temps and getting them down. 35c as a maximum
temp under stress is just not going to happen with an air-cooled P4 unless
you are pumping AC into the case........ I have found it hard to get a
good temperature monitoring program that correctly reads CPU temps,
especially the C2Ds and Quads. CoreTemp is the closest, but I find an
8-10deg difference between it and the bios readings on my Stiker Extreme
NV680i SLI board. I run two EVGA Superclocked 8800GTXs too, so good
ventilation and cooling was a top consideration from the start of this
build.


Ed

 

[johns]

Yeah, well, that's just the start ... "fix my computer, but you
are not allowed to think for yourself". Wise up. The computer
is not what needs "fixing".

johns