Heat problems? Try this

[flakbait]

I just did this myself and thought I'd share. I've got an antique vid card that runs hot all the time. After a typical day the thing gets so hot you can barely put your fingers on it. So, with some scissors and a sheet of screen door material, I temporarily fixed it. My vid card is in the top slot, so moving it around wasn't an issue. My modem, however, needed to be moved. It's now sitting in the bottom PCI slot. Anyway, I removed two filler strips from the expansion slots that weren't being used. This opened a nice-sized hole in the back, right below that toasty vid card. I could've left it at that, but the computer room is dusty. Shot carpeting doesn't help any either. Then I cut a piece of screen door material that spaned both holes and then some. Once I had that piece cut right (only took two tries) I clamped it in place using the modem's mounting bracket. With a screw driver, and a little effort, I wedged the other side up under the vid card's bracket. Now I've got a two-slot hole in the back, sucking in gobs of cold air, with a dust screen in place. And all that nice cold air goes right under the video card before getting blown out. Thanks to my motherboard, the vid card and modem face down instead of up. So the heat gets blown towards the front of the case, then it's sucked up and out the cooling fan.

Kinda nifty, and it's running cooler than ever now. With a little dryer ducting and a high-speed fan I could probably make this thing run ice cold all the time.


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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"For yay did the sky darken, and split open and spew forth fire, and
through the smoke rode the Four Wurgers of the Apocalypse.
And on their canopies was tattooed the number of the Beast, and the
number was 190." Jedi, Verse Five, Capter Two, The Book of Dweeb
 

[Ghosth]

My system has an extra 80mm fan bolted in the back close to the CPU. Attached to that fan is a windscoop fabricated from a 20 oz pepsi bottle. It grabs about a third of the fans output and shoves it right down the cpu throat. Dropped CPU temps 10 to 15 degrees.  

I figure Red Green would be proud of both of us. Grin

[flakbait]

Ghosth I think there's only three or four dedicated guys around here who love to tinker. And we're two of 'em! I've got that piece of dryer ducting thanks to a neighbor who does construction. All I'm missing now is a high-speed duct fan. Heheheh who needs expensive case mods, five fans, and holes chopped in various places? With 15 bucks worth of parts, we could probably make a dual processor server run ice cold!  

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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"For yay did the sky darken, and split open and spew forth fire, and
through the smoke rode the Four Wurgers of the Apocalypse.
And on their canopies was tattooed the number of the Beast, and the
number was 190." Jedi, Verse Five, Capter Two, The Book of Dweeb
 

[Camel]

hehe

 Flakbait, try to pull as much air as you push. Creating high or low pressure causes dead spots that can heat up.
 Just saying, dont strap a 2'x 2' window fan to that dryer vent hose!  

[Ghosth]

LOL right on Flak, yeah I think we are for sure in the minority here.

Hmmm drier ducting huh,  Wifes got a ton of little 6" fans laying around. (gets vision of fan, drier ducting, & 2 rolls of duct tape)

Say those window AC units aren't needed this time of year, now THERE is a cold air source!

Grin

[Russian]

I run my computer with out cover. Keeps it kindof cool. A lot of cleaning thou. Going to have to shuve a fan in there same day.

[Pinner]

Originally posted by Russian:
I run my computer with out cover. Keeps it kindof cool. A lot of cleaning thou. Going to have to shuve a fan in there same day.

I'd be real careful of doing something like this. I dont know what kind of case you have, but many times there are specific mechanical features to a case/fan system to allow proper cooling. Just blindly taking the side panel off could actually result in a hotter running system than with the cover installed.

[Russian]

It runs much hotter with case on. If I overclock my Voodoo3 with case on it becomes very unstabile. With case off it runs fine. CPU is fine too and HD.

[flakbait]

Ghosth, you forgot the cardboard! Here's what ya do...

Open two expansion slots up like I did. Stuff a small duct fan inside the dryer duct and secure a piece of screen door material over the fan-end. Keeps the dust out. Now cut and bend a piece of cardboard so one end fits over the ducting. Use a hose clamp to make sure they don't come apart by accident. I'd reinforce the inside of the duct with a piece of plastic so the duct won't collapse when you sinch the clamp down. The other end should have two tabs on it with each tab shaped like a mounting bracket. Use a screw to secure both tabs inside the case to the mounting bracket screw holes. Plug the fan in and BLAMO! One cool computer. One other thing, if you've got an empty half-height drive bay open it up to let that air out.

I'm going to place the fan end of my duct on a box near my computer so it's off the floor. I'll probably bend the duct so it faces down, and won't suck up a lot of dust even with the screen. As for moving equal amounts of air, bullhooey calls me. If you're blowing air inside the case, right at a hot spot, then you eliminate any other hot spots completely. There's too much air volume being moved through to create any, let alone agrivate an existing one.

Taking your case wall off is an easy way to get cold air inside the system. Personally I'd use a screen of some type to keep the odd bug or dust bunny from getting inside it.


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Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"During the Battle of Britain the question 'fighter or fighter-bomber?'
had been decided once and for all: The fighter can only be used as a bomb carrier
with lasting effect when sufficient air superiority has been won." Adolph Galland
 

[Russian]

Originally posted by flakbait:
Taking your case wall off is an easy way to get cold air inside the system. Personally I'd use a screen of some type to keep the odd bug or dust bunny from getting inside it.

No bunnies live in my computer   and my house is clean so no bugs(Big boot helps too  )