Is there a way to prevent a case from radiating so much heat?

[SaltBoy]

I have an xp2800+, complete with an Alpha PAL6035 heatsink and a panaflo (I think) fan. The computer works great -- no problems there...

HOWEVER, my case (pretty plain-jane midtower) seems to radiate a lot of heat and make my office quite warm compared to the rest of the house. I know it might be impossible, but I was wondering if I could do something to prevent my case from radiating so much heat. Will a new heatsink/fan combo work good? More fans? Any ideas?

 

[mechBgon]

Simple answer: nope. The heat cannot magically disappear. If it's being produced, it's being produced. You might be able to duct the case's exhaust to somewhere outside your office, however.

 

[Mark R]

The only way is to use components that produce less heat.

e.g. replace the monitor with an LCD - use a low power CPU e.g. Celeron or Pentium-M. Replace high-end graphics card like Radeon 9700 with something like an integrated solution.

 

[Jeff7]

Less fans will make it radiate less heat. It'll also shorten the life of the components, or else just cause it to shut down/crash from overheating.

 

[ReiAyanami]

get a cyrix or transmeta, the performance will suck but u could probably touch it with ur bare fingers

 

[EeyoreX]

Less fans will make it radiate less heat

No it won't. The number of fans has nothing to do without how much heat is output by the computer's components. Fewer fans may mean less heat is forced out of the case via an exhaust fan, but the heat still radiates out of the case from somewhere. As mechBgon said, your best (without changing hardware) solution would be to duct the exhaust out of the office. That or put the PC out of the office.

\Dan

 

[lenjack]

The less heat radiated by the computer, the hotter the computer will run, which is not good. Although you may not like it, the more heat radiated, the cooler the computer, and the better it will run.

 

[mechBgon]

Due to the law of conservation of energy, the only way the computer can put out less heat in an ongoing situation is if it's keeping it inside, which means the computer is steadily getting hotter and hotter.

What you might do is check to see if your board has the S2K Bus Disconnect option in the BIOS and enable it if it does. This CAN reduce the heat that the CPU is actually producing, by letting the CPU take a little micro-nap when nothing much is going on. Barton cores have this option, so your 2800+ should have it (unless it's the rare Thoroughbred 2800+).

 

[Mark R]

The less heat radiated by the computer, the hotter the computer will run, which is not good. Although you may not like it, the more heat radiated, the cooler the computer, and the better it will run.

This is, of course, patently false. A computer will release the same amount of heat into its environment, irrespective of how well it is cooled.

You have 2 options - reduce the heat generated by the computer (changing hardware, enabling power management, reducing clock speed, reducing voltage) - or arranging the heat to be removed to a different area (e.g. use a vent to suck hot air from the PC and release it outside).

 

[Isezumi00]

Originally posted by: Mark R

The less heat radiated by the computer, the hotter the computer will run, which is not good. Although you may not like it, the more heat radiated, the cooler the computer, and the better it will run.

This is, of course, patently false. A computer will release the same amount of heat into its environment, irrespective of how well it is cooled.

Yes and No, the way he expressed it is, but the idea he was shotting for is true.

Your case is a fixed volume enviornment. If you rely solely on radiation to cool your computer it will as a system eventually top out a certain ambient heat...however depending on how quickly you can turn over the volume of air in your case the "cooler" the inside of your case will be because the volume air is only sitting around long enough to soak up a certain amount of energy based on time. Macro vs. Micro enviormental thermo mechanics.

 

[KF]

The question has already been covered thoroughly, but I can't help piling on.

Here's how it goes. Heat is conserved due to heat being a form of energy, although temperature is not conserved. (In ordinary English, temperature and heat sometimes mean the same thing, but not in physics.)

So suppose you remove less heat by using slower fans. Then the whole computer temperature will increase (which you don't want) as the quanitity of heat within the case builds up. As the temperature rises, the amount of heat radiated and conducted away from the case gets larger (another law of thermodynamics.) At some elevated temperature the heat leaving the case again matches the amount generated. So you delayed the heat from escaping a few minutes, but ultimately it is just the same. Mostly what will happen is the air coming through the fans will become a lot hotter.

One interesting aspect of temperature not being conserved is that you can decrease the temperature rise that a given amount of heat causes. (For instance higher-humidity air heats up slower.) During the energy crises era, if anybody remembers that, the conservationists often recommended having lots of (sealed) barrels full of water standing around to soak up heat. It takes a lot more heat to raise the temperature of water a given amount compared to air. So you could keep the room cooler by this technique. ( The conservationists idea though was to keep the room warmer when there was no solar engergy available at night.)

The other thing you can do is to dilute the heat by having good air circulation to other parts of the house. Have a room fan on a stand perhaps by the door. In effect, you tranfer control of the heat to the central heating/cooling system.

 

[madcow235]

I saw a duct once that you hooked up to your wall and it dumped all the hot air into the wall. It only worked for the power supply fan but i think you could make a few ones out of dryer vents. To get the case to stop radiating heat you are going to have to get the heat out faster if you mean the metal itself is radiating heat.

 

[Mday]

your monitor is outputting more heat than your system is. switch to LCD if you care that much.

 

[0roo0roo]

bad airflow/cooling = low flow of very hot air
good airflow/cooling = lots of only warm air
total heat = same!

weee!

 

[huesmann]

Well, with winter coming up, who cares if you put out more heat? You can use your PC as a radiator!

 

[madcow235]

My monitor is not outputting more heat then my comp i can guarentee you this. I have dual CRTs and im outputting less heat from them then i am from my radiator alone. My mosfets probably put out 80watts