Computer Cooling Issues

[=[Ga]= AutoDMC]

I don't have an AWESOME rig, but it's pretty hefty. Usually it doesn't give me problems, but the last couple of days it's gotten pretty warm in my house and I've come home to a computer who has shut itself off.

I do run Folding@Home on my GPU and 2 of my 3 cores, so it's burnin' electrons throughout the day. I don't rank 4th in the eGO team folding for nothing. I hate wasting electrons, but I hate turning my computer off even more. So there.

With that out of the way, the stats:

PROCESSOR: AMD Phenom 8450 x3 with Thermaltake ISGC-100 cooler
GPU: EVGA e-GeForce GTS 250
Motherboard: XFX MD-A72P-7509
Hard Drives: 2xMAXTOR STM3500630AS Sata 3 Gb/s 500GB
Case: CoolerMaster Elite 334 (http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?category_id=19&product_id=2868)

Now, according to Speedfan, running Folding@Home, with the air conditioner on (this is key), my GPU sits at 75C. My core at about 40C. Case Temp shows 51C, and the "CPU" sensor is at 58C. All the numbers change, so all the sensors listed are sending data.

To tell the truth, I'm a software guy. All this hardware mumbo jumbo doesn't really click for me. "Sys Fan" seems to be the side-of-the-case fan, as that fan has a switch for me to set speeds, and that number chnges. CPU0 seems to be my CPU fan, I don't see that change. Aux0 Fan seems to be my back-of-the-case fan. The front-of-the-case fan isn't on a controller.

I suspect my cooling plan is bad. Perhaps I need a real controller?

Here, photo > kiloword:

Red blocks in bottom right are hard drives. They ran hot, so I put a casefan that pulls air out near them at the front. On the left bottom is my power supply. My GPU has it's own fan, which points down, sucks air from the case and spits it out the back. Top left is a regular 120mm casefan, pulling air out. The CPU has a Thermaltake cooler that blows into the case, away from the CPU (I have my case vertical, so crazy coolers are no bueno). The white box is an empty fan slot. The black box at the top is a fan with no power. The purple area is a heat pipe from the chipset (big box) to heat sink fins (small rectangle). And the grey and white box on top of the GPU is a Rosewill Blue LED 3 setting fan, set to medium so I don't poke my ear drums out from the noise.

Beefier fans? More fans? Fan controller? (I don't want one with knobs... I want it to have a thermostat so I don't have to baby it.) Unfortunately, the new house's AC is a window unit with fan settings but no thermostat, so when I leave the AC goes off.

I do have speedfan so I can keep an eye out... what should I look for, though? I really don't know.

I can program a computer through hoops, but I've suffered through cooling problems the entire time I've had this computer. And I'm not really sure if it's a cooling problem... it only misbehaves when I'm not looking. But it misbehaves on days which are toasty like today, so I'm going where causality points.

 

[Ph?bus]

Have an intake fan, perhaps? All I'm seeing is exhaust.

E/ Try flipping the front fan (for the harddrives) to make that intake, and add a fan to the empty slot to the side, also as intake.

 

[=[Ga]= AutoDMC]

The side fan (the grey square on top of the GPU) is an intake. Think I need even more intake?

Another thing I didn't mention is I've lost most of my expander board metal slips, so most of those are open on the back.

I did have the hard drive fan as an intake, once. That was terrible. Those beasties get HOT, and dumping that heat into the case was worse than not.

The side of the case that the Rosewill fan (grey box) is on has a punch out for a second fan, above it. Which should assist with air intake.

My original plan was to have heavy exhaust and let the negative pressure in the case draw in cool air. I've added the side-of-the-case (grey box) fan to assist intake, we'll see if that helps...

 

[Ph?bus]

The side fan (the grey square on top of the GPU) is an intake. Think I need even more intake?

Another thing I didn't mention is I've lost most of my expander board metal slips, so most of those are open on the back.

I did have the hard drive fan as an intake, once. That was terrible. Those beasties get HOT, and dumping that heat into the case was worse than not.

The side of the case that the Rosewill fan (grey box) is on has a punch out for a second fan, above it. Which should assist with air intake.

My original plan was to have heavy exhaust and let the negative pressure in the case draw in cool air. I've added the side-of-the-case (grey box) fan to assist intake, we'll see if that helps...

Hm. You may just need new fans (for everything), HDD's aren't supposed to get that hot, really. How hot we talking? >50C?
But the ideal thing to do would be get new hardware. "But that costs money". True. But you'll also get more PPD, so think about that.

 

[LITTLE CON]

I had this problem before! Ok what id did was i took my Fan-Heatsink off and i cleaned it real good like make sure the copper bottom is shinny so you can see your face in it. Then if you have any put some thermal paste on, you can go to best buy and buy some for like 10$, a cheap way but it will work!

 

[QuickSkope]

Sounds like your HeatPaste is Going.

Get some Arctic Silver MK-2 or MK-3, re-do it on the bottom of the Heatsink.

COuld also be you have no intake.

 

[thebigrobbyrob]

you definitely need to balance intake and exhaust. You need to have more cool air coming in to balance out the hot air thats going out and to keep the innards cool. Have you considered mounting a fan under your optical drives (I assume those are the orange blocks on your schematic)?

You also mentioned that you are using a negative pressure system. you may want to consider really dusting out all the areas that bring in air (due to the negative pressure) if you dont already. Negative pressure systems are notorious for getting really dusty and that dust really hinders cooling.

 

[=[Ga]= AutoDMC]

Yeah, my biggest problem is that the motherboard only has two fan slots, and I didn't pick up any more molex-to-fan-connector gadgets. Right now, the top back, and grey square fans are motherboard fans, the idea being I could use the motherboard's fan speed control to crank those up if need be. But, alas, I haven't been able to figure out how to make speedfan actually control those fans.*

I'm thinking I'm going to go from negative pressure to positive pressure. I use negative... because I've always used negative. But if I can get a hold of some molex connectors, I'm going to move the black box at the top to the bottom of the case (between the PS and the hard drives (red blocks)); there's a fan slot down there. My computer sits on a wire mesh shelf, so there's plenty of (cooler) air down there. Have that fan blow up into the case. Leave the hard drive fan blowing out. The Grey box will still blow into the case. Perhaps get a drive-bay-fan to sit under the optical drives (orange boxes), blowing in. And let the two fan slots at the top be passive ventilation.

Thoughts? Comments? One of my best friends (who, darn it Jim!, is also a programmer, not a hardware guy) thinks it's overkill, and maybe it is... but I'm going to eventually have 8 gig of memory, a second SLI GPU, and perhaps another drive or two in there, and, like I said, it doesn't normally get hot in my house but when it does I don't want to blow out an expensive part.

(* What I'd really like is to add a speed-controlled fan into the black slot, something really beefy, and have it normally off. Then have the computer set up so that if the temperature goes into the "Auto's not home, it's hot, and the AC is off" range it can turn on and rapidly recirculate the air inside as a last ditch effort. Again, perhaps overkill, but it sounds fun