I live in Hawaii, on the windward side of Oahu. We have constant wind blowing in from the ocean. There is no AC, the house is naturally cooled with loads of open windows. We're also up on a hill against the mountains and it's insane humid year round, temps 76-86 year round. The humidity is so bad that just leaving some T-shirts in a drawer for a month will cause them to mildew.
I had to RMA my R9 280X at 1.5 years. They told me when they opened it they found green corrosion in the heatsink fins, consistent with salty & humid air (but still gave me a replacement - go XFX!)
Had to RMA mobo at 2 years. Then again at 2.5 years. This is getting old (esp since Z77 chipset mobos are rare as hen's teeth, people on Ebay don't ship to Hawaii [guess they don't know it's just another state and costs no more and is just as fast as east coast to west coast but don't get me started on that]). I have preemie twins as of a week ago so need to keep my 3570k alive for a while.
MSI didn't have replacement Z77a-g45 in 7/15 when I RMA'd, had to wait 1.5 months for them to get stock in. Now they have none and have to send it to China for repair (still in the 3 year warranty!)
So my question is, and I've googled the heck out of it and no clear answer that's helpful to me, in the absence of AC how can I keep humidity out of the case? Dehumidifiers are pointless I'd need industrial size. Those giant dessicant buckets you can get at the hardware store are pointless as they literally fill with water in days to weeks.
So my options pretty much come down to leaving the system on or off.
Leaving it on, so it stays hot inside (and oh man cooling this thing has been a nightmare but I've got it down now), with as many high CFM fans going as possible, and an H80i on my 4.5gz CPU is one option. I know hot air holds more moisture, but I'm already at 100% relative humidity ambient anyway. Maybe keeping it running 24/7 is the best option as it moves air out, components warm and radiating heat so pushing air+water molecules away? Or maybe it's a bad option as it allows MORE salty water molecules to contact my fins/heatsinks/radiator?
Leaving it off as much as possible is option two. But that'd allow humid air to just sit in there in contact with the above and slowly corrode it.
Anyone know which is better? OR have a clever idea I haven't thought of? Throwing dessicant packets in there doesn't make sense since as I mentioned they get saturated too fast to be useful.
Thanks!
I had to RMA my R9 280X at 1.5 years. They told me when they opened it they found green corrosion in the heatsink fins, consistent with salty & humid air (but still gave me a replacement - go XFX!)
Had to RMA mobo at 2 years. Then again at 2.5 years. This is getting old (esp since Z77 chipset mobos are rare as hen's teeth, people on Ebay don't ship to Hawaii [guess they don't know it's just another state and costs no more and is just as fast as east coast to west coast but don't get me started on that]). I have preemie twins as of a week ago so need to keep my 3570k alive for a while.
MSI didn't have replacement Z77a-g45 in 7/15 when I RMA'd, had to wait 1.5 months for them to get stock in. Now they have none and have to send it to China for repair (still in the 3 year warranty!)
So my question is, and I've googled the heck out of it and no clear answer that's helpful to me, in the absence of AC how can I keep humidity out of the case? Dehumidifiers are pointless I'd need industrial size. Those giant dessicant buckets you can get at the hardware store are pointless as they literally fill with water in days to weeks.
So my options pretty much come down to leaving the system on or off.
Leaving it on, so it stays hot inside (and oh man cooling this thing has been a nightmare but I've got it down now), with as many high CFM fans going as possible, and an H80i on my 4.5gz CPU is one option. I know hot air holds more moisture, but I'm already at 100% relative humidity ambient anyway. Maybe keeping it running 24/7 is the best option as it moves air out, components warm and radiating heat so pushing air+water molecules away? Or maybe it's a bad option as it allows MORE salty water molecules to contact my fins/heatsinks/radiator?
Leaving it off as much as possible is option two. But that'd allow humid air to just sit in there in contact with the above and slowly corrode it.
Anyone know which is better? OR have a clever idea I haven't thought of? Throwing dessicant packets in there doesn't make sense since as I mentioned they get saturated too fast to be useful.
Thanks!
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