Fans not enough!

[Cymae]

I live in Queensland, Australia, and it gets up to about 40 degrees celcius (104) on a good day in summer. I have no airconditioning, and my PC's pretty high end.

I have 2 120mm fans, one at the front and one at the back, in addition to an 80mm side fan. It's currently 30 degrees out, and my guages were all reading 45-48 degrees. My temperature alarm is set to go off at 45 degrees, as that is considered a safe temperature by my multifunction panel, and I'm not particularly disinclined to agree, especially seeing as I can't turn it off short of disabling the temerature sensors which i have no intention of doing.

So, I come to you. What to do to lower my temperature in the upcoming months of summer heat? I currently have a big 800mm pedistal fan blowing into my computer to cool it down. which is working at 30 degrees. Need help before the temp gets to 40 and i can't turn it on for fear of it overheating!

[BerticusPryme]

ok try this we had to do this when the air conditioning went out in the server room. take a medium sized tub of ice sit in in front of the fan and let the air from it blow toward the comp. or go liquid cooling and run one of the hoses into a bucket of ice. thats the only thing i can think of

[Cymae]

lol, i dont really want to blow water into my pc if its all the same :P the watercooling part is a good suggestion, might have to upgrade *sigh*.


I *DID* however find this product which I think may help with the issue:

Sunbeam Theta tp101 (http://www.sunbeamtech.com/PRODUCTS/Theta/theta_tp101.htm)

If only it would allow emergency shutdowns aswell but we'll see. I think this is perhaps the first step to a fix i should take.. my last pc died because of overheating, as I live in a very hot part of the world

What do you guys think?

[xRyokenx]

That looks nice, how much is it? I might could use one o' dem one day soon...

[Cymae]

Looks to be bout $30US, I'm going to email them and see if I can get one to review if so many people are interested in it. I've had a few others say they were

[xRyokenx]

Not bad. Something to add to the list of stuff to get this Christmas when I upgrade. ^_^

EDIT: I should see if I can't get one to review too, I'm smart enough to figure out what's good and all about it, I write fairly well, and I'm kinda n00bish with some stuff, so I could easily find out how idiot proof it is. :D

[crenn]

I wouldn't worry if your computer was getting to 45c, in fact I wouldn't worry until it started getting to 65c. What is your CPU and what does it normally idle at?

[Cymae]

I wouldn't worry if your computer was getting to 45c, in fact I wouldn't worry until it started getting to 65c. What is your CPU and what does it normally idle at?

I'm not worried. but my multifunciton panel starts beeping at 45, and short of disabling the whole thing i cant do anything about it but keep it under 45

[Dilphat]

Looks to be bout $30US, I'm going to email them and see if I can get one to review if so many people are interested in it. I've had a few others say they were
it sounds pretty good, i wanna get that now. woohoo, might as the parental units for cash to get it for birthday. hahah

[D1337]

I've always thought about getting a small freezer and putting some large ass radiators in it and just pumping the water through there, it would work sub 0, you wouldnt get any condensation if you properly sealed the drilled holes and it would be easier then using phase changing.

But it would take up some space, as those really small "mini-fridges" are nothing but tec's with hs+fans. So you'd want to use an upright one, or a chest.

[crenn]

You can't change it from 45? That sucks....

[The boy 4rm oz]

Cymae I live in South Australia and I know how hard our summer temps can be on your computer. I am water cooling and received most of my parts from a Queensland based specialty shop called Chilled PC (www.chilledpc.com.au). They have everything from individual parts to well priced kits ($300+). Or if you didn't want an extreme solution check out PC Case Gear (www.pccasegear.com.au), they are also Australian and are situated in Victoria.
From the complete kits PC Case Gear have I would recommend (Listed first preference to last):
1. Swiftech H20-120 Compact Liquid Cooling Kit (http://www.pccasegear.com/prod5598.htm) - $199.00
2. Gigabyte 3D Galaxy II Liquid Cooling Kit (http://www.pccasegear.com/prod4656.htm) - $239.00
3. Thermaltake Silent Water Cooling System (http://www.pccasegear.com/prod4234.htm) - $169.00
4. CoolerMaster Aquagate Mini R120 (http://www.pccasegear.com/prod2362.htm) - $128.00
These four systems are CPU only but the Galaxy has upgrades for VGA cards and you shouldn't have a problem adding a VGA block to the Swiftech kit. You could always use any of these kits for your CPU and just get a good Zalman VGA cooler for your graphics card. The next step up from these systems are the Zalman Reserators, Thermaltake Bigwaters or any of the kits from Chilled PC.

Water cooling can get quite expensive though, I have bought components from both of these stores and my water cooling kit comes to around $650-$700

Hope this helps you in some way.

[Cymae]

Thanks for those links. Very helpful

I'm going to try to organise the software fan controller for my pc aswell, and I'll consider water cooling. Been looking at that air-conditioning thing for it aswell. I just want to make sure i don't have moisture in my PC, because with water cooling, it either won't be cold enough for me or slight condensation might occur, which is a bad thing inside my rig :S

[Spawn-Inc]

well if you feel up to it grab yourself a sheet of thick (3/8"+) and sand paper and start lapping all that you can. heatsinks should be the easiest to do and the cpu should be easy.