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View Full Version : How do I keep a desktop cool



Vignesh S
January 16th, 2010, 01:58 AM
This issue has come back again seeing that its summer here, and its a very contentious one for me. When its a steaming day (for me, anything above 33-35C or above 100F), my desktop causes my room to quite literally turn into a furnace, which means quite effectively I can't use it. This is a massive problem for me, because I don't want to use my laptop all the time while we are in the middle of a heatwave (which happens a fair bit here in Melbourne :-P).

So, my question is, how on earth do I keep my desktop from overheating my room when its above 30C?

Desktop specs:
Intel Pentium Dual-Core 1.8GHz
Nvidia GeForce 7600GT (that could cause problems with keeping the desktop cool :-()
2GB DDR2 RAM

So this is no mini-desktop, and is somewhat of an Ubuntu powerhouse, and is very capable of making my room into a sauna on steaming hot days :-(

pwnst*r
January 16th, 2010, 02:05 AM
Central air.

sliketymo
January 16th, 2010, 02:07 AM
Window AC.

Cam42
January 16th, 2010, 02:08 AM
sorry, but I wouldn't call a Pentium PC a 'powerhouse'

Maybe buy a case fan if it bugs you, but I think it should be fine. Shut it down if you're really worried.

sailthesea
January 16th, 2010, 02:15 AM
I'll use it for you in my house where it is currently 1 degree C It can keep my legs warm!:D
Seriously though the heat displacement in those kinds of temps (and humidity) are going to be an issue
Maybe enclose the case in a largish volume airspace and get a fan to pull as much air from a cool space (floor vent?) and then outdoors?
Obviously upgrading the fans in the case itself will help
Got any pics/specs of this fire breathing beast?;)

Vignesh S
January 16th, 2010, 02:17 AM
sorry, but I wouldn't call a Pentium PC a 'powerhouse'

Maybe buy a case fan if it bugs you, but I think it should be fine. Shut it down if you're really worried.

True, but this is from 2007 standards :-P Even if it wasn't all that powerful back then either, its certainly the most powerful computer in the home here :-)

Doing nothing isn't an option. I want my room to remain (somewhat) cool while this desktop is running, and there's like 3 fans inside of it. Maybe passive cooling? I don't know too much about computer hardware stuff though :-)

Vignesh S
January 16th, 2010, 02:21 AM
I'll use it for you in my house where it is currently 1 degree C It can keep my legs warm!:D
Seriously though the heat displacement in those kinds of temps (and humidity) are going to be an issue
Maybe enclose the case in a largish volume airspace and get a fan to pull as much air from a cool space (floor vent?) and then outdoors?
Obviously upgrading the fans in the case itself will help
Got any pics/specs of this fire breathing beast?;)

Desktop specs:
Intel Pentium Dual-Core 1.8GHz
Nvidia GeForce 7600GT (that could cause problems with keeping the desktop cool)
2GB DDR2 RAM

Unfortunately for me, there isn't a place in the home where it is a constant 1C :-(, and the strange thing is, it doesn't even heat up the room in winter :-(, and that's actually quite cold (for me anyway :-P, no snow here since 1950 :-()

lol, firebreathing beast :-D that's made my day. I'll come back to you on the pics of it.

One more thing: you're freezing in a cold snap, and we're scorching in a heatwave, the irony of it all :-D

alwayshere
January 16th, 2010, 02:24 AM
an electric chilly bin/ small fridge? mod to suit is the cheapest option I can think of may need to vent or water trap fron spray painter commpreeser? it to let out any condensation may be a termostat power supply to regulate the temp maybe an old wall heater termostate ?. you cold run a tube through some sort of cooler wirih a fan blowing air through that tube to ya pc. Or just move to New Zealand

sailthesea
January 16th, 2010, 02:39 AM
an electric chilly bin/ small fridge? mod to suit is the cheapest option I can think of may need to vent or water trap fron spray painter commpreeser? it to let out any condensation may be a termostat power supply to regulate the temp maybe an old wall heater termostate ?. you cold run a tube through some sort of cooler wirih a fan blowing air through that tube to ya pc. Or just move to New Zealand

Not a bad idea but it still leaves the question of ambient heat, if you blow cold air into the thing you still have to vent the heat exchanged from the cooling unit
I wonder if there is a better way to lower the heat output of the machine ?:-k

alwayshere
January 16th, 2010, 02:42 AM
of course you would put the cooling unit in the roof or onother room or out the window or under the house in a cool spot somewhere .
ther is a better way such as a/c yes but i guess this dude ant got the doe for that or he would be at the a/c shop

Skripka
January 16th, 2010, 02:45 AM
True, but this is from 2007 standards :-P Even if it wasn't all that powerful back then either, its certainly the most powerful computer in the home here :-)

Doing nothing isn't an option. I want my room to remain (somewhat) cool while this desktop is running, and there's like 3 fans inside of it. Maybe passive cooling? I don't know too much about computer hardware stuff though :-)

Your only option is an AC unit either window or central to improve things. Passive cooling on the CPU would make you MUCH worse off than you are now. CPUs are made for people living in server-farms with AC, not people living in 40C temps without AC. Welcome to modern supercomputing.

If you're running a Pentium dual core, you're already at a TDP of 65W, and you won't fin a cooler running chip short of an Atom.

Skripka
January 16th, 2010, 02:49 AM
Unfortunately for me, there isn't a place in the home where it is a constant 1C :-(, and the strange thing is, it doesn't even heat up the room in winter :-(, and that's actually quite cold (for me anyway :-P, no snow here since 1950 :-()

Your machine shouldn't run that hot, it only has a 65W CPU on it...even at full tilt it won't heat a room. But it puts out enough heat to get grumpy when the HSFs cannot do anything due to your high ambient temp.

Vignesh S
January 16th, 2010, 03:15 AM
of course you would put the cooling unit in the roof or onother room or out the window or under the house in a cool spot somewhere .
ther is a better way such as a/c yes but i guess this dude ant got the doe for that or he would be at the a/c shop

I wouldn't quite say that. Lets just say that getting AC isn't high on my priority list at the moment, seeing that my room (and the old part of the home) is quite cool for anything around and below 30-32C :-P

Well, I'm not so sure if its worth doing intensive cooling for this desktop. If it were the top of the range, I would but this comp isn't so I'm not so sure :-(. Just to clarify, the desktop makes the ambient temperature in my room soar, and usually at the beginning of the day it is quite cool, but I don't want my desktop to make my room from a cool refuge into a place that's even hotter than outside :-O. Wish it would do that in winter :-P (but I digress...)

I'm just into keeping my room naturally cooled, though that doesn't last for very long when its 40C outside and only dipped to around 25-30C last night :-(. But that hardly happens

I just want to keep the desktop running cool. And I'm not quite sure if replacing the fans is necessary, seeing that this computer is only 2-3 years old :-O

alwayshere
January 16th, 2010, 04:10 AM
If all you need to do is keep the pc from heatinmg the room just fan duct the heat from the pc elsewhere.

but if ya want to keep pc cool and outside is hot and inside is hot you are going top need some sort of cooling unit

bruno9779
January 16th, 2010, 04:18 AM
The computer is fine.

It is the room that is already so hot that a computer makes it unbearable.

Some more fans would cool your PC, and an AC of some sort would cool you...

Vignesh S
January 17th, 2010, 02:45 AM
Thanks everyone. Just wanted to know if there is a problem with my desktop or not in regards to that. Seeing that this isn't a supercomputer, I don't think any drastic action (like nitrogen or water cooling :-D) is all that necessary. I think a few more fans and passive cooling units inside will help a LOT. I guess keeping the system clear of dust will also greatly assist.

lol, I see the word AC a lot around in this thread. Well the irony is, I'm freezing here at the moment (only around 17C outside, and this is summer here :?). We'll see about that ;-)

markp1989
January 17th, 2010, 03:01 AM
This issue has come back again seeing that its summer here, and its a very contentious one for me. When its a steaming day (for me, anything above 33-35C or above 100F), my desktop causes my room to quite literally turn into a furnace, which means quite effectively I can't use it. This is a massive problem for me, because I don't want to use my laptop all the time while we are in the middle of a heatwave (which happens a fair bit here in Melbourne :-P).

So, my question is, how on earth do I keep my desktop from overheating my room when its above 30C?

Desktop specs:
Intel Pentium Dual-Core 1.8GHz
Nvidia GeForce 7600GT (that could cause problems with keeping the desktop cool :-()
2GB DDR2 RAM



So this is no mini-desktop, and is somewhat of an Ubuntu powerhouse, and is very capable of making my room into a sauna on steaming hot days :-(

i know how you feel (admitingly its cooler here then it is where you are), my old server (alot less powerfull then yours) used to make my room baking hot in the summer.

having extra fans in the computer isnt going to make much difference to the room temperature .

maybe having a fan in the window blowing warm air out, and leaving the door open to allow a brese to come through?

how aabout just moving the computer outside, and running vga/usb cables in :p


of if you can afford it replace it with somthing modern (maybe a 45w amd or an atom) that uses less power.

you could try replacing the psu with somthing more efficent, that would reduce the amount of heat it gives off.

xuCGC002
January 17th, 2010, 04:06 AM
sorry, but I wouldn't call a Pentium PC a 'powerhouse'

You sort of can when you OC it to 3 GHZ. :D

Vignesh S
January 17th, 2010, 04:15 AM
You sort of can when you OC it to 3 GHZ. :D
That's not going to happen anytime soon though :-P, seeing that Ubuntu doesn't have a problem with the CPU ;-)

NoaHall
January 17th, 2010, 04:16 AM
You sort of can when you OC it to 3 GHZ. :D

Not really.

MasterNetra
January 17th, 2010, 04:57 AM
Liquid Nitrogen?

cartman640
January 17th, 2010, 05:06 AM
I've got a good idea, the problem here is that your computer puts out X watts of heat. No matter what cooling solution you use, X watts of heat has to be dissipated somewhere, most likely into your room, making it hot. Ducting the air out of your room is one way, but that requires chopping holes in walls/ceiling/etc so I propose a much simpler solution:

Move your computer out of your room, like just outside the door would probably do and buy a long DVI/D-SUB/DIsplayPort/whatever cable for your monitor and some USB extension cables for your peripherals. Then you're not heating your room, you're heating somewhere else in the house (I'm guessing some sort of hall way).

On a side note, I have a quad core workstation, a dual core server, a single core server, a dual core imac and an xbox 360 in my room just to keep it warm during the summer :P New Zealand is a great place for high overclocks and silly amounts of computers in a single room. Need more quad cores for winter though lol.

MasterNetra
January 17th, 2010, 05:08 AM
I've got a good idea, the problem here is that your computer puts out X watts of heat. No matter what cooling solution you use, X watts of heat has to be dissipated somewhere, most likely into your room, making it hot. Ducting the air out of your room is one way, but that requires chopping holes in walls/ceiling/etc so I propose a much simpler solution:

Move your computer out of your room, like just outside the door would probably do and buy a long DVI/D-SUB/DIsplayPort/whatever cable for your monitor and some USB extension cables for your peripherals. Then you're not heating your room, you're heating somewhere else in the house (I'm guessing some sort of hall way).

On a side note, I have a quad core workstation, a dual core server, a single core server, a dual core imac and an xbox 360 in my room just to keep it warm during the summer :P New Zealand is a great place for high overclocks and silly amounts of computers in a single room. Need more quad cores for winter though lol.

Better Idea. Move to alaska (or someplace called) and keep your computer outside (sheltered from wind and snow of course). And there ya go. No heating issues.

Vignesh S
January 17th, 2010, 06:50 AM
I've got a good idea, the problem here is that your computer puts out X watts of heat. No matter what cooling solution you use, X watts of heat has to be dissipated somewhere, most likely into your room, making it hot. Ducting the air out of your room is one way, but that requires chopping holes in walls/ceiling/etc so I propose a much simpler solution:

Move your computer out of your room, like just outside the door would probably do and buy a long DVI/D-SUB/DIsplayPort/whatever cable for your monitor and some USB extension cables for your peripherals. Then you're not heating your room, you're heating somewhere else in the house (I'm guessing some sort of hall way).

On a side note, I have a quad core workstation, a dual core server, a single core server, a dual core imac and an xbox 360 in my room just to keep it warm during the summer :P New Zealand is a great place for high overclocks and silly amounts of computers in a single room. Need more quad cores for winter though lol.
Is it really that cold in NZ? Thought it would be a little warmer than that :-P

As for Alaska, I don't think keeping anything cool there is going to be a problem ;-)

Vignesh S
January 17th, 2010, 08:07 AM
Well, it is in the middle of this cold snap (for a summer anyway, hasn't gone above 19C today, brrrrr ;-)) that I realise that it is more cold than hot here. Sure, it has been to 46.4C before, but we are also just as capable of being frozen in cold weather, even if snow doesn't occur here very often (if at all). Thank goodness for this computer, for it is helping a LOT to heat my freezing room up. It is too warm to turn the heater on, but too cold to feel comfortable in :-(.

cartman640
January 17th, 2010, 09:48 AM
Is it really that cold in NZ? Thought it would be a little warmer than that :-P

It can be that cold, but on average the weather isn't that bad. I'm in Otago, which not far from the bottom, and the temperature varies from -10 degrees during the coldest part of the night in winter to about 30 degrees during the hottest part of summer. So 19 degrees for us wouldn't be cold, it would be a fair day.

Although the sun here is very very intense, burnt in 10 minutes intense, so often in the sun it's unbearable and in the shade it's still quite cold.

The best (or worst) bit is though, if you don't like the weather here, just wait 5 minutes and it will change :P

Paqman
January 17th, 2010, 10:08 AM
There's no point in modifying the cooling in the PC. Fans don't reduce the heat a machine emits, they just move it about. What you need to do (as others have mentioned) is get the heat that your machine does create out of the room.

The simplest way to do that is obviously to open a window. Moving on from that you could duct hot exhaust air from the PC out the window and/or put a fan in the window.

You've got a million other options though, such as underclocking the machine when you're doing simple web surfing, or better yet using a nettop or netbook for that sort of task. You can get nettops that will mount on the back of your monitor and they run so cool they don't even need fans. They're perfectly good for most computing tasks.

Vignesh S
January 17th, 2010, 10:36 AM
It can be that cold, but on average the weather isn't that bad. I'm in Otago, which not far from the bottom, and the temperature varies from -10 degrees during the coldest part of the night in winter to about 30 degrees during the hottest part of summer. So 19 degrees for us wouldn't be cold, it would be a fair day.

Although the sun here is very very intense, burnt in 10 minutes intense, so often in the sun it's unbearable and in the shade it's still quite cold.

The best (or worst) bit is though, if you don't like the weather here, just wait 5 minutes and it will change :P

Fair enough, seeing that it is quite cold in South Island ;-)

Paqman, I guess underclocking would greatly assist, and Ubuntu has a utility to do that quite easily ;-). Seeing as I already have a laptop that runs quite cool (well, much cooler than my desktop anyway), there isn't a need to get a nettop.

Strangely enough, my sister's netbook isn't all that good at running cool. The fans turn on within 2 minutes on a hot day :-(. Any ideas as to how I could fix that up? (other than underclocking?)

humphreybc
January 17th, 2010, 11:20 AM
Eh? From the specs it doesn't look that hot...

1) Is it off the ground/carpet?

2) Has it got plenty of space around it?

3) Is there at least one fan sucking fresh air in, and at least one sucking hot air out?

4) More fans!

Oh and whoever is in Otago - WOOHOO! Where are you? I flat in Duke Street in Dunedin!

Vignesh S
January 17th, 2010, 11:50 AM
1. Yes
2.hmmm... I don't think so
3. I don't think there is a fan sucking "cool" air in (note that when its a heatwave, cool air is a rare commodity :?)
4. That's probably a must, but then again, its more cold than hot here.

lol about you 2 guys being in NZ...

3rdalbum
January 17th, 2010, 12:44 PM
Hot air rises. Maybe you could simply duct your chassis fan upwards, close to the ceiling? That way, the hot air has a chance to cool to "room temperature" before actually hitting you down at ground level.

Cartman: For winter, you should pick up one of those old NetBurst-era Pentium 4s. Preferably a 3.4GHz model. With one of those in your room during wintertime, it'll feel like an Australian summer!

Vignesh S
January 17th, 2010, 11:59 PM
hmmm, seeing that my desktop is in a small but not enclosed space i.e. those spaces for the computer in those L-shaped desks ;-), keeping it cool is a big problem. But strangely enough, in the middle of a cold snap, my CPU is at a constant 40C and my HDD 35C! Not sure how hot they get in a heatwave, but we'll see about that once a heatwave does come.

OMG, its so cold outside brrrrr :? Currently sitting on a freezing 13C, and it dipped below 8 last night :? Don't remember the last time it was this cold in January