Yeah... part of the problem in my current case is there is nowhere to put an intake fan, so all I have is the passive intake at the front. I have a small, but powerful fan pointed at the CPU at an angle slightly off direct and that's helping keep it within reason. The ambient temp varies, as it's at home and I'm trying to keep from turning my power meter into a fan itself. :-) Typically, I set the thermostat for about 78 when we're leaving for the day and drop it down to about 72-73 when I get home. I did notice that when I have VNC Server running and am accessing the local console the CPU temp climbs, but if I shut down the VNC server it drops, or if I'm accessing the system from remote using VNC, the temp is good, but accessing the local console *while* VNC server is active (even if I'm not using it at the time) is a sure recipe for heat alarms! :-(
-----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:mailvor...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 12:37 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: mid-tower cases On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 12:16 PM, John Aldrich <jaldr...@blueridgecarpet.com> wrote: > I have to have a powerful fan pointed almost directly at the CPU > in order to keep it from overheating. That's with a couple 80mm > fans in the back! That seems like it should be adequate for most anything but a moderately serious gaming rig. What have you got in there? What's ambient temperature? What's the airflow like? Ideally, you want a straight-through path, all front to back, with coverage from top to bottom, and no dead spaces which don't get airflow. Basically a big wind tunnel. You want vents which allow air in from selected locations, leading to good air flow across all components. I've seen a lot of cases where the vents seemed to be placed either (1) randomly or (2) for aesthetics. That can lead to situations where the airflow actually bypasses some components. One can often improve cooling by *blocking* vents in such cases. If you have both intake an exhaust fans, you want all the intakes on one side and all the exhaust fans on the other side. Otherwise you tend to get air current loops which leave dead spaces. And, of course, you can always hack in space for a new fan if that's what's needed. Before they started marketing cases with fan mounts in the side panels, I did that to a case I had, to keep the video card cool. Of course, due to limited space, the fan was mounted on the *outside* of the panel. :) You mentioned budget, so I figured a DIY approach might suit. :) If you want to buy new: For a vendor, NewEgg. For a case mfg brand, I like Antec. The good ones are expensive, though. Good cases usually are. :) I have an Antec "Professional" (no longer sold) full-tower at home. Six fan mounts, 5 5.25" bays, 2 3.5" bays, 6 internal 3.5" HDD bays, mostly no tools needed. Cost me around $200 though. Without PSU. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
