My computer is hot.

[voided3]

Hello all. I have quite a good amount of experience building computers, but I am at a bit of an interesting state of puzzlement right now. I have a desktop computer w/ an ECS mobo, an AMD Athlon XP 2500+, 1.5 GB DDR333, an x1300 pro, and two 160 GB hard drives that seems to run a bit on the hot side for my tastes (though still well within spec). The current cooling setup is this:

-2x80mm PSU fans, one on the rear and other parallel to it on the front (sealed underneath)
-80mm blowhole fan reversed as intake (I have tried it in both directions, this made the PSU less hot)
-80mm front intake
-Thermaltake 80mm cpu cooler, fan replaced w/ a 120mm via a funnel adapter
-120mm rear fan
-80mm blower underneath video card
-RAM heat spreaders

I also have the hard drives arranged so one is at the very top of the cage and the other at the very bottom with the 3.5" bay covers popped out to allow air to come in there between them.

My dilemma is this: when I run it with the case closed as it normally would be, it idles around 105 F/40 C and when playing a game like Quake 4 it can peak at 127 F/52 C. However, when I run it with the side door off, it idles at about 96 F/35 C and almost never goes above 113 F/45 C. Why with so much airflow would the closed case raise the temperature so much? I would prefer not to leave the side of my computer open all of the time so that nothing gets in there (like my foot). Should I rig up some kind of duct on the door? Would a full tower perhaps work better? The current case is one I personally modified (let's just say it didn't have a blowhole or ANY rear fan when I got it... or big steel handles on the top :-D ) and I am pleased with its layout and such, but ever since I ran it with the side off the one time, i've noticed the massive difference. Maybe i'll cut a window on the door, but instead of plexi use steel mesh...... Any ideas/similar experiences? Thanks!

[hessiess]

even though you have allot of fans, you will get more air flow with the side off becose there is less ristence to airflow

[sp0onman]

those temps are quite good for that cpu, i have a athlon xp 2500@2.2ghz which idles at 48-50 and load is bout 57.

[voided3]

those temps are quite good for that cpu

In all fairness though yours is overclocked and mine is at the stock 1.83ghz, but yeah I just found the difference strange none the less, especially since other computers i've built in the past ran hotter with the cases open.

[mridkash]

That issue bugged me.
My desktop CPU temperature usually stayed at 65 to 70 deg C. Pentium 4 Prescott with HT

Now it stays at 50 to 60. To increase the air flow, I did these things;

1. removed extra PCI slot covers from motherboard and placed an intake fan there.
2. Removed an extra CD Drive bay cover and placed a exhaust fan there.
3. PC case cover has a small side window, placed a intake fan there blowing direct on the processor fan.

I guess it helps to follow nature i.e. warm air rises upward, so cool air intake at the bottom and warm air out of the top!

[Mr.Auer]

Pentium 4s run pretty hot. I once dug out the tested maximum operating temps for them since mine was peaking aroun 60 degrees C. Turns out the max temps for P4 2.8Ghz is around 70-75 C, so occasionally going up to 60 is no problem.I did however change the cooling after that so my CPU will now stay under 60 always. I changed the original case fan for a german made good quality Papst fan with higher thruput than the original cheap case fan, and changed the CPU fan to a huge copper Zalman quiet fan and made an extra air intake hole in front of my hard drives. That helped to drop the temps of mobo, GPU and CPU by 5-10 Cs.

You should sometimes see the temps Apple laptops run at ;) its unbelievable, you could almost fry eggs on those things...

[southernman]

OP your temps are pretty normal.

A couple of suggestions to lowering it from where it is though:

1- Make sure your cpu and hsf have a proper coating of thermal paste. I don't like the bulky sticky crap they put on hsf these days. I use Arctic Silver ONLY, A small 3/4 of a bb size dab in the middle of the hs, is usually enough. To much thermal paste is as bad, if not worse, than not enough.

2- If you do a lot of gaming, water cooling may be the route you want to look at.

3- Keep your hdd's together, and be certain that at least one fan (intake works best), is blowing over them. Not only does it keep them running cooler and extend their life, but it helps move the heat dissapation away to the back of the case to be moved out.

4- Unless your computer is in a "clean room" - be sure to use some sort of filtering on your intakes... and keep them cleaned monthly or more often as needed.

[slimdog360]

you should sex it up then

http://laist.com/attachments/la_zach/paris-hilton_thatshot.jpg

[jongkind]

3- Keep your hdd's together, and be certain that at least one fan (intake works best), is blowing over them. Not only does it keep them running cooler and extend their life..

Well, according to Google the correlation between disk failure and temperature of the drive is not as straightforward as you suggest it to be:

http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf

[Andrewie]

you should sex it up then

http://laist.com/attachments/la_zach/paris-hilton_thatshot.jpg

:lolflag: that's the first thing that came to my mind (minus the paris hilton part)

[southernman]

Well, according to Google the correlation between disk failure and temperature of the drive is not as straightforward as you suggest it to be:

http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf

I suppose it's a matter of interpretation but I still stand by the claim that it's viable to gain life expectancy from them by keeping them fan cooled.

Did you read the whole article pertaining to their test regarding temperature?

hdd's get smoking hot, left to fend for themselves. Simply putting a fan blowing over them isn't going to reduce the temps to the levels they suggest as causing more harm than good.

Heat = expansion. Expansion where your talking about miniskuel amounts of clearance between the heads and platters can lead to destruction of data, platters, and/or heads.

If you use drives that utilize glass platters (such as some IBM models) heat will be even more of a factor in data, platter, or head problems.

I'd put little faith in the use of SMART to report real temps... a more scientific approach should have been used for exacting measurements.

[PatrickMay16]

Denis Benis Fenis Genis Dennis.

[Polygon]

even though you have allot of fans, you will get more air flow with the side off becose there is less ristence to airflow

no you dont

the case is designed to direct airflow one way, and if you have the case side off it doesnt do that. Unless your case inside is REALLY messy, you should get better temps with the side of the case on.

[voided3]

Unless your computer is in a "clean room" - be sure to use some sort of filtering on your intakes... and keep them cleaned monthly or more often as needed.

I always blow out my computers with compressed air every few weeks since I have all of my fan ports cut out and use the non-restrictive (to both air and dust) grilles.



Unless your case inside is REALLY messy, you should get better temps with the side of the case on.

I use round IDEs tied out of the way and cable seathing. Maybe I should take a picture of the case haha. I just added a side 80mm fan today w/ some help from a 3" hole saw and last night I drilled out a pattern of 3/8" holes to make a vent; that seemed to do the trick since now it's only a 2-4 degree difference rather than a 10 degree difference with the case on. I think I will take a pic, you guys will laugh at how sawed up this case is (it doesn't even have paint since I stripped it with a belt sander and clear coated it, though the faceplate i sprayed silver). The case originally had a 800mhz PIII system in it so needless to say the cooling requirements weren't as demanding (w/ only a stock intel CPU fan and the PSU it idled at 88 F.... haha).

[voided3]

Here are the pics:

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/voided3/DSC00194.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/voided3/DSC00195.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/voided3/DSC00196.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/voided3/DSC00197.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/voided3/DSC00198.jpg

[n3tfury]

pssst

that computer is not "hot"

[voided3]

that computer is not "hot"

Are we talking about temps or appearance? (haha) If it's about temps, I was just making the comparison between the open and closed temperatures; on a global scale, it's just fine either way, but i'm picky :-D

[voided3]

Well, I bored so I took it one step further. I added another fan to my PSU since it did not have one underneath and it seems to have helped a little (mostly for the psu, but a bit for the case too. Here's the before layout:

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/voided3/PSUbefore.png


....And the afterwards layout:

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y247/voided3/PSUafter.png


I didn't take another picture, but I did it by moving the rear exhaust fan to the bottom since it was about 0.5cm narrower than a standard case fan and gave me just the clearance I needed between the PSU enclosure and heat sinks. I then put a blue Thermaltake fan in its place for rear exhaust.

I also reapplied thermal paste under the CPU cooler, but it didn't change the temps at all. Maybe I should get some arctic silver 5 and redo it...