PC Cooling (God dam heat)

Glacius

Glacius

Glacius

Associate
Joined
6 Dec 2013
Posts
500
Hey All,

Just a quick question I hope and possibly a rather stupid one but I have a very old Alienware system I use at home for the time being and whilst it does gaming just fine, the heat that actually come's out of the PC via the top vent is literally baking my room and making it so hot after a few hours of gaming that it's becoming quite annoying especially with the warmer weather about.

From what I have seen inside the case the CPU cooler is just a very box standard cooler and in all fairness does look rather pathetic, would getting a decent cooler/heatsink help with the heat the actually comes out of the PC? Assuming all the heat from the CPU has to go some where and will eventually all come out the case anyway?

Just really want to have the least amount of heat coming out of the PC itself as possible as the PC heat plus triple monitors (more heat) and weather at times make gaming awful :(
 
Do you have any other fans in the case for example intake fans drawing cold air in to the case/exhaust fans venting the air out of the case?

What GPU do you have?

If the only thing in your case is the CPU cooler then it would explain why its getting toasty.
 
Heat out of the case is good, you don't want heat staying in there too long and if it's heating your room up then it's doing it's job so far, sadly it's a by-product of a decent cooling system. You might want to look at getting a portable air con unit for the few days that they are needed here in the UK.
 
I have a fan in the room to help don't get me wrong but ends up blowing the heat around the room, its quite a small room so makes things worse.

As for the GPU its a EVGA 980ti Superclocked ACX 2.0 I think is the type, seems to cool fairly well. As for case fans it really doesn't seem to have that many just the CPU cooler and then a single fan on the back of the case.
 
I'm happy to stand corrected but the EVGA GTX 980Ti can pump out a wack of heat under load and the ACX cooler likes good airflow.

I wonder if a some intake fans (if the case can take them) will help pass cooler air across the GPU/mobo and send it out the rear exhaust fan and maybe drop the temps slightly too.
 
Unless you change cooling to water cooler with radiator outside your room, that heat energy stays in your room, no matter how many and powerful fans you have in case.
So you need to lower that power consumption/heat output of your equipment if you want your room to stay less hot.
 
I have a fair few old Corsair fans laying around my place so may see if I can fit a couple of those to help, but as mentioned above I guess this means the cooling is doing it's job if all the heat is coming out the case just I swear my old system never put out the kind of heat this thing is.
 
EsaT said:
Unless you change cooling to water cooler with radiator outside your room, that heat energy stays in your room, no matter how many and powerful fans you have in case.
So you need to lower that power consumption/heat output of your equipment if you want your room to stay less hot.
Click to expand...

Guess you are correct there as my old system was a custom water cooled build and despite 2 radiators and stupid amount of fans the heat still did eventually make the room hot just seem worse now.
 
I'm probably getting more concerned about the heat being generated by the PC rather than what is escaping from it and into your room.

I will admit that I am OCD when it comes to PC cooling and good airflow so when you mentioned CPU cooler, 1 x rear fan and baking temperatures my mind went into overdrive :D

I'm assuming your hardware temps are all good and the small size of the room accentuates the heat more.
 
Disco79 said:
I'm probably getting more concerned about the heat being generated by the PC rather than what is escaping from it and into your room.

I will admit that I am OCD when it comes to PC cooling and good airflow so when you mentioned CPU cooler, 1 x rear fan and baking temperatures my mind went into overdrive :D

I'm assuming your hardware temps are all good and the small size of the room accentuates the heat more.
Click to expand...

Exactly this to be honest the PC is stable and runs games just fine but it's the fact I have a small room and this alienware PC was an old PC from many moons ago that has since had all it's internals put into a new case but not very well (not me) and think cooling was the last thing on the mind of the person who done this. Ill take it apart at weekend and see about trying to fix the airflow and add some fans.

Is this any particular way fans should be placed and which way round they should be as I think I have 6-7 120mm Corsair fans laying around. Obviously wouldn't go as mad as to add them all but not sure if to add them at back, front, or top and if so which way round to put them.
 
The norm is usually to have intake fans at the front drawing in cold air over your components and your rear fan exhausts the warm air out the back.

Placement depends really though on what case you have and where fans can be located within the chassis.

Assuming your case allows for front mounted fans then I would try for 2 intakes and then monitor your hardware temps to see if they make a difference to previous readings.

The difference won't be huge but every degree helps.
 
Glacius said:
I have a fan in the room to help don't get me wrong but ends up blowing the heat around the room, its quite a small room so makes things worse.
Click to expand...

Just imagine your room is another PC case and like your case you want to get the heat out of your room, if you have all doors and windows shut there's nowhere with enough flow for the heat to escape so it just keeps heating up

You either need to change rooms, open a door/window for airflow or get an air conditioner or some sort of extractor fan to try get cold air into the room and exhaust out the hot air, this will have a way better effect on cooling your PC + your room over just trying to get your PC cooler
 
OP you were totally right - all the heat from the pc will enter the room. Internal PC temps also don't make much difference - regardless of the temperature of your components, unless they're throttling their speed, they will consume and pass out the same amount of energy.

Component temperature is just a function of the cooling system, thermal capacity of parts, and the energy being passed through them. So you won't find that cooling your PC down (or letting it heat up) will affect your room temps. Obviously improving cooling will improve lifespan and performance though

Most importantly the GTX 980Ti is a hungry beast and chews through 250W of energy. Newer cards have got very efficient so the 1070 offers similar performance at maybe 40% less power consumption.
 
Glacius said:
Hey All,

Just a quick question I hope and possibly a rather stupid one but I have a very old Alienware system I use at home for the time being and whilst it does gaming just fine, the heat that actually come's out of the PC via the top vent is literally baking my room and making it so hot after a few hours of gaming that it's becoming quite annoying especially with the warmer weather about.

From what I have seen inside the case the CPU cooler is just a very box standard cooler and in all fairness does look rather pathetic, would getting a decent cooler/heatsink help with the heat the actually comes out of the PC? Assuming all the heat from the CPU has to go some where and will eventually all come out the case anyway?

Just really want to have the least amount of heat coming out of the PC itself as possible as the PC heat plus triple monitors (more heat) and weather at times make gaming awful :(
Click to expand...

Might help to know what your system is. Case, case fan setup, motherboard, CPU, CPU cooler, RAM, etc. And when was the last time you cleaned it? But the room heating up is just like a case heating up. Only way to avoid it is bringing cool air into room while pushing heated air out.

Computer heating up the room is like fish and chips. One comes with the other. :D
 
Glacius said:
Hey All,

Just a quick question I hope and possibly a rather stupid one but I have a very old Alienware system I use at home for the time being and whilst it does gaming just fine, the heat that actually come's out of the PC via the top vent is literally baking my room and making it so hot after a few hours of gaming that it's becoming quite annoying especially with the warmer weather about.

From what I have seen inside the case the CPU cooler is just a very box standard cooler and in all fairness does look rather pathetic, would getting a decent cooler/heatsink help with the heat the actually comes out of the PC? Assuming all the heat from the CPU has to go some where and will eventually all come out the case anyway?

Just really want to have the least amount of heat coming out of the PC itself as possible as the PC heat plus triple monitors (more heat) and weather at times make gaming awful :(
Click to expand...

No.

You need your PC to use less energy or you need better ventilation of the room or you need air conditioning.

If your PC uses 300W it's a 300W heater. So either turn down the heater or find a way to get the heat out of the room.

I leave my window and doors open to have a bit of breeze going through :p
 
I completely missed what Hotwired caught. :o

Exactly right! All the wattage used by our computers generates heat / is a heater.
 
Your PC is going to make as much heat as it makes. The first thing to do (if not done already) is tune the voltages on the CPU/GPU to as low as is needed to be stable. If that's still to hot you'll need to underclock your system or get air conditioning of some kind in your room.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom