Cooling down my office

[InventorOfEvil]

Hey all,

I recently picked-up a new case, switching from a full tower to a mini-ATX Aero Cool Dead Silent. I love the new case and I love the fact that I can actually have it sitting on my desk, instead of the floor, making everything much easier to access. However, I've noticed one thing: It's damn hot. I'm sure it's no hotter than it's ever been, but now that it's easier to put my hand up to the exhaust and feel just how hot it gets under load, it's a little concerning.

I run my hardware at stock clocks, but I'm wondering if there's any solution out there that might bring my overall ambient temp down just to make it a little cooler in my office. At the time of this writing, I'm sitting here with the window open and fan blowing on me while I sweat my ass off. I gran that there's only so much I can do with two full on gaming PC's in one room, with four total monitors, but I'd love if there was some solution to bring down the overall heat level.

I was looking at water cooling solutions, wondering if that option would bring my overall case temps down and allow me to actually hang out in my office during the summer and not be drenched in sweat.

Current specs are the following:

i5-2500k
16GB Ram
Radeon 6950 1GB

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm melting!

 

[Torn Mind]

Heat is a form of energy, and energy is measured in Joules. Wattage is the amount of Joules being "produced" per seconds. To lower the hot feel of your room, you need to decrease the wattage of your system and ideally, remove energy out of your room via air conditioning. Upgrading your graphics card and undervolting your CPU are the two things you can do to lower wattage output.

Temperature of a piece of metal on a computer does not tell you how much energy is being dissipated into the room. A huge block of copper is going to be much cooler than the stock Intel heatsink because a huge block of copper has greater surface area and more material to conduct heat, but you are still dumping the same amount of energy into the room.

 

[Billb2]

Water cooling doesn't have any effect on the amount of heat your computer(s) produce.

As Torn Mind said, under volt/under clock and/or AC.

 

[Red Squirrel]

It's a misconception that the way you cool your PC will have an effect on the heat it produces. It does not, it simply changes how the heat is removed from the components/case. Good cooling will remove it more effectively away from the components so they can dissipate heat faster thus stay cooler. It's the same way no matter what heater companies tell you, a certain design does NOT heat a room more than another design of the same wattage. Watts is watts.

What you want to do is either move the heat out of the room, or move the source out. That's what I did, I moved my PCs to my server room and ran 25 footer DVI, USB and audio cables. My office does not get as hot anymore in summer, is less dusty (my PC attracts dust like a magnet) and less noisy. I still need to convert the cases to rackmount though.

Some pics here: http://imgur.com/a/L3amT

 

[InventorOfEvil]

Thanks for the info!

I kind of figured it would end-up being the same, but wasn't sure. Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do about the location of my PC at the moment, as I'm a renter, but my wife and I are currently looking to buy and this is definitely something I'll need to consider in a potential home.

Would love to be able to move my PC out of my office entirely.

 

[Torn Mind]

The GTX 750 Ti is much less of a guzzler than your 6950. The GTX 750 Ti has a TDP of only 60 watts compared to the 140 watt TDP of your 6950. Performance will be similar, but the power consumption difference is huge.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-750-ti/specifications

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/radeon_6950_6970_review,3.html

PSU could also be not very efficient and generate quite a bit of heat.

 

[evident]

power supply, cpu, gpu, correct me if i'm wrong, are the big heat generators. spend extra $ on an efficient psu, like the seasonic platinum 660w and it should def. help.

 

[Theguynextdoor]

For those that are talking about wattage staying the same it is true to an extent but you can factor the fact that efficiency goes way down when you add heat past the optimal temperatures. The fact his parts are now in a much smaller case the heat is escaping much slower increasing internal temps for his PSU and other parts which make for a great decrease in efficiency. His overall system is now consuming probably 10-12% more energy to maintain the same performance thus making his room slightly hotter then his old system setup.

 

[Torn Mind]

For those that are talking about wattage staying the same it is true to an extent but you can factor the fact that efficiency goes way down when you add heat past the optimal temperatures. The fact his parts are now in a much smaller case the heat is escaping much slower increasing internal temps for his PSU and other parts which make for a great decrease in efficiency. His overall system is now consuming probably 10-12% more energy to maintain the same performance thus making his room slightly hotter then his old system setup.

A fat case with "dead air"

Efficiency is the energy loss due to components not being perfect conductors.

Heat might increase the resistance of certain components, but it should not by a huge margin. If his PSU is from a manufacturer worth their salt, their PSUs do not lose much of their efficiency when tested in a "hot box".

 

[Kenmitch]

I understand that in the end a person is dissipating the same amount from a rig. Wouldn't a cooler running rig have less impact on the surrounding area as it's pumping out cooler air more often vs hotter air at a slower rate? In the end the ambient temp of the room would be the same most likely. For a person with the rig next to them wouldn't it still feel cooler as there is no concentrated super heated air being discharged.

 

[aigomorla]

I understand that in the end a person is dissipating the same amount from a rig. Wouldn't a cooler running rig have less impact on the surrounding area as it's pumping out cooler air more often vs hotter air at a slower rate? In the end the ambient temp of the room would be the same most likely. For a person with the rig next to them wouldn't it still feel cooler as there is no concentrated super heated air being discharged.

no because u cant not destroy energy.
Heat being a form of energy will be emitted in the same amount regardless of watercooling.

If anything watercooling being more efficient will heat up your room faster due to it pulling the heat away from the PC to environment.

Which is why I said watercooling being more efficient may infact increase your room temperature faster then a poorly ventilated case would on air.

 

[bkiserx7]

no because u cant not destroy energy.
Heat being a form of energy will be emitted in the same amount regardless of watercooling.

If anything watercooling being more efficient will heat up your room faster due to it pulling the heat away from the PC to environment.

Which is why I said watercooling being more efficient may infact increase your room temperature faster then a poorly ventilated case would on air.

Not necessarily, look at how watercooled gpus will draw less wattage and it does not all come from the lack of the fan. Cooler transistors require less power.

http://robertdick.org/talp/papers/brooks-tutorial.pdf
"High temperatures also increase leakage power consumption"

 

[flydigital]

I'm trying to cool down my office as well... I've got 3 PCs, 5 largish monitors and a TV along with the usual assortment of other little electronic devices. My office is around 10-15 degrees hotter than any other room/area in the house on average (with central AC that does no good with such a differential in temp).

I ran a large portable AC unit for a while but it was way too costly (like $200+/month) and inefficient, running all the time and barely cooling.

I've researched lots of potential methods i.e. evacuation fan, jumper duct, watercooling with exterior rad, etc, and nothing really works for me.

My conclusion is that I need to install a real air conditioner. A window conditioner would be the cheapest but my HOA doesn't allow them, so I am going to be installing a ductless (mini split) AC unit with decent BTUs. Costly but appears to be the only solution. I should have it installed next week, will follow up with results.

 

[aigomorla]

Not necessarily, look at how watercooled gpus will draw less wattage and it does not all come from the lack of the fan. Cooler transistors require less power.

http://robertdick.org/talp/papers/brooks-tutorial.pdf
"High temperatures also increase leakage power consumption"

thats because as things run cooler, they become more efficient.
However the difference is VERY small.
Were not talking about a big enough impact vs having trapped hot air, and unrestricted.

The efficiency at which a custom LC system moves heat out, vs the net gained on hotter VRMS, is far greater, and more likely to see a faster increase of room temperature if the room wasn't well ventilated.

 

[Theguynextdoor]

thats because as things run cooler, they become more efficient.
However the difference is VERY small.
Were not talking about a big enough impact vs having trapped hot air, and unrestricted.

The efficiency at which a custom LC system moves heat out, vs the net gained on hotter VRMS, is far greater, and more likely to see a faster increase of room temperature if the room wasn't well ventilated.

I can a test from my killawatt and when I had 9x290x's mining on an open air rig. Each 290x dropped pull by 40w. EACH when I went to watecooling. I7 dropped by 9w's.

 

[Reaper_Tech]

Want to drop temps? lower the ambient temps try this cheap and easy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxSLbpAwibg

you can use styrofoam cooler or plastic cooler etc. tried it myself worked pretty well for keeping my office temp acceptable

 

[Aikouka]

I ran a large portable AC unit for a while but it was way too costly (like $200+/month) and inefficient, running all the time and barely cooling.

I live in a townhouse-style apartment, and my upstairs has always been a lot hotter than the downstairs (the highest delta being 15F). Of course, the computers don't help the one room, but they don't put out much heat with everything off, and it's still bad at that point. My apartment complex gave me a portable air conditioner to use, and it seems alright so far. Late last night, I hooked it up to a Kill-A-Watt to track its power usage, and over an 8-hour period, it used 1.7 KWH. If I extrapolate that over an entire day (and assume that from 1AM to 9AM is a period with less cooling, which means I can't just do 3 * 1.7...), I may be looking at around 8 KWH or so. At that rate over the course of 31 days, I'm only looking at a $20 increase in my electric bill. That's not bad considering I paid ~$150 for utilities (water, sewage and electric) last month.

My biggest complaint? It's noisy. I lack a meter to tell just how loud it is, but it was definitely way too loud for me to leave it in my room. If I want to use my computer speakers, I end up having to turn them up a little bit or just use headphones.

There's actually a sale going on for some refurbed LG portable AC units. The one I use is a Maytag; so, I'm not sure how good the LG ones are. However, they say that they're quiet, which would be nice given my experiences. Although, are they quiet or "relatively quiet" (compared to other portable units)?