My bizarre, closet office is too hot!

[Gammaray1]

Before I begin, let me say that I CAN NOT change the location of my PC. It is not possible. Let us pretend that I will drop dead if my PC changes location. So please don't just say "MOV UR PC LOL." I don't want to explain WHY my PC is in a closet. It's a long story. Just accept that it is there and needs to stay.

Now, at home I work in a closet office. Literally. It was a closet. 57" wide, 45" long, and 8' high. I have a PC I built to work and game on. It is outputting the kind of heat you'd expect from a volcano. Or perhaps the Sun. As I sit here sweating my balls off, I'm leaning toward the Sun. Even in my last apartment when it was in a normal room, it heated the place up like crazy. So I need to hear ANYTHING that would help. At all. I looked it up a few places, but a lot of people seem to think better cooling (fans, liquid, etc.) would work. I don't think it would. I mean, it would still radiate out of a liquid cooled system. Laws of Thermodynamics and all. I'm not saying a properly cooled system isn't important here, but it wouldn't affect this issue.

Also, don't tell me to turn an AC on, for there is not one in this room. Not even kidding, I was thinking of rigging a large pipe system with fans to my window, but that would be absurd.

The specs are:

PSU - CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V
MOBO - ASUS P6T7 WS Supercomputer
RAM - CORSAIR Dominator GT 6GB (3 x 2GB)
CPU - Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz
VIDEO CARD - ASUS ENGTX285 TOP/HTDI/1GD3 GeForce GTX 285
HDD - WD Cavier Green 640GB

Some of these are running quite hot. GPU-Z tells me my GPU is at 71 degrees C. That's fucking ridiculous. I can drop it by 10 if I put a huge fan on the opened case, which is how I normally run it. Again, it's making the chip cooler
but not the room. That extra 10 degrees is still around me. Also, it's annoying to have a huge fan blaring in my small space. But I do what I must.

My CPU is running at about 55 degrees C, according to RealTemp.

My PSU is pretty damn hot, too but I can't get a number for that. It's uncomfortable to touch, but not burning really.

Help me AnandTech. You're my only hope.

 

[Binky]

It doesnt matter what cooling system you put IN the computer, your problem will still remain - remove the heat from the room. More effective CPU/GPU coolers will just take the heat from that part, and dump it into the room. So dont try to fix the computer before you fix the room.

Sounds like your only choice is to devise some venting system to pull the hot air from the computer and push it outside.

 

[Gammaray1]

Yeah, that's what I figured. What about underclocking? I've never done it before. Someone suggested it to me, but I don't know how to do that for my GPU.

 

[Kenmitch]

So I take it this is in another apartment? So you pretty much have very little flexibility on closet modding....Correct?

 

[Gammaray1]

So I take it this is in another apartment? So you pretty much have very little flexibility on closet modding....Correct?

Yeah I can't break down anything. As long as I don't have to damage any of the walls or door, I'm open for any ideas.

 

[Binky]

You can find duct fans pretty cheap. The only problem is the noise. Search ebay or your local hardware store for something like a 6 inch duct fan with some flexible ducting. I don't know if you could work in the room/closet with this running, as it might drive you mad.

 

[Gammaray1]

You can find duct fans pretty cheap. The only problem is the noise. Search ebay or your local hardware store for something like a 6 inch duct fan with some flexible ducting. I don't know if you could work in the room/closet with this running, as it might drive you mad.

If it comes between sweating like a pig or dealing with a fan, I'll choose the fan.

I think I may be able to rig it up along my ceiling. I can always spackle when I leave here. It just can't be ridiculously extensive damage.

 

[Kenmitch]

Maybe a photo or quick sketch with paint of the offending office space will spark up some ideas. It's just kinda hard to picture it. Closet off of bedroom?

As far as downclocking I doubt it would help too much. The biggest problem is your system is most likely just recirculating hot air making it even hotter.

 

[SolMiester]

Yeah, I was going to say use an extractor fan!....My work servers are in a closet also, though we have an extractor and AC unit in there.....

You might find a real world use for that 9th grade polygon design class to create a rectangular to circle hood to slide over the rear of the PC and take the heat up out the ceiling.

 

[Gammaray1]

I'll get some pics your way in a moment

 

[Gammaray1]

So here it is. Because of my very limited space, I have mounted shelves to hold everything. If there's anything else you want to see, let me know.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[SolMiester]

Guess a 200mm hole in the ceiling is not allowed?!

 

[Kenmitch]

So here it is. Because of my very limited space, I have mounted shelves to hold everything. If there's anything else you want to see, let me know.

How about a shot from other side of room facing the closet so we can get an idea of the room layout, nearest window, etc. Might help to get the big picture of the layout.

 

[Gammaray1]

Here you go. BTW that AC is broken. Also, excuse all those coats. I hang them on the back of the closet door.





Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[Gammaray1]

Guess a 200mm hole in the ceiling is not allowed?!

Yeah :\ totally wish i could tho

 

[Kenmitch]

You can't get the landlord to fix the AC unit?

Hot air rises so your system sitting way up there is not the best place for it under the circumstances. It may help a little dropping it down. But to fix it you need to get some kind of air circulation going on. What's above you? More apartments? Attic?

 

[Gammaray1]

You can't get the landlord to fix the AC unit?

Hot air rises so your system sitting way up there is not the best place for it under the circumstances. It may help a little dropping it down. But to fix it you need to get some kind of air circulation going on. What's above you? More apartments? Attic?

The AC is something we worked out. It's a weird old model that is in wall, so it needs special attention and repair, and because it's not hot out anymore I'm letting it be for right now.

Above me is nothing. The attic ends somewhere in the middle of my bedroom, and the closet is past that. Also, the windows are weird. They open horizontally, not vertically. So I can't put an AC in them

 

[SolMiester]

You need to either duct the hot air from the PC into the ceiling or out into your room....no other way I can see.....

 

[Kenmitch]

Things you could try without any damage. Maybe just screwholes

Take a fan such as in last picture and hang it in closet at upper doorframe aiming out. Then use another similar fan on floor aiming into closet. I'm thinking this may at least give your closet some much need airflow. Figure it'll only cost a fan to try it and see if it at least makes it tolerable. You could always drop your system down lower if possible. The cooler the air it intakes the cooler the air it will also exhaust.

 

[Gammaray1]

You need to either duct the hot air from the PC into the ceiling or out into your room....no other way I can see.....

There is ONE other way...

I could build a new PC. I don't have a lot of cash, but if I can reuse some things from this and save a bit, maybe I can research and find out a good setup. I assume I'd be sacrificing performance, though. Right? Less heat is less power, usually.

I could keep the mobo/cpu, the RAM, HDD, DVD...

and replace the PSU and video card, which seem to be the offenders here. Maybe I can recycle them in a media PC for my TV. Seems like an awful waste, though. But this is a nearly unbearable.

 

[Gammaray1]

Things you could try without any damage. Maybe just screwholes

Take a fan such as in last picture and hang it in closet at upper doorframe aiming out. Then use another similar fan on floor aiming into closet. I'm thinking this may at least give your closet some much need airflow. Figure it'll only cost a fan to try it and see if it at least makes it tolerable. You could always drop your system down lower if possible. The cooler the air it intakes the cooler the air it will also exhaust.

I can try this. Also maybe I can get one of those tiny portable ACs if the price is right...

 

[fffblackmage]

There is ONE other way...

I could build a new PC. I don't have a lot of cash, but if I can reuse some things from this and save a bit, maybe I can research and find out a good setup. I assume I'd be sacrificing performance, though. Right? Less heat is less power, usually.

I could keep the mobo/cpu, the RAM, HDD, DVD...

and replace the PSU and video card, which seem to be the offenders here. Maybe I can recycle them in a media PC for my TV. Seems like an awful waste, though. But this is a nearly unbearable.

The cpu and gpu are the worst offenders, as those two things are the biggest power consumers. You can definitely sacrifice the gpu for something low-end. The cpu is gonna be trouble though, since you'd have to swap the mobo too.

 

[SolMiester]

Maybe, you could make a snake type ducting with a fan on the end of it, drop the PC down to the floor, attach the snake (ducting with fan) out the door and that should extract the hot air into the bigger room?!

 

[Zap]

There is ONE other way...

I could build a new PC... I assume I'd be sacrificing performance, though. Right? Less heat is less power, usually.

That's your only alternative next to massive fan/ducting. Basically either get the heat out of there, or stop producing so much heat.

Now, tell us about your typical day? Do you telecommute? Self-employed from home? Game all evening? What games do you play and at what resolutions? What other tasks do you use your computer for?

My initial thoughts (without more information from you) is to replace the motherboard/CPU/GPU. PSU should be fine, though it won't be at maximum efficiency. The amount of heat the PSU puts out is related to how much power it has to supply, so cut the amount of power your rig needs and the same PSU will put out less heat.

Replace your CPU with a socket 1156 dual core. Do not overclock and leave all the power management stuff enabled in BIOS. Obviously you will need a P55/H55/H57 chipset board, and either get a dual channel RAM kit or use just two out of your three sticks of RAM. If you buy new RAM, look for the lowest voltage stuff and NOT the fastest stuff. DDR3 at 1.5v is pretty common (actually that's the JEDEC standard voltage) and now some lower voltage modules are available below that. RAM gets surprisingly hot, so lower voltage is good. Depending on what you actually use your computer for, you may or may not notice any "seat of your pants" performance hit, but such a combo will put out less heat than the socket 1366 stuff. Heck, even the motherboard will put out less heat (touch your X58 Northbridge heatsink after it's been running a while and you'll see).

The graphics card is a bit trickier because unless you're running really low resolutions, you probably WILL notice a difference in gaming. The first thing to do with a slower card is to lower quality settings because IMO choppy framerate is more annoying than lower quality. Actually you can sometimes selectively lower quality settings without too greatly affecting how games look. For card choice, if you really REALLY want to retain performance as much as possible then get the cheapest stock clocked GTX 460. At stock clock the card is rated at around 150W TDP, which is borderline between using one and using two PCIe 6-pin power plugs, thus they all are made with two. Next step down would be a GTS 450 or a Radeon 5770. These both are about the highest performance you can get while using only one PCIe 6-pin power plug (see, the less power a card needs, the less heat it puts out). Plenty of people use this level card (or GTS 250, which the 450 replaces) for gaming because not everyone can afford higher end stuff. The other thing is that these latest generation cards are a bit better at downclocking and a bit better at performance/watt. The next step below these cards is to get one which does not need a PCIe power plug whatsoever. For Nvidia, that would be the 9800 GT "green" or the GT 240 with GDDR5. AMD would be, what, a 5650?

 

[xd_1771]

You could start with putting the side panel back on to channelize the airflow better (rather than most of the heat escaping right out the sides and into the room)
That and a better CPU cooler than Intel stock would do.