Please confirm my Qs about water cooling

 

It just dawned on me that a water cooling kit/parts would make a great
Christmas gift for my son but I think it won't solve his problem.  He
has an AMD 3Ghz cpu and his whole room heats up pretty bad during the
summer.  I thought water cooling would be the neat way to reduce all
the fan noise and heat but here are my thoughts which I'd appreciate
you confirming:

1)  He'll still need a fan for the radiator so the noise may not go
down that much.
2)  The heat from his cpu has to go somewhere so it will still be in
the room.
3)  So the only way to get rid of the heat in the room would be to
mount the radiator outside the room.

Do you guys agree with all that?  Is there a good way to extract all
that heat?  It's a 10x10 room with one window and a/c vent.  No, he
can't have a window a/c unit but I don't know that I'd object to
hanging something out the window but it can't be dorky.

If it can't be done then it can't be done.

 

"drhowarddrfine" wrote in message...

A badly made/assembled liquid cooling solution could also cause major
problems, so be a wee bit careful!


His PC will only be dissipating 140 watts or so of heat at outside. This
alone won't make a huge difference to the ambient temperature of a
reasonably sized room.


It won't reduce the amount of heat dissipated into the room. If anything a
water cooling solution will increase the efficiency of the heat removal from
the CPU - and thus even more of it will be radiated out into the room.


Corrrect. Whether the noise will reduce depends entirely on whether the fans
on the radiator are quieter than whatever he's using at the moment. As water
cooling radiators tend to come with large, low speed fans, it is possible
that a water cooling solution may create a net reduction in noise levels,
but this would depend on the components chosen and the existing solution.


Yes, and as mentioned above there may be more heat dissipated into the room
via the water cooler than there is via the air only solution. However, again
as mentioned, I tend to wonder how much the PC is actually contributing to
this warming during the "summer months". If the PC *was* largely to blame,
wouldn't the room be warm during winter as well?


That's one option, yes. However, whether it's a practical proposition is
something only you can answer.

Mounting the radiator externally would obviously require a waterproofed
fan - and fans sold for PC use tend not to be.


Like I said, I doubt the heat output of the PC box alone will be enough to
superheat his room. Does he have a CRT monitor and/or TV set, and a couple
of incandescent lightbulbs in there? If so all of these will be puttin' out
more heat than the PC case itself.


Of course it can be done, but the questions are whether it's a step that's
practical for you to take, and indeed whether it's going to achieve what you
hope it will.
--


Richard Hopkins
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
(replace nospam with pipex in reply address)

The UK's leading technology reseller www.dabs.com

 

Thank you, Richard.

 

The more I think about this the more I think it's a bad idea.  But,
perhaps I can still do water cooling if I can run the radiator hoses
out of his room and just outside the door, although it would just be
sitting in the hallway.  Better yet, I guess, would be to run it into
the attic but the attic gets pretty hot in the summer, too.

 

A person sitting in a room generates about 150 Watts of heat.  On average
your son's computer system and CRT monitor might generated about 150 Watts
of heat each.  Water cooling of the CPU won't help the 'hot room' problem
very much because the heat generated by the CPU is less than 20% of the heat
generated by your son, the computer system, and the monitor.  Since you did
not describe the fan noise (which fan? - CPU heatsink, case ventillation
fans, video card fan) nor the temperatures in the room, the CPU temperature,
the graphics processor unit, or the motherboard your questions are difficult
to answer.  Basically, if the system is running okay in the summer, then the
CPU doesn't need more cooling,

For your son's comfort (this suggestion will not help the CPU), consider an
overhead paddle fan with wooden (NOT metal) blades.  Run at slow speed this
will be quiet and help with evaporative cooling of your son (sweat
evaporation.)  If the fan is reversible, it also helps in the winter by
moving hot air from the top of the room to the bottom.

Phil Weldon

| The more I think about this the more I think it's a bad idea.  But,
| perhaps I can still do water cooling if I can run the radiator hoses
| out of his room and just outside the door, although it would just be
| sitting in the hallway.  Better yet, I guess, would be to run it into
| the attic but the attic gets pretty hot in the summer, too.
|