View Full Version : Heat Management
How do you guys with lots of kit manage your equipment's heat output?
To give you the full picture, I have 3 PCs with a total of 5 TFTs, plus 2 aux PSUs, a powerful power amp, preamp, switches that get warm, UPSes and other electrical stuffs that all add up to generate a ridiculous amount of heat.
I have my window open 24/7 with a fan on the go on full blast and still its unbearable almost all of the time. Im not joking when I say that a realistic estimate of how hot it was in here at 6pm this evening was mid-30s and right now even sat here in "sports clothing" with the fan blasting straight at me the heat is ridiculous - and I have everything bar my server, main PC and hifi off! I dont turn things off EVER!!
Is buying an air con unit the only realistic way forward? I think it is, and I know this is a bit of a lame thread because its got nowhere to go but there we go, I just needed to vent!
To think this is just the beginning of spring too... :(
As I suspect you know, with a fan, you need a way for cool air to get in and hot air to escape. Omit one and all a fan will do is provide temporary relief. If you do have both, then you need to promote air circulation (such as by pointing the fan upwards). Some also suggest pointing the fan outwards but unless you're very lucky I don't see that working very well.
I had my house sealed today due to wanting to get tree pollen allergies under control. PC room hit 31-33C, rest of house hit 27C. Cooling down now I've opened windows.
I have a window and a door to a place with other open windows open. To no avail :(
I have a window and a door to a place with other open windows open. To no avail :(
What shape is the room? Are there any heat traps (places where hot air can't escape)?
Its a uni room, its arranged as best I can, no significant heat traps (airflow from the window blows across the monitors to two of the PCs and then out of the room).
Guess I will have to see about more extreme measures :(
If it's straight through, then a fan at each end (blowing in the same direction) is the way to go if you don't want aircon.
Or bodge together something using clothes dryer vent tubing to direct the heat from the computers outside through it....
Stan_Lite
16-04-2007, 06:23
Move to the North of Scotland ;)
Seriously though, I've seen the photos of your room and all that kit in a room that size is bound to make things a bit toasty.
I have 6 PCs in my bedroom which is probably about twice the size of your room and in the summer, even with the windows open, it still gets too warm in there and the ambient temperature up here is probably a good few degrees cooler than down there.
I have 4 PCs and 2 laptops in the sitting room/kitchen but it's massive and the big door to the kitchen is always open as is the door to the rest of the house so it doesn't cause a problem at all.
Short of getting a freestanding aircon unit (although Christ knows where you'd put it), I can't think of an easy solution to your problem.
Stan :)
Darrin is on to a good thing there - either ducting the heat outside or using water cooling with the radiator/heat exchanger outside. Neither are particularly easy, or practical, though. :)
Flibster
16-04-2007, 14:36
2 aircon units in my playroom.
1 in the lounge and 1 in the bedroom.
Still hits 30°C at points in the playroom though. Having a double glazed 12ft wide and 5ft tall window doesn't help. :(
Blackout blinds are going to be fitted this year when I can be bothered.
Simon/~Flibster
Oh..and compute naked! ;)
31.8c in the hotspot in the corner of my computer room right now. Going down now I have max strength antihistamines and should be able to cope with a bit of pollen floating about. :)
(box fan, pretty much attached to the windowframe, so the only air it's moving comes from outside)
Can you not get rid of some of your equipment? It just seems a bit OTT and overkill for a student room at uni....
Can you not get rid of some of your equipment? It just seems a bit OTT and overkill for a student room at uni....
Because I like my stuff? I use it all, its a hobby and I like having it about to do interesting things with.
To many people, turboing your MX5 is OTT and overkill... I dont see this as any different ;)
It's very different - but it's a whole other debate I can decimate you with later. Fair enough you like your stuff, I guess taking advantage of the free uni electricity is a good way of learning all the stuff. Can you not reduce the number of screens for a start? It's one of those things I think you're just going to have to get used to. It's the premium you pay for having lots of cool kit in a small confined space. If you feel you can afford an A/C unit then in my opinion it's the most sensible way to go - or you could do some hardcore water cooling ;)
Decimate me? Bit agressive for a friendly forum innit? Or is that the way things are going around here...
The screens are purely because I like to be able to see everything I am working on at once - KVMs are tedious and terrible for higher resolutions unless you fork out more money than additional TFTs would have cost and in any case, they dont really contribute THAT much to the heat...
Its not like all of a sudden I just went out on a mad spending spree and bought a load of kit... I have lived with a lot of kit for a lot of years and lived with the heat, I was merely wondering how other people cope with more kit with a view to the summer. It would appear that A/C is the only viable way forward - and its not the cost that puts me off, its the noise they put out...
Lighten up kid, I was only being facetious :)
Or do I have to get some man love out? :lubu: There :x
Blackstar
16-04-2007, 23:42
Well it is going to be damn hot in that room this weekend, whenever i go down there he complains that i tip the balance. He needs at least two screens so that i can play zoo tycoon while he is doing nerd stuffs.
Fwiw power and cooling are big issues in the data centre at the moment, everyone is talking about ways to reduce the power being consumed, cooling required and ultimately the number of physical devices in server rooms/racks.
I've done the same myself on a little scale. I have one box virtualising 3 and a laptop - easy to manage. Maybe you should look at consolidation?
What services are your boxes running? OS's aside.
My desktop machine does exactly that - my desktop stuff / gaming. I dont run anything at all that isnt needed on here, purely for my daily usage stuff.
My server box runs DNS/DHCP/Active Directory/Fileserver/Counterstrike/Ventrilo and virtualises Asterisk when I can be bothered with it.
My "media centre" box runs XP MCE which I use alongside my Vista box to record TV and whatnot when I am busy or gaming on my main machine. It virtualises every other OS that I want to play with at the time - Ubuntu, Solaris, SUSE, Gentoo - you name it, I either have an image for it running or have had one in the past! I also use this box to muck about with new stuff on and it also allows Paula to do stuff she wants to do when she is down here.
So as you can see, there isnt a great deal of room for moving things about - 3 machines isnt that many machines really - my housemate across the hall has a dislike of virtualisation for most things and consequently he is running 5 PCs and 4 laptops 24/7... but he faces away from the sun and his room is in the shade of some trees, so his room is like an icebox most of the time - my room faces the sun :(
Aye not a lot of room to shift stuff about. All I can suggest is swicth some stuff off in that case. Leave the desktop machine off and use the media one for web browsing/basic email, and shut the server down if it's not doing much. Bout the only 'option' you have, though it's not really fair to call it one.
The server has shifted 1.4Tb since early feb... Its never really not doing much :p
Plus it torrents for me, 24/7 ;)
It's always a problem when your room gets direct sunlight. I've got an aircon unit in my room also but I suffer from the direct sunlight, luckily only in the mornings though.
What also doesn't help me is that I have the boiler in my room also so lots of heat there and all the pipes run under the floor. The room is _never_ cold, even in winter and I don't ever use the radiator.
This year I'm on an electricity save binge which I'm hoping will help with the heat. I'm shutting down PCs when they're not being used, I've moved fully to flat screens from CRTs and I've fitted energy saving bulbs around the house.
I don't want to use the aircon unless I absolutely have to, plus my tidying has meant I can put it in a different place now and running the outlet hose is tricky.
I've found the best way to keep the room a bit cooler when it's getting direct sunlight is to keep the window closed and the curtains shut, then when the sun has moved overhead (the room faces east) I crack a window and open the curtains.
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