General Cooling Advice please.

[Intelman07]

I believe my computer is overheating, it sometimes crashes in games, and runs around 43C on idle and mid 50's on load. This is just the motherboard and CPU, which seem to be around the same temperature. I believe it is my video card that is overheating, it is an eVGA 6600GT AGP. The computer seems more stable when I have the case side off. It then idles in the 30s. Now obviously, with the case cover on, heat is building up somewhere, I just need a quick simple, hopefully realtively inexpensive way to solve this heating problem. Like I said I do believe it is mainly my video card that is having this problem, my CPU and motherboard should be in spec. I can post some pictures, hopefully to help give a better idea of my situation.

 

[wisdomtooth]

Alleviating heat in your system:

1) do you have exhaust fans working to blow hot air out the back of the case?

2) do you have a well-vented PSU? (i.e. one with a single 120mm fan?)

3) are your cables blocking airflow?

4) have you checked that the case fans are not recirculating hot air inside your computer?

5) is your computer sitting in a well-ventilated area? Stick it in an enclosed cabinet, and I don't care if you got 200 fans in your computer, it WILL get hot.

 

[Intelman07]

I only have my dual fan Power supply taking the hot air out the back of my case, I could add a normal fan to do that with. My case only supports one inlet and one outlet fan anyways. My cables should not be blocking airflow, the only cable even directly in the air flow path is a SATA cable. My computer is in a well ventalated area.

 

[wisdomtooth]

Just the PSU is not enough for airflow through your case, especially since your PSU is poorly-vented.

Don't let those two PSU fans fool you-- The total amount of air going out is the amount of air passing through the one fan in the back of the PSU, and it's not much (since it is only an 80mm fan).

You should definitely add an additional case fan in the back, and if possible, change your PSU to a unit with just one 120mm fan.

You might also consider modding your case if you don't want to buy a new case/psu-- A top-mounted exhaust fan will help a lot (draws out hot air that rises to the top of the case by convection). Adding an intake fan near the bottom front of the case will also help by drawing in cool air.

HTH.

 

[Intelman07]

Hmm. I suppose I'll order an outake fan, hopefully a relatively quiet one.

 

[wisdomtooth]

If you want a quiet case fan, check the Recommended section at Silent PC Review.

They got a good line on what to get and what to avoid.

HTH!

 

[imported_Kensai]

Mmmhmm. Get some fans. ^_^

 

[Intelman07]

So one more fan should help somewhat?

 

[Intelman07]

I think i'm going to go with a Panaflo fan, since they are pretty quiet. I wonder if they have any Fans for GPUs that support cooling of the chip and the bridge chip on the 6600GT AGP. Also, whats a pretty good 'silent' P4 cooler?