need help with raditor.

[pepe123]

ok my idle tempture are too high 45-55 but when it gets cold in my room it drops to 40 43. also my tempture reading are always jumpin up and down sometime like from 45 to 67 the back to low. i have two hard drive coolers a gpu cooler a cpu cooler but i only have 1 120mm aluminum raditor with a crappy case fan on it. would getting a faster fan help or a rad?

[SXRguyinMA]

I vote for bigger rad. and I also vote to ditch the HDD cooler (if they're liquid) as in a normal home environment the CPU/GPU will heat up the HDD WAY higher than it would get normally. I have my HDD in a rack that has a 120mm fan in front of it blowing air across the drive and it doesn't get more than a few degrees over ambient. I was a CPU cooler only on a 120mm rad and it worked great, but if you've got all that you need more rad space, and possibly better fans with higher CFM ratings as well. And ditch the WC for the HDDs

[Trace]

Mr. SXR hit it right on. Take his suggestions and you will be golden.

[pepe123]

ya i noticed they do get hotter just a little bit. so u guys dont think getting a faster fan would cool it too. i just want it to stay below 65. the fan i have on there is weak idk wat rpm it is on. it just that the rad i have has the perfect dimension for my case. wat if i got the same size radiator but it had copper tubing ?

[SXRguyinMA]

the difference would be minute at best with a copper tube rad. 65 is WAY high for a WC setup. If it were just your CPU in the loop the single raddy would be fine. You can just put the stock cooler back on your GPU and that'll take out a LOT of heat Hell my Q6600 idles @ ~48ºC on air, and it's OC'ed from 2.4 to 3.6!

[x88x]

As SXRgiMA said, more rad space is what you need. My general rule of thumb is to have at least 1x120mm of rad space for each heat-producing item. So, in this case, the bare minimum should be 2x120 of rad space (I'm ignoring the HDD blocks; as has already been mentioned, they tend to absorb more heat than they disperse in a situation like this). If you post a picture of your case interior and exterior we might be able to suggest a location for additional radiator space.

EDIT:
Also, what CPU and GPU are you dealing with? If they're high-power parts you might need a larger minimum radiator area.

[mDust]

You could try getting two high-powered fans (50-100 CFM) and putting them on each side of the radiator. The physics behind the cooling is this:

The radiator is hot, the ambient air is relatively cool. As air molecules hit the radiator fins, energy is transferred from the radiator to the air molecules which are exhausted so more cool molecules can hit the fins. In order to cool a large heat load with a small radiator, a TON of air molecules have to be hitting those fins as fast and efficiently as possible.

The problem with small radiators is that the airflow has to be extreme in order for them to work. This means lots of noise and barely acceptable temps. 240 radiators have about twice the capacity of a 120 radiator. This means the airspeed can be lower and quieter to achieve the same temps. It also means that by further increasing airspeed over the larger radiator, that more heat can be dispersed quicker...AKA much better temps.

I would recommend getting two high-powered fans and a fan controller and putting a fan on each side of the radiator. If it does get the temps down, then you can use the controller to limit the fan noise to only when you need it. If it doesn't work, you'll need to get a larger radiator, but you'll already have the fans and controller for it.

[pepe123]

ok well ive been using core temp now and my core temps havent gone above 51 c on load. could it bee speed fan was giving my the wrong reading. i have a asus m2n sli deluxe mobo and i heard the have faulty temp sensors.

[Spawn-Inc]

i will also chime in, if your water cooling your hdd's take them out as they are doing nothing but adding extra heat to your loop. also your very likely under radded.

[pepe123]

actually im thinking my setup is fine now. i decided to wipe the case of dust the other night.while doing this i moved the radiator and when i did a huge air bubble came up from the radiator..it must have been a pretty big bubble cuz when i looked at my resivoir the coolent went down like 1/4 in the res. every scince then my temps stay below 50c. idk???? wat do u guys think?