Routing Hot Air Outside

[Tinton]

I've researched and haven't found much saying this has been done before, so here goes...

My desktop computer produces too much heat. Its a Core i5 2500K with 4 HDDs, 2 GTX 465's in SLI, etc, running on a 850W power supply.

In winter its nice, practically heats the entire house....the problem is summer. With the room closed it'll heat the room to 80-85*F even with a/c on a decent amount. That's too hot and it seems I'm stuck with either a higher a/c bill, no privacy, or sweating in the heat.

That's where this idea comes in. As it is, I have my case setup so everything exhausts out the back. It seems like I could just create a type of....plenum, that attaches to the rear of the case (to collect the hot air), then attach dryer ducting or something similar to the plenum, and route that outside through a window? Times when something like this has been mentioned before, people have dismissed it because of case fans not being enough to flow air through the tube, heat/water/condensation could flow back through, etc. With this: http://www.boatersplus.com/attwood-...gn=googlepla&gclid=CKXi7faaj7UCFYGpPAodCVEA-g or 2-3 80mm case fans placed inline in the tube, I think it would flow plenty of air to pull air off the back of the case and flow plenty out the window to keep water/etc out.

I pretty much already know how to construct the tube/ducting, and the window mount, but I was wondering about building the "plenum"? I don't have any good ideas for doing that.

 

[nsafreak]

That's an interesting idea and I have heard of people tossing around the idea before but I have not seen anybody post instructions or showing off a setup that did so. I do know of one forum goer here (can't remember the person's name unfortunately) that had his watercooling setup so that the radiators were outside and he used it for a couple of computers. Granted these were automotive radiators so they kindof had to be outside but his setup was pretty quiet. One alternative to going to such lengths with that kind of cooling system would be to look into a better cooling solution for your GTX 465s and your 2500k or potentially swapping out the GTX 465s with a single card solution. A single GTX 670 or 7950 would get you the same performance or better while using less power and generating less heat.

edit I did a search for ducting computer heat outside and came up with this post on [H]: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1642510. Not so sure if cardboard is the ideal material but if you're not a metal fabricator I guess it would work. The op has reported pretty good results from it.

 

[Vectronic]

I'm sure if you wander down to whatever HVAC place you have locally (or a Home Hardware, etc) you can find something that will work as a tubing mount to the back of the case.

If you go that route though, you could probably just use one fan at the window in/at the end of the tube... skip all the case fans and just have dust guards. A decent dryer vent fan will be able to suck more air than any case fans could push.

Something like these (on the right) will work, and are easy to find, and should be able to adapt to 120/140mm fan holes.

 

[tracerbullet]

I wanna say I have seen gutter downspout adapters that convert square to round, that might not be way off in size. I'm thinking of something that could connect to a square fan base and change it down to round for some tubing. Although that would mean the square part needs a flange of some sort which I don't think would be on a gutter part...

I've seen round things w/ flanges, not just for where toilets mount to a floor but smaller ones, I think used to anchor round pipes to the ground. Maybe one of those would have a bolt circle in the 120mm range give or take?

The HVAC section of a sore might have something much bigger that could bolt right to the side of the case?

*********

I like Vectronic's stuff above, I opened but didn't get back to this prior to his post. Much cleaner than what I was thinking.

 

[dma0991]

That bilge pump was meant to move water, it wouldn't work as well with air. You could duct it with a 120mm Delta or any similar sized AC fans in a negative flow(fan is placed at the other end of the duct). Provided that your case has no gaps besides intake fans, it should effectively suck all the air out through the duct.

Putting a conventional exhaust fan works just as well. I understand how hot it gets in the room with the PC running, had similar experience. I did a ghetto installation of a circulator fan to my window in an exhaust position and the difference in room temps is like night and day.

 

[Tinton]

I'd need something like 3 tubes if I were bolting the tubes to the back of the case, since 1 tube wouldn't be big enough to cover my H80, video cards, and psu. So that's why I was wondering about building some sort of enclosure for the hot air to collect in, and just attach a tube and fans to that to route it outside.

 

[Vectronic]

Look for square to round transition pieces... such as:

That's a typical household one (you'll probably find one in your house for floor vents, or kitchen exhaust)... not big enough since it's only 3.25" by 10" (6" pipe)

You *might* be able to find a 4.5" x 10" (7" pipe) if you have an actual HVAC place, which would probably be the closest one you'll find (unless you wanna pay for a custom one)... obviously 7" pipe is a bit much, and also not a typical size, so you'd have to reduce it to 6" easy enough with a pair of tin snips or scissors you don't plan on using again...lol

You can get 5x10" too, break into a school or office, you might find some...lol

Naturally you could make a 3.25x10" work too, cut it at the corners, and "fan" it out to 120 or 140mm... but you then you have to re-seal it again which would be a bit ugly.

 

[JeBarr]

Another good place to check would be grow shops....you know....indoor hydroponics. I had a friend fabricate a custom square to round transition mentioned above. Was used to bring fresh outside air to a large industrial air conditioner. There weren't any local hvac/grow shops with a large enough square port but for an h80 you should have no trouble.

I might also add that ducting into the wall and up into the attic with a blower fan in attic to pull the hot air from chassis via duct would be slick way of hiding all the ugly parts and moving the loud fan out of audible range while at the same time keeping your windows and exterior looking clean.

 

[HutchinsonJC]

people have dismissed it because of case fans not being enough to flow air through the tube, heat/water/condensation could flow back through, etc.

Depending how it's mounted in the window, something to consider about why there wasn't enough air flow in other examples, is that to be able to push air outside, other air has to be able to come inside. So depending on their attempted setup, I could see why they'd say that.

Unless you're just putting a duct hanging out a cracked window to allow the really hot air to exhaust itself out side and allowing the other portion of the cracked window open and available for new air to come in, it won't work well.

If you seal it all up in the window where it's just the duct pushing the hot air outside with no room for new air to come back into the room/house, your computer would essentially be trying to make a vacuum in the house, and air would have to come in from cracks around a door frame, etc. For the computer trying to dissipate heat outside, it would be sort of like you trying to breathe through one of those coffee mixer straws.

And just to throw this out there, but something like the outside natural weather wind speed and direction could could even have varying negative/positive effects if all you're using is pc fans to try to exhaust the air.

With the room closed it'll heat the room to 80-85*F even with a/c on

Depending on where you live, and depending on your ducted air flow setup, you probably won't get much better results in the summer due to having to plan for an intake air supply. If it gets to be 100 degrees out, you probably won't want that outside air to be able to come into the home.

I do know of one forum goer here (can't remember the person's name unfortunately) that had his watercooling setup so that the radiators were outside and he used it for a couple of computers.

For something like this, you wouldn't have to worry about the way air flows or vacuum effects or having to leave the window cracked for intake air.

 

[piasabird]

In the summer time it is often heat that builds up in the attic that causes houses to heat up. so much. Also heat rises so pulling heat out from the top of the room might help. I was thinking of something like an exhaust fan like they put in bathrooms mounted on the ceiling maybe one that can run on low. I have also seen fans with a solar panel to take heat out of an attic. I wonder if you can just make the flexible duct longer and go down to the room instead. On the heating and cooling side if you had a return air duct in your room to suck out the hot air that might be nice also. In some houses not every room has a return air duct.

 

[davidthemaster3]

I know this isn't really about routing hot air outside, but since routing hot air outside is "thinking outside the box" I thought I would post something like this :
Cooling a PC with Toilet water
It is another way of getting rid of the hot air ...