Keeping Your Computer's Case Cool

[hey_moe]

I read this and thought it had some good ideas for keep computers cool...see what ya think..do here for the info>> http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1835994,00.asp

[Jaxon]

A friend of mine has installed a water-cooling system.

Once he faced the normal "Avoid-water-near-electronic-components-fear", he was very satisfied with the result.

The energy in form of temperature is transported to an outside cooler, just like the one in yor cars, only smaller.
He had two fans on it, but reported, in normal use, just the surface of the cooler was enough, to control the temperture.

He never had a system that quiet before.

http://www.1a-cooling.de/

[Wulf190]

Awesome article, my only problem is with 4 case mounted fans, I wind tunnel rather then the silent machine, oh well I'd rather have the sound of fans then frying parts.

[Sailor]

One thing that may help is a seperate power supply that powers just the fans. It would have to be able to be "on" when its switch was turned on and not depend on the power on switch for the computer. There was a thread by Ickie about this, but I don't think it survived the move. It would free up some connections on the main supply. It could be mounted externally and the connectors you need fed into the case.

[Wulf190]

well I doubt I have a power problem, I am useing a 500watt PSU. It is a but of a loud set up but, I'd rather have it alittle noisy they too hot.

[hey_moe]

You can never install enough blowers in a tower...the more we add to our system to get it to go faster the hotter it gets..the more OC we do dat gets it hot also...we are in a no win area here....the next system I build I wanna go water cooled just cause I want a quite system

[Wulf190]

well my system isn't too bad. I wonder if my frontal fan is running, I dunno because I don't have a side window to my case and I can really tell if there is a flow because of the front plastic panel. But from the temps I am getting I am running ok. My MoBo is running about 45-46C and my CPU is 41-42C. Now my Videocard is the hottest because that is running at 65C.

[pied]

Aloha!

I had the "fry the system" syndrom going as well, MB temps well into the 40's and CPU temps approaching 80... I had 7 fans and the case sounded like a 747 taking off!

I did a little "modification" on my case, a Raidmax mid-tower, by cutting a 120mm hole in the top off the case and installing a 120mm fan, and cutting out the plate in the front of the case (behind the plastic front piece) and installing another 120mm fan in there. I removed all of the 80 mm fans except the one on the side which blows onto the CPU and GPU, the top 120 mm fan is exhaust and the front 120mm fan is intake. I also put in an Antek PSU with a silent fan (also 120 mm).

My temps are now 38-40 max for the MB and 48-50 max for the CPU, and the only noise that it makes is the HD whine.

See the VIA Arena site for really good instructions for this mod. PIED

[hey_moe]

Nice job...now where are the pictures of the bad boy:icon29: Aloha!

I had the "fry the system" syndrom going as well, MB temps well into the 40's and CPU temps approaching 80... I had 7 fans and the case sounded like a 747 taking off!

I did a little "modification" on my case, a Raidmax mid-tower, by cutting a 120mm hole in the top off the case and installing a 120mm fan, and cutting out the plate in the front of the case (behind the plastic front piece) and installing another 120mm fan in there. I removed all of the 80 mm fans except the one on the side which blows onto the CPU and GPU, the top 120 mm fan is exhaust and the front 120mm fan is intake. I also put in an Antek PSU with a silent fan (also 120 mm).

My temps are now 38-40 max for the MB and 48-50 max for the CPU, and the only noise that it makes is the HD whine.

See the VIA Arena site for really good instructions for this mod. PIED

[Awesome]

Mine runs (CPU) 45-46 C and (mobo) 40-41 C, but that's with the side panel off and idle. Case on its about 51 and 42 C, under load it'll go up to about 60 and 46 C. Again, with the panel off under load, the CPU stays under 50 for the most part. Go figure.

Awesome

[TekWorm]

Placement & flow --> direction is everything.

I had 2 Tornado (high-volume) fans + 2 stealth (standard-flow) + 2P/S-fans + 2 on the GPU's and a biggie cooler & fan on the CPU.
Kept the processor around 32c (idle)-36c (under heavy simming).

Folks called to talk & thought I was vacuuming! :D

Re-thought the air-flow pattern.
Resulted in 2 stealth on input, blowing across the four HDs..
Removed 1 of the loud-arse tornados.
wound up doin' a 7v, then ultimately a 5v mod to the remaining Tornado.
Result: 34c-36c :D LOL!
Can't hear it runnin, less I put my ear close or stand directly behind the case. :)

Be sure to move air from the vicinity of your Vid Card & as directly as possible out of the case.
High-End GPUs develop way more heat than a properly sinked CPU... this is where many folks get fooled & fried. :rolleyes:

[pied]

I concur with TEK, I've also got an ARTIC VGA silencer on my Radeon 9800pro, and man is the air coming out of it's exhaust HOT! Since I installed that single piece of cooling equipment the stability under load of the entire system became much better!

PIED

[Rooster]

first off iv not had a overheat problem as of yet...

my ol' puter,,, 1999 model compaq amd 800mhz,,, with upgrades of memory 512mb,,, video 64mb ati as well as new 52x cdrw rom... after many years of runing this old puter i know fan's must be tired and about ready to kick the bucket... i took it to a local computer shop with nothing wrong,,, and told them i needed new fans that these were 6 years old with constent running... got a new fan on cpu,,, and a new 400watt power supply(with new fan) less than 70buck installed...

first thing i noticed was the output of the power supply fan was not the higher volume as the older power supply,,, and the air comeing out seemed to be of a higher temp. than with the old power supply... being that i take my case apart every 3-4 months to suck the dust out,,, and after reading this thread i also noticed my cpu was somewhat warmer than before...

here is what iv done... i took the old fan out the old power supply and added it to the input vent to the case (pushing in air),,, not knowing what to hook the power of the fan to i just spliced into where the other fan is (power supply)... now the air is much much cooler comeing out...

here is my question... iv seen in the past moe has posted some links to temp. thingies,,, so one can check the temp of there cpu and such... first off the one link i did check the program was not going to work with my older cpu... so moe is there any help with me checking my temp???

[TekWorm]

1st, look in your BIOS (Setup) and see if your old system has temp sensor capability... you may need to add sensor(s).

Most newer Power Supplies employ temp monitors or power-load monitors, to control fan speed (& therefore, volume of flow), internally.

However.. that being said, the modification you describe, should be fine & cause no ill effect.

[Rooster]

i did take a look at my program called "FreshDiagnose" and it said that my processor did not support Thermal Monitor... oh well once 64bit becomes standard ill get another computer,,,, maybe,,, thanks for the input...

[Real Old Salt]

Since this is about temps I'd like add one little hint that made a BIG differance for my set up, besides the usal adding of fans etc. I used to have my tower under my desk and "out of the way". Just like most people set up their systems. The trouble with that is, that all those exaust fans are blowing into the back of the desk,or a wall. As soon as I repositioned the tower outside of my desk about 18" from the wall and angled slightly away so there is now plenty of room for the hot air to go, the efficency went way up and the temps went down considerable.

[Rooster]

Old Salt,,, i have to agree,,, a good friend "had" his nice new computer in a closed location... after an hour it would over heat and lockup/shutdown... after many times telling him it has to have cool/fresh air,,, he findly took it out and set it on top of this $1000 computer desk... the desk is now for sale by the way :costumes:

[Rooster]

ok being the redneck i am :US-flag: i took my wifes meat thur'momator and pop it into the cooling fins of my cpu,,, after one hour of running time temp was 85F with a room temp of 68,,,

later in the day i let the room temp. rise to 75 and cpu temp had increased to 90F... i take it this is cool enough???

[Rooster]

Redneck'trickarie :cool: stricks again.... all the while iv noted the power supply only has small slotes in the houseing,,, what a starveing for air,,, being the output transisters do have a large cooling fin,,, i took off the cover:toilet:,,, turned the power on,,, now air flow is much higher,,, so much i had to put a flap on the outer screws to direct the airflow of the outward air... yes it somewhat is a maj. increase in noise as well as fan speed,,, that i noticed... temp. now on cpu is steady at 80-85F vs. the 85-95F with the cover on the power supply,,, all this using the hightech way of puting a meat temp. gauge in the fin's of the cpu for 3-4hours of constant running,,, with the cover of case on,,, at room temp. in the 70-72F range...

advantage that iv notice with useing this said computer,,, with these simple changes,,, is a much more smother oparation all together...:)
Heat and dust is electronics worst nightmare,,,:rocket: so iv been told

[Wulf190]

Well looks ok to me. Like I have said the hottest item in my case is my video card, getting up to 68 degrees C (The shutdown point for the card is set for 147 dregrees C!), and thats a new record yesterday since its been so dog gone hot here! But both my mobo and CPU have been in the 40s degree C.


Cords were driving me nuts when it came putting everything together, but I think I did the best I could at the time. I have thought about getting a 120mm fan and replacing the 80mm I have in the back. I put the 80mm back there mostly due to poor advertising on the Case, but it is indeed a good case for what I paid for it. Though mine is no where near whisper quiet, I will say happily that it does not sound like a 747 or a loud vacum.

[Splat]

I have a very cool running PC with no case fans at all. Only fans in the box are the PSU, CPU, and Video card. Temps in the machine in the summer here are usually 105 F for the CPUat idle and low 70's F for the motherboard with ambient room temperature in the upper 70's and low 80's F. In the winter my motherboard can be as low as 55 F and the CPU rarely reaches 110F under a load. :) I do it by ducting air from my basement thru a 4" dryer vent pipe into the lower front of the case. The air exits out the back and thru the top front CD drive bay which is open. I have little deflectors in the case to direct the air towards the CPU fan and the video card. The air is forced by a twin blower bathroom vent fan mounted in the joists of the basement. It is also filtered so no dust! Very quiet too.

Just a thought for anyone as nuts as I am and thinks outside the box (pun intended)

Bob

[Real Old Salt]

I love it! Including the Ansel Adams poster.

[Awesome]

Ah, Ansel rocks. :D

Hey... I remember that thing, didn't you post it a long time ago too? Pretty interesting... like your stick setup too. :)

Awesome

[Splat]

I probably posted pics of it before, that one is from this write-up:

http://webpages.charter.net/bdonovan2/Frankenstick.html

I like to build things that I cant afford to buy, like the trottle:

http://www.digital-flight.com/projects/bobs_throttle/bobs_throttle_project.htm


Bob

[Ickie]

lol wait till a real bug crawls accross the MB, KBOOM and you will have a burnt candy smell that will not go away. Happened to me when i got the bright ideal the covers were not needed.

[Splat]

Hmm.....Good point! I think that I'll be adding some screen real soon.

Thanks for the tip.

Bob

[Wulf190]

Its amazing what can happend with alittle tweak there, a few twist ties, and a new 90mm fan.

I have been trying to figure out ways to drop the temps on my new computer.

When I first built it I was getting the following temps, in C:

CPU: 36 load to 43
MoBo: 32 load to 32
VGA: 60 load to 80

Then I added a Zalman VGA cooler

CPU: 36 load to 43
MoBo: 32 load to 32
VGA: 52 load to 60

Everything was ok, but the wires and cables were driving me crazy so I replaced the tape IDE cables with round ones and I wrapped cables with twist ties and a large plastic tie.

CPU: 34 load to 43
MoBo: 32 load to 32
VGA: 52 load to 60

Well I still wanted to get my VGA cooler so I went out and got a Antec Cyclone cooler, I hade to reroute a lot of wires and cables when when I tried it I got this.

CPU: 36 load to 43
MoBo: 36 load to 36
VGA: 56 load to 62

Ovisouly the cooler wans't helping and neither did the rerouting job. So I took out the cooler and spent some time redoing the cables and wires, and turned the top fan from an intake to an exhaust.

CPU: 34 load to 43
MoBo: 32 load to 32
VGA: 52 load to 60

Then I went out a replaced the top 92mm fan with a MadDog 90mm, and slightly modified the cable and wire routes.

CPU: 31 load to 43
MoBo: 29 load to 30
VGA: 48 load to 60

I am satisified with the new temps, but I am thinking of replacing the side stock 92mm fan with a MadDog 90mm.

[Rudder_Buzzer]

I bought a battery powered indoor/outdoor digital thermometer and set the unit on my computer desk. The outdoor temperature lead I tie-tied through the mesh of the rear fan exhaust port. With a quick glance I see the room temperature as measured at my desk top (tower intake) and the exhaust temperature of the case as the air is forced out by the rear exhaust case fan. This is a nice monitoring device for quick reference especially while running a graphic intensive game; no need to back out of the game to open the motherboard monitoring console for a temperature check. I have my motherboard set for an audiable alarm but while gaming I could never hear it (alarm volume maxed out). The indoor/outdoor thermometer solved that problem. Non-gaming operating temperatures run about 10 to 12 degrees above room temperature; gaming temperatures are between 15 and 20 degrees above room temperature. The digital themometer reads to the 10th of a degree. For power supply cooling verses fan noise, my power supply (550w) has two fans incorporated in it, one sucks air in from the bottom of the power supply case with the other exausting out the back of the tower. While gaming the fan noise is usually drowned out by the game audio but when not, the fan noise was distracting. To solve this I purchased a rheostat from a computer parts supplier and mounted it into one of access bays on the front of the tower and spliced it into the power supply. When I'm not gaming I throttle the power supply fans down to where they run quiet.

[Awesome]

MBM5 has a dashboard where you can check the temps in game... you can make it transparent to where it doesn't bug you while you're playing. :P

Awesome

[jwajb]

as you can see from the attachments my rig runs pretty darn cool even with a lot of stuff running. Now the noise level is very tollorable but if I crank up the speed to the cpu I will get lower temps but the noise level is very anoying. This Volcano cooler can be very loud. I found that lapping in any heatsinks will lower the temps 5/6 degrees Cels. I have never seen my CPU go over 42 degrees and that was with overclocking it to 3.4ghz


A268WB Astro Black ATX Case w/4x80mm case cooling fans
True 400W Power Supply - Tri-Fan
Intel Pentium 4 3.06GHz CPU 533MHz FSB
Thermaltake Volcano7+ cpu fan w/lapped-in heatsink
Asus P4S8X-X 8X Pentium 4 Motherboard DDR
1.5GB PC-2700 DDR 333MHz Memory
Maxtor 120GB ATA133 7200rpm Hard Drive
XFX GeForce 6600GT DDR3 8X AGP Video Card w/lapped-in heatsink

[jwajb]

MBM5 has a dashboard where you can check the temps in game... you can make it transparent to where it doesn't bug you while you're playing. :P

Awesome

MBM5 is a great utility. Takes a little tweeking but once it is set up it is a great tool

[Fnerg]

I took my tower out from under my desk, set it up high, made a side panel and cut a hole and mounted a 120mm fan in line with the graphics card or AGP slot. It's drawing the hot air immediately off the card and out. The back of the tower sits in front of a single pane window where it draws cool Canadian winter air via a small peice of dryer hose as a result of the vaccuum of the larger fan. Now, I looked at the fan configs in the tower. One fan on the mobo heat sink blows air into the fins, the other fan on the FX5500 heatsink blows air away from the card. So by introducing a larger fan which sucks all the air out of the tower, am I rendering the other two fans less useful? This new vacuum air flow should suffice for all concerned heat sources right? I downloaded Speed Fan which monitors things pretty well and allows me to control the speeds of my fans from the desktop. I reccommend that "cool" little program....I get 28 under normal use, and max so far has been 38 using FS9 with all faders cranked. A little warning sound is set to go off at 40, and I've not heard it yet.

[RickN]

Anybody looking for a cheap case with good airflow, check out the Raidmax Virgo. 120mm fan rear, 80mm side vent fan, and space for a 120mm intake up front.

I have one on my old 3.4E Prescott system and idle CPU temps run 32C. Underload runs about 44 to 45C.

Only changes to the case was to throw away the front panel door, add a Aerocool low speed 120mm fan to the front, and cut out the case material over the side vent fan and add a wire guard.

The front 120mm blows across the hard drives and still does a good job cooling the 6600GT video card.

[Spin45]

I always thought front-to-back airflow would give me the best cooling. So, I had 1 fan in front drawing, and 2 fans at the rear exhausting. And I didn't initially like the idea of a fan in my side window. But I found out (by accident) that if I took the front fan, and put it in the side window, my CPU temp dropped 2 degrees C! I was pleasantly surprised. :d

PC is running at 29C/84F right now, at idle of course. But it is cool in the house now -- 66 F -- because the wife is at work. :icon_lol: Normal idle is 32-33.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a293/spin45/AMD_PC028900xfaninside.jpg

[GT182]

To get this discussion back up where everyone can see it again, I'll add:

Get a HDD fan which will help cool that HDD. Also get a PCI slot fan that can be installed under your GFX card. That will help draw the heat out and away from the rest of the internals. With these 2 added to my Thermaltake XaserIII v1000A, I've dropped the temps by about 8C. And if possible, put filters on all your intakes, it keeps thing much cleaner inside. ;) You wouldn't believe the cat hair that gets sucked into my tower's filters. Gotta clean them once or twice every week. More in the winter with forced air heating.

Also and most important... never set you tower on the floor or carpet. Static electricity can and will fry your pc. Build a wooden stand a minimum 6"s off the floor and the length/width of your tower. I use 2 I've made and keep mine 12"s off the carpet. Easier to read the temps too. LOL

[Wulf190]

GT182 great post, especialy dealing with where and what to put your PC on. Asd far as cooling goes; it all depends from person to person. FOr me I tried a PCI slot fan under my GFX card, and it didn't makes the temps, infact it caused them all to go up.

I has been an egg frying summer here where I am and I had been looking for a decent and affordable, smallish, and not obnoxiously loud CPU cooler. The reason for a small CPU cooler is that I have a mid tower case, which also sports an 90mm side fan which is located right about over the space between my CPU, GFX card, and my main cable route bundle. After searching various modles and reading reviews, the one that seemed good was the Alpine 64 put out by Arctic Cool. Over the summer I had seen my CPU's temperatures going up all the way to 49C, and thats from the 43C load temps I was originaly getting, and as far as idel I used to be able to idel at 31C, now it was up to 35C so getting a new cooler was kinda needed.

Well after fitting the cooler, things improved in some areas, but didn't in others. The new cooler is larger then the stock one, but still gives me plenty of head room away from my side CPU cooler, which I flipped from an exhaust to an intake. MY new temps were impresive for my CPU, 30 at idel, and 40 on load. But my MoBo's chip set now had a heating problem.

Ever since I had replaced my 6600GT with a 6800GS, my MoBo's temps have not been as cool as with the 6600GT, and thats due to the 6800GS's lenght, but now with the new side fan and CPU fan configuration my MoBo's temps were not 32 at idel, and 34 at load. They were 34 at idel and 39 at load. So I got some electrical tape, and once again sorted out my PSU's wires and taped them together, and flipped the side fan to exhaust agian. So now I am getting my CPU at its highest idel temps of 33C, and highest load temp of 44C, and my MoBo is now getting an high idel temp of 33C, and a high load temp of 35C.

[GT182]

Great to hear your temps are down Wulf. I've had the same problems with the summer heat and no air conditioning. I'm looking at a copper Zalman heatsink and fan combo, figuring that will be a big help.

Oh, for those that are using the cooler air from your cellars. I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a way to get rid of the moisture in it. Once it hits your computers it will condensate out and then you're in big trouble. Just like dumping a glass of water on would be. Be very very careful. But if you are using a dehumidifier in the cellar, then you "might" be ok.

[Wulf190]

only reason I didn't go Zalman on my CPU is because I didn't want to deal with having to take everything out of my case, and put a back brace on my MoBo, other then that I really have liked Zalmans GFX coolers, top notch stuff!

[GT182]

Yeah Wulf, if not much room it doesn't help. I've got a Thermaltake XaserIII v1000A case that's huge. Lotsa room to work with so the Zalman is the best on the list for now. I also have an Asus mobo...P4P800E-Deluxe.

I see Spin45 is running an Asus board with a Zalman cooler and has room too. I wish he'd get back in here and tell me waht case, Asus board and Zalman he's running. I looks like a ZALMAN CNPS7000B-CU 92mm fan but not sure. The height of the fins on his doesn't look the same.

Here's where I've been looking them over.... http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/Brand.asp?Brand=1647

[Wulf190]

Love New Egg. When I built my PC I went with a Maxtop CSX-147. It was cheap, have had some sharp edges, but over all not a bad case in the least, and I'm really impressed with how well is does cool.


http://www.maxtop.com/pccaes.htm#CSXCM19

[GT182]

My build last year, all came from Newegg except the HDD, Case and PSU. When I do a rebuild, everything will come from there too, except a graphics card. That will come out of PriceWatch and whoever there has the best deal.

I'm afraid that when Vistas and DX10 come out, computer parts will change drasticly, as will games and simulations.

[Awesome]

What I want is a processor that is super fast, and it does everything the processor, memory, graphics card, physics card, and sound card do in a modern PC... but needs no heatsink or fan.

Can you imagine the drastic decrease in PC size, as well as the decrease in tempratures and noise? What about the enormous increase in speed and efficiency?

Awesome

[GT182]

Back again... LOL

Here's something to help keep the insides of your computer clean.... or cleaner. ;) If you have filters for your intakes, buy the dry Swiffer type cleaning pads. Cut them to the size of the filter frame and install. Now you'll have no dust and crud sneaking inside. Well, very little and the inside of your computer will love you for it. LOL

Really. I haven't had to clean off my intake and exhaust fanblades for close to 2 months now. Before the extra filtration I was doing it every 1 1/2 to 2 weeks. Forced hotair heating in the fall,winter and spring will crud up a computer faster than all getout. Opens windows in the summer means pollen and that's bad too.

[Wulf190]

I wrapped my wries with electrical tape where I could to help cut down on air blockage, and currently with my 3200+ overclocked to 2.2GHZ (200x10), and with 1.4v I am running at a max of 43C. That was tested useing SP2004. My MoBo running SP2004 will run as high as 33C. Now my MoBo temp, and my CPU temp will go up if I am running wither FS9, or IL2 since my 6800GS is running, and I know that liked to peak out at about 56C. The highest I have see sofar in my current config is CPU at 46C, MoBo at 36C, and GPU at 56C.

[OBIO]

I know that this is an old thread, but I am a new member so in that way it is a new thread to me (Kinda like those stupid NBC promos for all their re-runs "If you haven't seen it, then it's new to you")

Just ran a sensor check. My temps are:

MB 12 degrees C/ 54 degrees F
CPU 40 degrees C/104 degrees F

I am running a heat sink with fan on the CPU and my PSU has two large fans in it. Are my temps okay, too high, should I add a case fan?

And does leaving the side panel off pose any threats in terms of magnetic radiation? And would leaving the side panel off help keep the system cooler? The minor noise increase is no big deal, my HD and CD drive make more noise than the fans.

OBIO

[Awesome]

1: Your temps are very ok. Perfect.

2: Magnetic radiation? Umm... nope.

3: That depends on how well the case is designed. Name-brand cases tend to be designed to cool better with the side panel on. Helps with airflow. However, I have a three year old eMachine that overheats unless I leave the side panel off. Experiment.

Awesome

[Crazyhorse]

Now my Videocard is the hottest because that is running at 65C.

If I remeber correctly youre running an ATI X1900 series (?) 65C is very normal for these cards and well within their operating temps. ;)

[Bruce Thompson]

I have an Antec 900 case, CPU cooler Asus Square Pro.

Running an AMD 6400x2Black edition O/C to 3.5mhz, I found things were a getting little on the hot side and getting to be a bit loud.(can't stand noise)

I replaced the CPU cooler with a Noctua NH-U12P and replaced the other three 120mm fans with Noctua ones. The result was amazing, temps down, noise lower, these fans only create 19db. The cooler and fans are typical Austrian design and very well made, worth every penny spent.

Next problem, dust, I found that Antec produced filters for 120 size fans, cost £3.25 each, so I fitted two on the front and one on the side of the case. Result, well I was having to clean it out every ten days or so, but have not had to do so for over three weeks now.

Next problem was a bit more expensive, my system draws about 485watts on load, but my 700watt PSU was showing signs of instability and noise.
It was never a quiet and always running warm so its fan was very loud.

I fitted a new 1000watt 80%+ efficiency PSU and it's wisper quiet, and because it's only running at about 50% of it,s capacity it' not even warm.
The whole system now seems to be far more stable, and cooler and QUIET.:d

[Bruce Thompson]

Pic's of filters fitted.

[David_L6]

Some good information. Thanks for passing it along.

Nice desk you have there too.