An intersting idea to tool around with

Well I was planning on making some kind of duct from my window (in my room) to my case intake fan to take advantage of the winter. At first I was going to put a 120mm fan in a piece of plywood, use a second psu to power it and just place it in the window. Well I was waiting to order the fan and I noticed I had 2 space heaters (small box kind) sitting in the corner. I decided to dismantle them and check 'em out. Turns out they come apart very easily, after about 3 minutes I had one apart. They were full of dust so I cleaned 'em up with some alcohol after I removed the heating element. BTW it had a 120mm AC fan in it. After taping up the heating element connections and putting it all back togather I plugged it in. It pushes alot more air without the element inside (obvious), another nice feature is the knob used to turn up the heat is actually a fan speed controller. Well its too late in the evening to go out and get some duct, so I just sat it in my window facing the back of my computer. It managed to lower my case temp by 5°C. Not to shabby, I'm thinking the gain will be a bit better when I duct it to the fan directly. At full speed it is quite loud. I can hear it easily over my computer which isn't exactly quiet. It is inaudible at lowest speed though, with significantly reduced airflow. Perhaps a happy medium can be found once I duct it. Another nice thing is its not even cold outside yet! Heh who needs a space heater anyway when you have a nice o/ced pc to heat your room?

Any thoughts?

beware of condensation.... (temp on component / duct < temp around component)

worst thing that could happen is that it starts snowing and ur suckin water into ur case...

lol that would be bad But your right about the condensation, tho if i remeber right it should occur on the outside (warm side), not the cold air side.

it occurs when the air you're bringing in is lower than the room temperature and the air is humid

So your saying if I bring cold air in from the outside and its humid, condensation may form on my hot computer components? The actual fan is inside my room just pulling the cooler air from the window. Is this something that could be of a concern on the more humid days or is it more like having a window open?

Condensation forms when air with a high moisture content comes into contact with a surface whose temperature is low enough that air of that temperature could no longer hold the moisture that it already has. In short, warm humid air on a cold surface makes condensation. That's why your Coke (or Pepsi) can develops moisture on the outside when you take it out of the fridge, but your coffee mug doesn't when it's filled with hot coffee.

The surface must be colder than the air for condensation to occur.

That makes complete sense Restorer. Nice example also. Sooo... pumping cold air into my case should not be a problem in the slightest. Even if it is humid outside.

Well I competed the mod and decided to duct the air directly to my cpu fan. It lowered my cpu temp by 5°C and the mobo temp dropped a few degrees too. This is on a slightly cool day with the sun hitting my window directly. I'm thinking I'll see even better gains as the outside temperature drops. I used some dryer duct from the local hardware store and some duct tape. Total spent was less than $2.00 not including the space heater I took apart (which I can always put back togather). I can run the fan in the (former) space heater at full speed because when I connected the duct the noise was reduced drastically. All said and done my cpu temps are only a couple degrees above my mobo temps (idle). Not too shabby with my 5 dollar heatsink.