Pc cleaning

[WAS]

Despite the weird placement of the thermostat on my main board (of course intake is going to be on that side of the board parallel to the CPU), my system does pretty well heat wise being a pre-built. Max temp hit in last week (hasn't been restarted) is 77c, and I haven't cleaned it in a couple months. And this is with the RX 580 cooking the case too doing gaming at 4k straining the crap out of it with stuff like Battlefront 2, Hitman 2, GTA V, etc. Lol

I used to get complained at running the AC on high while rendering with my old PC.

[sboerner]

Everything works, so why bother anyway.

If it ain't broke . . .


Good advice in this thread about keeping the interior of the machine clean. Have to remember to do that now and then.

[Kadri]

Small update...I had no bluescreens or so. But while rendering Terragen vanished suddenly 2 times.
This happened before too so it might be unrelated. But just in case i lowered the CPU to 3.8 GHz.
This is the safest overclock-undervolting while having low temps i think.

[masonspappy]

Even though the core speed of my I7 CPU  remains at the factory preset of 3.4 GHZ, it's still kind of jarring to hear the internal cooling fan on the video card revving up like a small jet engine when I do a render.  I blow dust off the cooling fans and air cooler blades once a month but it still happens.   So here is my very high-tech solution.  Removed the side from the PC and sat a small cooling fan on top of a CD jewel box, which in turn sits on an old coffee cup. Pointed it directly at the heat sync on the video card cooler.  It works - no longer hear the fan revving up when I render, so it's been sitting just this way for about a year now.

I actually got this idea from a mainframe computer operator back around 1982.   One day the cooling assembly on the bottom of a logic gate died, and he opened the mainframe and place a 36-inch industrial fan about 3 feet from the logic gate (imagine something the size of a refrigerator door).  It kept the mainframe running for a couple of hours until we could get a new cooling assembly on site.

BTW, I don't screw with overclocking settings.  Good way to kill the CPU if your not careful or just unlucky.

[WAS]

Even though the core speed of my I7 CPU  remains at the factory preset of 3.4 GHZ, it's still kind of jarring to hear the internal cooling fan on the video card revving up like a small jet engine when I do a render.  I blow dust off the cooling fans and air cooler blades once a month but it still happens.  So here is my very high-tech solution.  Removed the side from the PC and sat a small cooling fan on top of a CD jewel box, which in turn sits on an old coffee cup. Pointed it directly at the heat sync on the video card cooler.  It works - no longer hear the fan revving up when I render, so it's been sitting just this way for about a year now.

I actually got this idea from a mainframe computer operator back around 1982.  One day the cooling assembly on the bottom of a logic gate died, and he opened the mainframe and place a 36-inch industrial fan about 3 feet from the logic gate (imagine something the size of a refrigerator door).  It kept the mainframe running for a couple of hours until we could get a new cooling assembly on site.

BTW, I don't screw with overclocking settings.  Good way to kill the CPU if your not careful or just unlucky.

Haha

Been there before, removing the side. Once I just cut a hole in the side where the CPU was so it was drawing in fresh air in a straight shot to the CPU fan.

[Dune]

Very sophisticated solution!

[KlausK]

I am wondering wether you are talking about Terragen rendering when the GPU fan takes off?
Isn`t it strange that the GPU should react since TG does not use the GPU for rendering at all?

My Dual Core Xeon`s rendering temp does not go higher than 60 degrees C when running at 98 % (2 cores left for other stuff).
Overnight or longer (76h is my longest render session so far).
It is air-cooling in a huge tower - and I guess that makes all the difference.
Large fans, 1 at the top, 2 in the side, 2 in the back plus the one for the psu, 1 in the floor plate.
Another 1 in the front below the hdds sucking air in the case, 1 in the front right in front of the hdds sucking air out of the case.
And each cpu of course, lots of space inside the case. None of the fans runs faster than 600 rpm at any time. So it is rather silent.
If you let the fan which sucks air in at the front and the one which blows the air out at the back run a little faster than the rest
you create some nice air flow in the case. Which helps as well.

Might seem like overkill to some, but since you are talking about long living components and making money out of your box...well decide for yourself

CHeers, Klaus

[WAS]

I am wondering wether you are talking about Terragen rendering when the GPU fan takes off?
Isn`t it strange that the GPU should react since TG does not use the GPU for rendering at all?

Ambient temp from CPU cooking case, GPU will read high temps and kick on. WDM will use GPU, as well as 3D preview as well, which when CPU is already warming up system could put GPU at threshold easy.

Oh yeah, and if the GPU is in idle state, it's refresh rate for peripherals is slower, so why it may rev up like a jet engine. by the time it checks temps, it's over threshold.

[masonspappy]

I am wondering wether you are talking about Terragen rendering when the GPU fan takes off?
Isn`t it strange that the GPU should react since TG does not use the GPU for rendering at all?

Ambient temp from CPU cooking case, GPU will read high temps and kick on. WDM will use GPU, as well as 3D preview as well, which when CPU is already warming up system could put GPU at threshold easy.

Oh yeah, and if the GPU is in idle state, it's refresh rate for peripherals is slower, so why it may rev up like a jet engine. by the time it checks temps, it's over threshold.

Hi Klaus - good catch!
Yes, the "jet Engine" noise is coming from the video card when I'm doing GPU rendering (with Blender, not Terragen).
And WAS appears to have deduced a phenomenon (Thanks WAS!) I was experiencing a while back before I removed the side cover b/c of overheat concerns.  I'd do a long render with Blender, then render in Terragen which I didn't think used GPU, yet the video card cooler fan kicked in for a moment. That's when I got to wondering and removed the side from the PC.

[D.A. Bentley (SuddenPlanet)]

I was looking for this thread in Open Discussion and couldn't find it.  I found it here though.


Anyways I finished my Filter Furniture Mini PC Clean Room.

[Kadri]

Your room would work for our computers as a clean room by itself

Joke aside, would love to have some of that too. Nice!

[WAS]

I was looking for this thread in Open Discussion and couldn't find it.  I found it here though.


Anyways I finished my Filter Furniture Mini PC Clean Room.

Thats pretty snazzy. Doesn't impact heat? I was always told not to even put a computer in the corner of a room cause of airflow. And my server which was moved to a smaller room definitely shows a heat increase. Though I don't know if its climate controlled where they moved it like their enterprise.

[Dune]

That looks really cool. Is that even outside air being hauled in from the window?

[D.A. Bentley (SuddenPlanet)]

The way this works is there is a powerful Vortex fan in the lower cabinet which pulls air through about 8" of various filters (24" x 24" furnace filters).  Then the air is pushed up into the upper chamber which is the full width & height of the table.  Think of it like an air hockey table but with more force of air coming up.  All that air pressure inside the dust cover (top part) is pushed out the back so the PC's inside are getting a constant flow of cool clean air from the lowest part of my room.  Of course A/C will be necessary in the Summer where I am going (Idaho) so as long as the room air temp is a comfortable 68 - 74F the PC's will stay just as cool as if the cover was not on.

The back cover piece with the holes at the top and the chord slots isn't in yet.  I'm going to cut it down a bit because it was too tall to slide down into the slot in the back because ceiling is interfering. 

I also made the cover capable of popping up to let extra hot air out the back (if needed) top shown in the last photo.

[Dune]

Great, some nice handwork! Thanks for the explanation.