Anyone ducted fan to outside?

[MrABJ]

With all the talk about having great cooling, particularly when OCing, yet at the same time being worried about fan noise....I was just wondering if anyone has a puter next to an outside wall and ducted the warm air outside?

I was thinking About one large slow turning (quiet) fan on the CPU. Then have a large (8"?) fan on the outside wall (mice and weatherproof of course) connected to the back of your case with the ducting used for colthes dryers. Seems to me you would have the best cooling option as far as air only go's...massive airflow, almost no noise. Of course the inlets to your case could not be too restricted or you would hear the air itself moving.

 

[shiner]

Wow...that's pretty funny. I was talking to a guy at work about this very thing today. He was actually going to try it this weekend. He was going to install a vent like you use for the air from a dryer and duct his PC's exhaust outside. Of course he has an air conditioned closet just for his PC's and servers and is going to put in one big duct along the floor that leads to the vent and then connet each PC to the duct via fan. I'm real interested to see what kind of results he gets.

 

[McCarthy]

No, but I'm about to. Getting tired of running the air conditioner twice as much just to keep the computer room cool - even with a fan blowing in air from the hallway. Only ducting I've thought about is that collapsable dryer stuff, smoother walled tubing would be better I'd think, but dang, think I'll try it anyway.

Hadn't thought about using the duct to PULL air. Had a bit of concern about it drafting correctly, now that you mention this, hmm.......

Get another box like I have on the dryer - when it's cold, I vent inside (ahh, nice warm moist air on those winter nights), in the summer I vent outside. Space heater, I mean PC, could do the same.

--Mc

 

[MrABJ]

Thanks for the input. It really seems to me that this would be the ultimate air-cooled setup. Of course this would not be for everyone due to location and the fact that you would have to put a hole in your wall.

But just think of it....if carried to the extreme, you could probably due away with all fans in your case (including CPU). The only limit would be how much noise the air rushing into the front (I say front because that seems to be the logical choice) of your case makes.

Get enough air moving through your case, route it properly = little noise, little heat.

 

[McCarthy]

A problem with this idea occurred to me earlier. I often put a fan in the window (too cheap to run the AC sometimes). Usually this works out great, with the fan blowing in. However every now and then when the wind is just right a low density area is formed there and even the output from the boxfan is noticeably decreaseed.

I used to blow out, but found with the prevailing wind coming from that direction the fan was trying to work against it most of the time. There'd be a lot of times when you'd hear a difference in tone with the fan when it'd be laboring, but not much air would be moving. Blowing out it's harder to feel, but you get my point. Rarely, but nevertheless, there would be times when the wind would blow in, even though the fan was blowing out, coming right through the blades. Still spinning the right direction, but doing nothing.

Now, the extent the wind affects an outside fan depends on the force of the fan/area of the aperature and efficiency of fan design. A dryer fan may not be putting out any more air than my boxfan on it's low or medium setting, but as it's coming out a 5" hole instead of a 30" one, it's less affected. Using the same size port for a computer with a less powerful fan would put us back in the area of the boxfan.

Lot of typing for a simple point. If the fan's blowing out and the wind's trying to blow in, the fan's going to move less air. The practical result of this I can't be sure of until someone tries it.

But venting to the basement wouldn't present this problem.

Open for comments, didn't want to ignore this potential problem though.

--Mc

 

[ISAslot]

I have mine ducted into the "mini-garage" which is basically outside because the door is never closed all the way. In the duct I have a 115v Nidec alpha V 120mm fan blowing out. I don't only use this to get rid of the computer heat, but I draw the room heat out as well. It is not as efficient if you don't have a way to get cooler air in, so I leave my window open almost all the time.