Serious Case Cooling

[vegas]

I have been having some problems with the following hardware :

Diamond Viper V770
K6-2 500 Mhz AMD processor.

Between the two of these components, my case inside and out are very warm to the touch. I have an 8cm fan at the front of the case as well as a heavy duty fan mounted in the slot under the video card however the temperature in my BIOS hasn't cooled a bit. I am thinking I might have to invest in an artificially cooled case, what are some of the options ? Who makes them, what websites can I go to for checking out products like this ?

[hd581]

my case inside and out are very warm to the touch. That should set off a big warning alarm in your head; the case should never be very warm. Check to see if your power supply is hotter than everything else. Someone on another post said their power supply fan was going out and caused the PS to heat up considerably raising the overall system temperature.

[brandon184]

Sounds like you have a cooling problem.

I'm wondering if your fans are set up in a position where air is not being pushed into the correct areas?

You should have cool air coming in, and exiting with the warm air, through and exhaust fan somewhere near the top of the case. Any other fans are also a big plus.

Check out some of 3dcool's solutions.
http://www.3dcool.com/

[krusty the klown]

Has your case suddenly started getting warm, or has it always been that way? If it has suddenly started getting warm, then something has failed / is failing and you should try and cure the disease, not the symptoms.

If you want to see what't available commercially, check these piccies out:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Cases_Power_Supplies_7.html

OK, this a UK site, so it would be expensive to ship to Canada (they do ship internationally), but it fives you an idea what's available, or possibly some ideas for DIY.

[Axel]

From the sound of it, you seem to have the number of fans right - here are a few other things to look into -

If it's a PCI card, can you move the video card to a slot farther away from the I/O chip and better spread out the heat load in the case.

Make sure the IDE and floppy ribbon cables aren't obstructing the air flow through the unit - use cable ties to pull them to the side and open up the air flow.

Check into getting a mini peltier electronic heat sink to slip onto the main Video chip as a possible way to reduce the heat load.

Check into an expansion slot fan and install it as close as possible to the video card.

Make sure all of the air intakes of the CPU are unobstructed.

Is there any consideration ( children, cats, other destructive environmental factors ) why you need to keep the CPU case cover on - take it off if you can -

Should you need the case on - got-a-drill? - put more holes in the case - increase your air flow....

[tonym]

vegas,

Check out this thread: http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/006686.html.

If you take Axel's advice and remove the case (which I don't recommend), then the best cooling would be a box-type window fan facing the mobo. I'm not kidding. With the case removed, you just won't do any better at moving air into and around the PC.

If your case is getting hot to the touch and everything is working OKAY inside, then you've got a ventilation problem. Hot air is pooling at the top of the case. You need another exhaust fan up there to remove the heat load.

As for the video chip, a real neat heatsink can be made from a 6" long x 0.75" wide x 0.03-0.05" thick piece of aluminium (roughly the shape of a half-ruler). At one end make 6 or 7 slits about 0.15" apart and about 0.25" deep into the meal piece (along the 6" length, justified towards one end). Make similar cuts directly across from the first set. Take a needle-nose pliers and give the resulting tabs of metal a quarter twist or "splay" them alternately from the horizontal.

The result is a heatsink at the and of a stick. Now epoxy it to the top of the IC (you can get fancy and epoxy two threaded plastic studs to the video card on either side of the video card IC and drill two corresponding holes in the heatsink and insert the screws to engage the threaded studs to facilitate the clamping of this heatsink to the top of the video chip -- use thermal paste) and you've now got a remotely cooled heatsink. This type of cooling is routinely done in servers and commercial equipment. You can expect a 10-20°C decrease in junction temperature using this method with an adjunct cooling fan.

As for the CPU, use the tallest heatsink that your case/mobo can accommodate with an integrated fan. There's no reason why it should be no hotter than warm-tepid (<40°C) to the touch!

Finally, you mention that you have 2 cooling fans in your case. If they are both pulling air out, then you may have a partial vacuum inside your case because you've may not have enough/good ventilation holes at/along the bottom of the case. In an effort to create increased airflow cooling, you may have unintentionally hindered it!

A simple experiment will help you verify this. Simply reverse the direction of airflow for the fan at the front of the case (have it blow in!), and if the temperature inside the case drops at all, then you are not getting adequate ventilation!


Tony