Taking it to the max with aircooling, what is thou opinion???

[Ultima]

Hey guys,

I've been doing some thinking(yes indeed I have something that might be called a brain).

I wanna take my aircooling a little to the max, and here is how I plan on doing that:

I have 6 fans situated in the front of my pc, 6 in the back, to keep it flowing.
But, I was thinking about placing a block of 12 system fans directly over my mobo, and let both front and back fans suck air out!!
And then ofcourse the block of 12 blowing in!

Will this work efficiently or do you say, wast of time???

Please let me know, cause I already have the fans!!!

Thanks guys.

Pim

[a Bill]

It isn't how many fans you have, it is the efficiency of their placement for moving heated air out and cooler air in.

I rarely enter this portion of the forum so there isn't much point in posting a rebuttal to me here. My e-mail address is good http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif I am not intelligent enough to be able to participate in brainstorming sessions. Rather than think about it, I just do it and whatever I do always works because I am too dumb to know any better http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/biggrin.gif

[hd581]

I agree w/ bill. After some number of fans, you'll reach a point of diminishing returns. You'll have to take different measures in order to lower system temperature, i.e. move computer to colder room, move computer near direct airflow (won't do much good sticking a computer in a corner that recirculates its old hot air), drill hole in the case, etc.

[krusty the klown]

Your theoretical lowest temperature for air cooling is the ambient temperature of the room. This is only achievable if your heatsink has 0K/W rating (effectively making it an infinite heat sink operating at room temperature.

If you have a really good CPU heatsink and the system case removed, I reckon you can get the core temperature ~5 or 6 C above ambient (e.g. using a VOS32 with the system case off cooling a coppermine - overkill for a coppermine, but effective!). I reckon if you can keep the temperature rise comparing case on to case off to within a couple of degrees, you're pretty much at the optimal cooling.

This is just my feeling for what I consider reasonably achievable - I have not spent hours with a calculator, but you don't need a calculator to know that you can't get below ambient.

It's about balance - you will have heat probs if you have a monster CPU cooler, but no case ventilation and conversely, sticking a 486 cooler on an Athlon 900 is not too clever, no matter how good the case ventilation is.

[Ultima]

Thanks guys,

I have a pretty large hs/f combo on my socket 7, it is a rebuild PIII thing.
Don't ask me how I fitted it, but I did!!!

I have a big fan on my room light, so that circulates quite a lot, so my ambient temp I can drop and rise if I want!!!

I'll let ya'll know when I finished it!!!

Pim

[KillerBug]

If you want to go reeeeaaaaalllllyyyy extreme...


Get a radiator from a car, it will have 2 fans on it, they are both 12v, and they are huge! One on one side, the other on the other side, and have a huge windtunnel! No insanity intended.

[TWENTY]

get a fridge cooling unit and stick it on the right hand side of your case then hold a goats head in front of the monitor and turn the sucker on.

[Ultima]

Well Killerbug,

I like the idea of such a windtunnel, but I think that the noise would kill me in the end.

And btw, it looks kinda cool having about 24 system fans in yer case and they all work fine!!!
That, I think, is a sight for sore eyes.

I'll be making pics as soon as I finish it, and I'll ask Scotter if he can post em with the rest of my showcase at http://www.comppwizz.com/SHOWCAS.htm

Pim

[This message has been edited by Ultima (edited 06-06-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Ultima (edited 06-06-2000).]

[freem]

i leave my case off and just blow air from a small 6 inch fan inside if it gets hot. no bucks spent and more time for playing games instead of thinking. god i hate thinking

[Ultima]

Well Butler,

I can asure you that I have taken precautions, meaning that I have a seperate PS for my fans.

So at the moment I have a 300W PS and a 145W PS, which is enough for the fans.
The only thing is, when I turn the fans on, they all go on.

It powers through the power button of the PS, my uncle altered the PS, so it would run even though it is not connected to a mobo.

I'll send ya my electrical bill next month, hahaha.
At this moment I still have to build in the 2 at the top and the 4 in the back, but it shouldn't take too long.

I'll be making pictures next week I think, so I'll send ya a copy for laughters, hehehe.

Pim

[webpro]

How big is your power supply? It would have to be big to run all of those fans plus you computer internal guts.. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[Butler]

My GOD man...what's your electric bill run!!?? 24!!?? I have a 120mm and an 80mm in the front/bottom of my Aopen 24" tower, one 80mm in the middle, blowing from bottom to top, and 2 80mm's at the top/back. I have them all hooked up to three way switches, where center is off, up is 5v, and down is 12v. Normally I run the 80mm front, the center, and the 2 80mm rear fans at 5v. when I'm gaming, etc, I turn on the 120mm front to 12v, and switch the rest to 12v as well.

If I do this with no (or minimal) load on the CPU, it usually drops me between 3 and 4 degrees. When I leave all at 5v, except for the 120mm front, it drops 1 degree.

I normally run about 6 degrees or so over ambient...and this is all with a fairly simple HS (with an 80mm fan on it.)

Take ot for what it's worth, but the number 24, and the word overkill seem to be synonymous in my mind in regards to this issue...

BTW... if you're going to do this, you should make sure you've got a good 300w PS. Don't wan' the rest of our stuff to run outta juice ya know...

Best of luck!

Butler

[Ultima]

Webpro,

As I said in my previous post, I now have 2 PS's in my system.
The first, which is used for the pc "guts" is 300W.
The second, used strictly for the fans, is 145W, enough for the fans.

And if it turned out that the 145W isn't enough for the fans, cause I still have to add 6 fans, I pull it out and put my other one in, which also is a 300W.

So you see, I have enough power to keep it going.

This is a real "POWER-PC", hahaha.

Pim

[thekingofpain]

Thatl be REAL cool...may sound like a turbine helicopter at full chat tho, you ready for that???

[Ultima]

Well,

I've made sure to get the right fans.

They are all from quitech, and I had to listen from a distance of about 20 to 25 cm to be able to hear them, all 12 of the block that is.

And since I'll be sitting about 2 meters from the case, I don't think that is gonna be a problem.

But what I AM worried about, is that it might start hoovering away some day.LOL

Pim

[Ultima]

Guess what I got from my uncle today??!!!

3 220V fans, all about 5 inches in diameter.

Now I am doubting what to put in my case!!!

Pim

[Evil Knievel]

Actually, you can theoritically get the heat sink temp below the ambient temperature. A gas' pressure decreases as it's speed increases, and when you decrease the pressure in a gas, it's temperature drops. Change in pressure is the basic principal that your fridge operates on... and it's grill is sitting there at regular ol' room temperature. So if you had enough of a pig of a fan on your heat sink, say a jet engine or so, you could actually drop your CPU below ambient!

[Ultima]

My System case is finished.

Final status is:

12 80mm fans directly over the mobo.
4 80mm fans in front
1 220V fan in the back
2 80mm fans between cdrom and hdd
2 80mm fans in the top, to take out hot air

My k6-2 450@518 runs a measely 37 degrees after 3dmark 1 test.
mobo temp is 25 in idle and 27-28 after action, but drops to 25-26 within the minute.

Case temp I don't know, cause I don't have such a probe.

Pim