Do heatsinks work without proper air flow?

[ThreeDollarBill]

Are heatsinks effective by themselves or do they need an active air flow around them?

 

[spencer]

They need airflow.

 

[Rifter]

depends on the application, on CPU's i would say yes although i have a old Dell 166 that just has a Big ass heatsink with no fan. But for cooling something like a chipset i would say a fan is not needed.

 

[Miraluka]

what happens if say, you have a good heatsink/fan combo, no case fans besides the power supply fan, and you have the case open on one side. Also the cables inside of the case are messy. What would that do?

 

[Mikewarrior2]

Well, if you round your cables, and clear out space for airflow, it increases cooling significantly.

Heatsinks need a fresh supply of air to work well, so that htey don't keep "recycling" warm air.


Mike

 

[eyor]

This should increase your airflow and neaten the cables up...