Any better way to keep my room cooler?

[fustercluck]

I have a semi-small room, and having the computer in here really heats it up, as computers generally generate heat. Living here in Tucson, any extra heat at all is not good . There's gotta be something i can do to lessen the heat emitted by my system...right? I'm sure the monitor is letting off some heat as well. The AC is running almost all the time, it's quit cool in the other rooms in the house. I'm dying in here though, help!

 

[Blain]

Simple...
Buy a small window air conditioner for the room. You should be able to get by with running it at a low setting (aka quiet & cheap).

How is the window situation in the room? Is it like a greenhouse? If so, you could use heavy drapes to hold back the heat.

 

[Degrador]

The only way to reduce the heat being generated by your computer, is to slow your computer down (underclock). Repeat, with the same parts in the comp, the ONLY way to reduce the heat being generated is to slow it down.

Better computer cooling will in fact increase your room temperatures, as the point of better cooling is to simply move the heat out of your computer. I guess you could inhibit your cooling to retain more heat inside your case and increase your cpu temps, but that will increase instability and have a higher chance of damaging your parts.

The best way for you to keep room temps down is with ACs and better ventilation for your room.

 

[fustercluck]

My temps are already bad, so i can't raise the case temp anymore. I'm not overclocked, but i don't wanna underclock either.

Window AC would be kinda tricky with my window...hard to explain. It would probably be pretty expensive too.

 

[Cheetah8799]

Hi jacktackle. I have the same problem as you. My solution is to keep my office door open to allow air to flow out into the hallway. I also keep one window cracked open ALL THE TIME! If it rains, it's only open an inch or so, but most of the time in the summer it stays open a good 12" or more. In the winter, it is only open maybe 1" or so, depends on how cold it is outside (Minnesota here). I also have a small 18" or so fan that runs 24/7 on low speed. Just to keep the air moving around.

That seems to work ok. On hot days (90F+) I don't do much gaming cause my rig gets too hot.

I have AC in my bedroom, but nowhere else in my apartment. The window AC idea is kinda expensive if you are personally comfortable without AC.

Another option is to upgrade the heatsink on your CPU and maybe mod your case for better intake/exhuast airflow.

 

[Mloot]

If the other rooms in your house are fairly cool, then you could always get something like a box fan, place it a couple of feet outside the door of your room, and angle it to blow the cool air from outside the room to inside. I've done this before and it works surprisingly well, in some cases.

 

[Sokratz]

Originally posted by: jacktackle
I have a semi-small room, and having the computer in here really heats it up, as computers generally generate heat. Living here in Tucson, any extra heat at all is not good . There's gotta be something i can do to lessen the heat emitted by my system...right? I'm sure the monitor is letting off some heat as well. The AC is running almost all the time, it's quit cool in the other rooms in the house. I'm dying in here though, help!

do u have central air? try adjusting the vents so that your room gets more ac.

you could also vent your computer air outside the window duct the outs of the computer to a box that you can seal in the window.

you could get an LCD montor, on general they produce a lot less heat. but oof $$.

 

[MeSh1]

I have the same problem and i bought a big ol' metal fan from home depot and put it at the door way and open up my window and it does help a bit. Also i have thesame issue with the window air conditioner. My windows doestn fit the standard ones, but waht you could do is invest in one of those portable air conditioners. At the moment im pricing 'em and they are a bit expensive, but i cant stand being hot and it gets to me that my computers are in that enviorment so im going to have to break down and buy a portable AC.

 

[fustercluck]

Hrm, what if i got a nice heatsink/fan combo, cut a hole in my wall, then vented the exhaust fan to another room? That would probably help out a bit eh? It's not even to another room, just to the place behind my wall which is inbetween my room and the living room, so no one would care if some heat goes in there. The wall is pretty thin.

I'd leave a fan outside my door to help flow in some of the cool air, but i don't like having my door open all the time...dogs come in and annoy me, people complain about music, yadda yadda.

 

[Degrador]

Having it exhaust into the wall wouldn't help, that'd just basically work as though you have a very slightly bigger room - the walls aren't exposed to outside air, so it's still no better.

 

[jdiddy]

When your home alone close all the AC vents in the other rooms and force all the cold air into yours.

 

[wfbberzerker]

get an lcd.

 

[powerMarkymark]

I had the same problem as you.

I have 3 PCs and one laptop with a total of seven (yes 7 !) monitors in my home office.

All of my PCs are overclocked so the room was a sauna.

I bought a small window air conditioner (5000 BTUs) for the room ($65.00).

Since you leave your comp on 24/7 like me and if you don't run a program like Seti@Home you could try out CpuIdle Linky (they have a 30 day trial period) as it lowered my idle temps by 16% (10 degrees celsius). Of course it won't do anything about load temps.

Now my office is nice and cool!

Good luck.

Mark

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: MeSh1
I have the same problem and i bought a big ol' metal fan from home depot and put it at the door way and open up my window and it does help a bit. Also i have thesame issue with the window air conditioner. My windows doestn fit the standard ones, but waht you could do is invest in one of those portable air conditioners. At the moment im pricing 'em and they are a bit expensive, but i cant stand being hot and it gets to me that my computers are in that enviorment so im going to have to break down and buy a portable AC.

Yeah, last i looked, they cost 500+$!!!!

OP:

CRTs do give off a good amount of heat. The only fix to this would be to purchase an LCD.

How bout those window fans? Set it to exhaust and perhaps get a box fan like others suggested to circulate the cooler air into your room. The window fan would exhaust the warmer air.

If you have to have your room door closed most of the time, there is very little you can do unless you can allot more AC into your room.

good luck

 

[Degrador]

Originally posted by: powerMarkymark
it lowered my idle temps by 16% (10 degrees celsius)

Just a side note (sorry, pet hate of mine), percentages don't apply when talking about degrees celsius (or farenheit for that matter). In reality, the 0 point to refer to for percentages is actually -273C, aka 0 Kelvin. A percentage change in celsius is actually pretty meaningless...

 

[Blain]

Just go to Walmart and buy a $79 air conditioner and be done with it already.
"Cabinet size: 15-1/8"D x 18-5/8"W x 12-1/4"H... 9.7 Energy Efficiency Rating"

Winter will be here before this thread is done!

 

[fustercluck]

Winter doesn't start till November 1st here in Tucson. This thead'll be long gone by then

I'm not worried about the buy price for a one room air conditioner, it'd be the electricity bill i'd be worried about.

So venting the heat that comes from my exhaust fan to behind the wall wouldnt work? I don't see why not.

 

[Jeff7]

Just a side note (sorry, pet hate of mine), percentages don't apply when talking about degrees celsius (or farenheit for that matter). In reality, the 0 point to refer to for percentages is actually -273C, aka 0 Kelvin. A percentage change in celsius is actually pretty meaningless...

Good catch.
Let's say 318Kelvin (45C) - lower it 10 degrees. 3.14% decrease, right? Not as impressive.
Unless the temperature scale isn't linear, if it's logorithmic, I have no clue whatsoever as to figure out the percentage.

I'm not worried about the buy price for a one room air conditioner, it'd be the electricity bill i'd be worried about.

So venting the heat that comes from my exhaust fan to behind the wall wouldnt work? I don't see why not.

How much does your electricity cost right now per kw/hr?
I've got a small A/C, a few years old; never models might be more efficient. 5.6A draw, and let's assume 650W. And the compressor won't be on all the time either, so actual usage would be less.
So let's assume a high price of 12 cents per kilowatt-hour. That should be 7.8 cents per hour. Assuming you run it 24/7 (possible, don't know what nights are like in AZ), and the compressor is on all the time (not likely, even that far south, especially for a small room), it'd be $56.16 per month. I'd imagine it to be considerably less than that though. And bear in mind the price per kw/hr I used; yours should be a good bit less than that, or so I would hope.

So if the AC is still out of the question, either what someone suggested with a fan to circulate to another room, or to outside, or....well, that exhaust into the wall might work.
Thing is, since the wall is of course adjacent to your room, a section of it is going to heat up (only a section, because of vertical support beams), but the wall is going to warm the air it touches on both sides. Of course, if the adjacent room is cooler, the wall itself might act as a (inefficient) heatsink. But only half of it.
Or else just outright vent it directly into the adjacent room. You'd need a decent fan though, which may be loud. This fan is a powerful sucker. Loud, but it moves a lot of air and has a lot of power. Do use fan grilles, as I'm sure it is more than capable of drawing decent amounts of blood.
It might have rpm monitoring, but use an adapter, otherwise you'll fry your motherboard's fan headers.

 

[fustercluck]

Thanks for the help :thumbsup: - I'll see what i can do.

 

[Spawne32]

liquid cooling will stop the issue of fans blowing hot air into your room, and a LCD monitor definatly will reduce temps in your room, my room is always at least 5 degrees hotter from just my monitor then the rest of the house, it gets ungodly hot up here some nights and because the central air's thermostat is downstairs it never turns on at night cus its cool downstairs, so my room just continually gets hotter, sometimes above 81 degrees.

 

[Degrador]

Originally posted by: Spawne
liquid cooling will stop the issue of fans blowing hot air into your room, and a LCD monitor definatly will reduce temps in your room, my room is always at least 5 degrees hotter from just my monitor then the rest of the house, it gets ungodly hot up here some nights and because the central air's thermostat is downstairs it never turns on at night cus its cool downstairs, so my room just continually gets hotter, sometimes above 81 degrees.

If you had read my post above, you'll see that liquid cooling won't make your room any cooler. It still has to get rid of as much heat out of the case as before. The only difference is that it'll do it more efficiently. This in fact means that your room will get hotter if you use liquid cooling, while your pc components stay cooler.

 

[JKing76]

Originally posted by: Degrador
The only way to reduce the heat being generated by your computer, is to slow your computer down (underclock). Repeat, with the same parts in the comp, the ONLY way to reduce the heat being generated is to slow it down.

Not completely true. You can try undervolting without underclocking. The amount you can undervolt without changing timings varies on a chip-to-chip basis, but if you're lucky it can reduce the heat generated without having to reduce speed.

 

[SilthDraeth]

Hey, I used to live in Kingman Arizona, right on same termperature as tucson. I used to over heat when I was running my 800 mhz thunderbird. I had one fan blowing air directly through the case towards the window, with both sides of the case off.

I had a swamp cooler that vented air through the celing, but my room got really really hot as well.

So this is what I did.

I bought a little fan that was about 6 inches, or 8 inches in diameter, and then take some sturdy but not to thick cardboard and build a tube that wraps around the fan, creating basicaly a wind tunnel that extends behind, and in front of the fan... now on each side of the fan and inside the tube, cut out a whole in the top of the tube, just big enough for a 20 oz or 16 oz water bottle.

buy like a 16 pack of water bottles or 12 back, and keep them in the freezer. Put one bottle behind the fan, and one in front of the fan, and aim the fan at you. It will cool you down, and as the bottles thaw out, you can rotate the bottles out with frozen ones, and still have a nice cold bottle of water to drink while you game.

 

[Degrador]

Originally posted by: JKing76

Originally posted by: Degrador
The only way to reduce the heat being generated by your computer, is to slow your computer down (underclock). Repeat, with the same parts in the comp, the ONLY way to reduce the heat being generated is to slow it down.

Not completely true. You can try undervolting without underclocking. The amount you can undervolt without changing timings varies on a chip-to-chip basis, but if you're lucky it can reduce the heat generated without having to reduce speed.

Sorry, you're right. I sort of bagged undervolting together with underclocking, but yes, undervolting would also reduce your heat level.

 

[0roo0roo]

lcd + mobile barton...or laptop