Keeping your computer room cool?

[sundevil_1997]

All of these discussions on how to cool the PC are great...but they all seem to come to the same result. The PC ends up cooler, but your room gets hotter. My particular problem is that my den holds 2 computers which are usually on. Couple that with the fact that I live in Arizona, and you can see why even without some hardcore cooling fan on the back of the PC's, the den is by far the hottest room in the house. With both PC's on, even just sitting there, it's like two very low wattage hair dryer's on all the time.

So then....has anyone else here ever tackled the problem of trying to keep excess heat from the room itself? At this point, my only idea on a possible solution is to actually drill a hole in the wall, attach a duct from the PC fan to the wall, and actually vent to the outside of the house. This seems a bit drastic...but perhaps workable. That's why I want to know if anyone else has ever attempted some solution like this and if it has worked. Thanks!

 

[ImpPatience]

Do you have a CRT monitor? (i.e. like a regular TV not an LCD like a laptop, I don't mean to be talking down to you, but I like to make sure we are both on the same page) The reason I ask is that those CRT monitors can really put off some heat. I imagine the CRT puts off as much heat as you or your computer would. I had a pair of 19" CRT monitors and a 17" CRT monitor going in my dorm room last winter. In the dead of winter with the window wide open, they kept the room at a decent temperature. In the summer time under a similar situation, you started sweating just sitting in my room. Personally I just grunted it out and left and intensive computing (i.e. video encoding) until at night. Since I got a LCD monitor though, it doesn't get quite as hot. The LCDs use about 1/5th the power I think and it doesn't get nearly as hot. So maybe either turning off the CRTs or getting a LCD would cut down on the heat.

As for the actual computer, I've heard of people putting their water-cooling radiators outside which might help your situation. But I think you implied that you are only using air cooling, so that won't help really either. I think your cheapest and least destructive option would be to take a box/floor fan and place it in the doorway of your den. Direct the fan so that it blows air in. When ever I host a LAN party and we are all in a small room we use a fan like that. It seems to work alright even if there are six guys and at least that many computers in the room.

As for what your are suggesting, it sounds plausible. Maybe what you ought to do before you actually cut a hole is get your duct/tubing stuff, attach it to the exhaust of your computer and just run the tubing out a window or someplace like that. See if that helps. If it doesn't, then I imagine cutting a hole in the wall and doing it that way, won't help much either.

Anyways, my 10 bits, ignore this if you want

<font color=blue><b>Virtue is its' own punishment<b></font color=blue>

 

[etp777]

Admittedly the CRT does hurt things, it's not as much as you'd think. 17" Viewsonic dissipates 70w, 21" perfact flat 115w. ANd pretty sure that's max, not typica, so less most of time(just like my computer may max out around 400, but doesn't most of time)

 

[ImpPatience]

A desktop puts out about 400 watts of heat? I guess that would make sense - the energy from a 400 watt power supply has got to go somewhere. I do know that my 19" Samsung CRT was used as a hand warm on more than a few occasions. I've even used it to help bread rise.* And when that SOB was off, the room got cooler. But I'm didn't do well in physics, so I take what I say with a grain of salt. I just know what I've experienced and thought it might be of some help.

*Monitor/bread trick - after kneading bread, place bread in bowl, cover with a cloth, and allow to rise. To cut the time necessary to allow the bread to rise, place bowl on top of monitor or regular TV. I swear, this works - plus you don't forget your bread while you are playing Quake

<font color=blue><b>Virtue is its' own punishment<b></font color=blue>

 

[etp777]

hahahaha.

ANd yeah, 400W would only be absolute max on my system accessing everything at once, but CPU does dissipate a lot of heat. Heck, just unplug your fans if you wanna see heat. Till it shuts itself off of course.

Easier to notice on my system as I only have one case fan, and all the fans, including that one, turned down to lowest settings(except power supply, as even at higehst setting it's quieter then rest on lowest). Setup this box to run as quiet as possible while still being air cooled.

 

[Crashman]

Actually a high end computer draws around 200W of power, and outputs ALL of that as heat eventually. But get this: A 200W lamp does the same thing! You know those 300W halogen room lamps? OMG, someone call the fire dept! You have a couple 100W lamps lighting up your room, or 3 60W lamps?

I use flourecent lights in most of my house, mostly because of HEAT!

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[etp777]

Even there, as I shamefacedly learened a few years ago, you can waste a lot of heat if you have crappy flourescent lamps(with the big 48" tube ones and similar). Because while the bulbs themselves will be low power, the ballast, if it's a cheap/crappy one, wastes a ton of power.

But Crash is exactly right. ANd it's why those 300W tall freestanding halogens come with a grill over top so if they fall down nothing can actually touch lamp and start on fire.

Course, ti's also why I have new turn signals for my bike here that are LEDs instead of regular bulbs.

 

[sundevil_1997]

Very good suggestions! I guess I'd say that my situation isn't CRITICAL. The den fortunately has a ceiling fan directly above the desk. Crank that thing to high and I won't be sweating. Ultimately you get used to the room...until you step out of it and then you suddenly realize just how hot it was in there.

I've got the old CRTs still. I'm waiting for a chance to drop it or for it to finally give out so I can find an excuse to replace it with an LCD....assuming they've finally matured enough to be good for gaming.

Good idea trying to gauge it's effectiveness before actually cutting holes in my wall. One big downside to drilling holes is that it would pretty much define where my computer is going to go. I'm not going to move my computer across the room and have a big metal dryer-type duct all the way to the other side. Ugh.

Again thanks for the inputs and ideas. I was just curious if anyone had tried something similar to this and had good results. I can see how a water cooled radiator would be easier to put outside (just need to pass the water tubes out, not a whole air duct)...but my system is just air cooled.

 

[ImpPatience]

Your welcome. One of those drop-in air conditioning units might be a good idea to like what zpyrd mentioned. I think that is what they are called. Those air conditioning units that people put in their windows.

Again, just my 10 bits - I ain't no expert on this subject

<font color=blue><b>Virtue is its' own punishment<b></font color=blue>

 

[Crashman]

'tis a contraction of "it is", like itis, hence the hyphen in the front, not the middle

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Hoolio]

I have exactly the same problem, the PC kicks out heat from the back and the underside of the desk is warm. Like you rlegs get so hot. Great in the winter........hot in the summer! This is just heat from the case!. Since the garage wall is shared by the room the computer is in I might put in a water cooling unit with the radiator in the garage

 

[Johanthegnarler]

How about you just invest in a fuking AC unit. ^^

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