Computer cooling

[Walsingham]

If any of you have lost the will to live you may have noticed that I have been quietly putting more stuff in my PC, a new graphics card, more RAM, etc etc. However, it was come to my attention that the damn thing is now heating my office on its own (the radiators aren't on, but it's toasty by my standards). I have a thermaltake case, and I could keep soup warm on the top right now.

 

(note to self: eat more soup)

 

Basically I was wondering about how important cooling is, and what simple things I can do to improve it on my PC. What would happen if I attached large copper wings to the casing? etc etc. (I'm taking delivery of a lot of copper to do random artsy stuff around my house.

[Hurlshort]

Has it locked up at all? I used to have a Dell that had heat issues. I removed the case panel and kept a small fan running at it all the time. It worked.

[Gorgon]

Heat will cause failures, but they may not be permanent. Poll the temperature of the motherboard and processor by going into the BIOS. 'Hot' is relative, it might be within limits still.

 

This is a Zalman copper heatsink, it's quite asthmatically pleasing, but I don't recommend trying to build one yourself, copper loon.

Edited August 26, 2008 by Gorgon

[Gorgon]

Also, one can get too used to spellcheckers. Or maybe I'm addressing the asthmatic segment on these boards, you decide.

Edited August 26, 2008 by Gorgon

[Gorgon]

Anyway post temperatures and specs. First quick test is to check the bios and see if there are any warnings. Components monitored by the board sometimes have an auto shutdown temp listed next to them, if this is reached the system will shut down to avoid damage to itself, the temperatures should obviously be a healthy margin from it.

[samm]

Gorgon, regarding "asthmatically pleasing": Great!

 

 

Walsingham: Clean it. Use an air-spray (can of compressed air? not sure how to call this thing in English) to get dust out of the case and all coolers (be aware though that you will have to clean your room afterwards of that fine layer of dust...) Install a fan that sucks air into the case in the front bay of your case, one at the back that blows it out again, if those aren't present yet. Consider a watercooling-solution for your cpu, mainboard and graphics card.

And one more thing: While this will reduce the warmth of your components, it will not really affect the amount of heat that gets into your room because the components still change the same amount of current into heat. If you have some device that uses heat energy to change it into some other form of energy, I recommend to use that

Edited August 26, 2008 by samm

[Gorgon]

If you do go with water cooling you will need a case that has rubber grommets, and you will be installing outside as well as inside the case, I really can't recommend this for anyone but enthusiasts, or as a way to solve a serious heating problem, but have we even identified that it is that serious yet.

 

For case fans, depending on the case you have there is usually the option to install more, this is a more straightforward solution, the bigger fan the better as a big fan rotates slower and makes less noise. a new CPU cooler may be necessary as well, can't say until we know how hot is 'hot'

 

And yes, house cleaning inside the computer, necessary once in a while, small fans and heatsinks get clogged with dust reducing their efficiency. I just use a fine haired brush, never did find anywhere here that sold those compressed air thingies.

Edited August 26, 2008 by Gorgon

[WITHTEETH]

Fans fans fans. The bigger the fans the slower they need to spend thus the quieter they will end up being. I have 120mm Fans but the standard is 80mm. Adding copper to the case itself wont do much i think. But a good copper heatsink on a spu or VGA can bring down the temp atleast 3C's sometimes down to 25C if you work magic! But most likely im thinking about 9C's is average for me.

 

BTW show a picture of your uber rig already!

 

Good luck wals!

[samm]

A brush is good too, but it must be of a material that doesnt get statically charged.

[Gorgon]

Yes, natural rather than synthetic.

[tripleRRR]

First as samm said, clean it, once a month works for me. Also get dust filters on the intake fans, hopefully you have at least a couple. Those are the simple and cheap approaches to keeping the temp down.

 

You won't really be able to reduce the overall temperature generated by your machine, however you can disperse the heat more quickly so you won't have to eat more soup, install a couple more big 120 fans, new heatsink for the cpu, et cetera.

[Gorth]

I've been quote happy with water cooling so far. Noiseless and painless, although it is only the CPU that is being cooled so far. Still waiting to see what the ATI4750X2 cards are all about and how hard they are to mod (i.e. replace the fan with a water block).

[Gorgon]

Well a fan cooled system can be noiseless as well. Something I was wondering about though, where does all the tubing go, do you have part of the system hanging out the back of the case ?, that sounds pretty unwieldy. I have heard some reports about the fluid getting moldy over time. If you get a quality brand this shouldn't be a problem though.

 

I'm sure I don't need to mention that if the thing springs a leak, that's all she wrote.

[Gorth]

Well a fan cooled system can be noiseless as well. Something I was wondering about though, where does all the tubing go, do you have part of the system hanging out the back of the case ?, that sounds pretty unwieldy. I have heard some reports about the fluid getting moldy over time. If you get a quality brand this shouldn't be a problem though.

 

I'm sure I don't need to mention that if the thing springs a leak, that's all she wrote.

 

That was thoughts like those that made me look for alternatives like passive cooling first, but then who dares wins (or loses badly).

 

The Antec casing I got has two rubber grommeted (sp?) holes in the back for the very purpose. One hose goes out, one in. They are hooked up with an external radiator, which has a pump inside and no fans (for maximum silence, which is what I aimed for).

 

Link to product page from my "build" thread (it has images of what it looks like):

 

I gave up trying to get the Thermaltake cooling tower. Went with a Zalman Reserator 2 instead. Fan less of course for maximum silence

 

I can't remember if the site wants you to install Korean fonts (even when the text is in English) so I wonder if direct linking works:

 

 

The hoses are attached to the radiator with some kind of locking mechanims, you just puch a small button and pull it out. The water doesn't run anywhere. The blue colour is the liquid that you mix up with the demineralised water for sterilisation and anti-corrosion purposes.

[Gorgon]

It looks cool, but I have to say, unless you need it, that radiator is just taking up space. I imagine it's a bit of a pain moving the computer as well. I'm quite pleased with my Antec p190 case, after some fiddling around and with the case fans set to low it makes no noise either. You can't even tell on from off unless you put your ears to it. I can't OC it with those fan settings, but that's not what I was going for anyway.

[mkreku]

It looks cool, but I have to say, unless you need it, that radiator is just taking up space. I imagine it's a bit of a pain moving the computer as well. I'm quite pleased with my Antec p190 case, after some fiddling around and with the case fans set to low it makes no noise either. You can't even tell on from off unless you put your ears to it. I can't OC it with those fan settings, but that's not what I was going for anyway.

The funny thing is that the P190 comes with three separate case fans, and even with all three on low it's still audibly wheezing. But unless you have some really hot and bothersome parts in your case, all you need is one actually running. I disabled the one near the PSU and the one at the back, and left the one at the top running on low. So all in all I have the PSU fan (which either never moves or is totally silent, I don't know), the GPU fan, the CPU fan (which I can control with a dial at the back of the system, I have it on in-audible levels) and the top fan running. I can barely hear my system now! And all the temperatures are as low as ever.

[Hurlshort]

Wals was having issues posting images, so he wanted me to show what it looks like inside his rig:

 

 

[samm]

Reminds me of the NWN-Module creators "feline fuelled games"

[Gorgon]

It looks cool, but I have to say, unless you need it, that radiator is just taking up space. I imagine it's a bit of a pain moving the computer as well. I'm quite pleased with my Antec p190 case, after some fiddling around and with the case fans set to low it makes no noise either. You can't even tell on from off unless you put your ears to it. I can't OC it with those fan settings, but that's not what I was going for anyway.

The funny thing is that the P190 comes with three separate case fans, and even with all three on low it's still audibly wheezing. But unless you have some really hot and bothersome parts in your case, all you need is one actually running. I disabled the one near the PSU and the one at the back, and left the one at the top running on low. So all in all I have the PSU fan (which either never moves or is totally silent, I don't know), the GPU fan, the CPU fan (which I can control with a dial at the back of the system, I have it on in-audible levels) and the top fan running. I can barely hear my system now! And all the temperatures are as low as ever.

Well, I can actually hear it from where I'm sitting, but that's only because I have been thinking about it. Compared with what I had before it's silent as the grave. Now I can hear the radiator from the fridge and other people in my building flushing their toilets, not sure that's an improvement.

[LadyCrimson]

Wals was having issues posting images, so he wanted me to show what it looks like inside his rig:

Hahahah! I love it.

 

Re: using compressed air to dust...I guess if you have 'dust covers' on your fans, that would help, but be cautious when using that method...I farked up my power-supply and video card fans once, because the huge clouds of flying dust got into the fan bearings or something. First they made noise, then they ground to a halt.

 

If you can find a good one for pc's, a vacuum works a lot better, especially if you have months or years of dust collected.

Edited August 29, 2008 by LadyCrimson

[samm]

If you have dust covers for your fans, you can easily clean them by taking them out and just brushing the dust off them, no need for an air treatment I have yet to find a vacuum cleaner that allows for this, as all I've seen personally were statically charged.

Anyway, one must be careful when using any method involving air not to a) push the dust into the device like LadyCrimson said and b) not to make fans spin. b) is because if they spin, charge is generated and can damage whatever device they're connected to (motherboard or graphics card usually), and also if they spin too fast in the wrong direction it can damage the bearings.

Edited August 29, 2008 by samm

[I want teh kotor 3]

Wals was having issues posting images, so he wanted me to show what it looks like inside his rig:

 

 

 

But fans will help. Or you could go overboard and do water cooling, etc. but that's just overkill.

[Walsingham]

I don't own a camera, so no pics, I'm afraid. I've checked and I've got an 80mm fan in back, and an 80mm fan in front. Plus several fans inside. I think dusting could be inorder though, and not with compressed air. I did a quick poll of locals and they reckon as long as you don't use nylon then static should not be very serious. Also, poking a vauum cleaner nozzle in is recommended.

 

I like the idea of liquid cooling, as the noise is actually starting to get to me, when playing particularly atmospheric stuff like Stalker. But it's not top of my list. I think it may actually be time to consider working up a rig from scratch, and leaving this one purely for work or as an entertainment hub/central server in the lounge. If I do get a new rig, I may have to go totally nuts on the casing, and see what I can find in the way of walnut, and shaded titanium.

 

*comes back to reality*

 

Cooling. Yes. I think water-cooled, ftw. Besides, I'm always curious to check out new technologies.

[Gorgon]

Well there are fans in most water cooled systems as well, typically one mounted near the CPU, those can be annoyingly loud as well.

[Gorth]

It is usually a good idea to have at least a little bit of air flow through you casing. My Northbridge is passively cooled (there is like a mountain of copper in there, directing the heat to some big copper heat sinks), my gfx card is passively cooled (and will only be replaced by a "water coolable" one) and my cpu is water cooled. As Gorgon said, there is a fan on the powersupply (which through some clever case design also generates the airflow that cools the HDD(s) and two low noise fans on the casing. The watercooler has no fans, just a tiny pump hidden away inside the radiator, immersed in the water. Makes for some cool running and very quiet too