So I have a heat problem. I have a relatively cramped office that seems to be fairly well isolated from the rest of my apartment which means even with the AC going it hits almost any other room of the house harder than my office. To get my office cool means icicles in the bedroom. So I've decided to try and reduce the heat load of my office, and thought I'd ask you guys: what changes can I make to reduce the heat of my apartment, without sacraficing performance _TOO_ much?
Server:
The machine marked "Hers" is the coolest and most stable box in the house. I set the FSB to 266, and it just goes. I move hardware in and out of it all the darned time and it just keeps on going. And it runs really really cool. A good machine to give to somebody who doesn't know a whole lot about computers. I don't believe any real changes need to be made to it, the case is a real dust magnet but it runs really cool so I'm willing to leave this one alone. It has 2 monitors attached to it, and those put off a bit of heat, but over all, her box isn't much of an issue.
The machine marked "Server" has an 8800GTS that's in there just to get the machine to boot up. It's slated to be replaced by an eVGA GF210 that I plan to tweak with nibitor to get to as low of power consumption as possible, which should reduce power consumption and heat output by a factor of 10. I am also considering moving the server somewhere else, like to the living room, and I figure if I can hide it somewhere over by the couch it should make little fuss and stay fairly quiet. If I can remove a whole box from the office, that's bound to be as good as it's gonna get. Everything else in the box runs relatively cool, but the 1.5TB drives run really hot and are placed at the wrong spot in the case, so they gotta be moved when I do the video card swap, other than that it's a good cool and quiet box.
Other devices include the Netgear GS108 prosafe switch, which actually runs pretty hot, and a HP MP620 networked color printer. The switch gets pretty hot as well, so I'm going to try putting in somewhere where ventilation is easier to achieve.
Oh, and there's 3 24" monitors at my desk, and 2 monitors at hers (22" and 17"). This is not really changeable as I'll be running nVidia surround and she plays a LOT of WoW, so the extra monitor is helpful for googling/etc.
Server:
Mine:
Hers:
Naturally, reducing the performance of my machine (marked "Mine") is a no go. But getting different RAM is an option I will pursue with crucial since I need to RMA anyway. I'll see if I can get something else that doesn't run as hot as the gates of hell (crucial ballistix tracers are super hot). I figure the RAM is so hot to the touch it can burn me, so I am guessing that if I replace it with something that runs cooler my office will run slightly cooler, even if not noticeable.
The machine marked "Hers" is the coolest and most stable box in the house. I set the FSB to 266, and it just goes. I move hardware in and out of it all the darned time and it just keeps on going. And it runs really really cool. A good machine to give to somebody who doesn't know a whole lot about computers. I don't believe any real changes need to be made to it, the case is a real dust magnet but it runs really cool so I'm willing to leave this one alone. It has 2 monitors attached to it, and those put off a bit of heat, but over all, her box isn't much of an issue.
The machine marked "Server" has an 8800GTS that's in there just to get the machine to boot up. It's slated to be replaced by an eVGA GF210 that I plan to tweak with nibitor to get to as low of power consumption as possible, which should reduce power consumption and heat output by a factor of 10. I am also considering moving the server somewhere else, like to the living room, and I figure if I can hide it somewhere over by the couch it should make little fuss and stay fairly quiet. If I can remove a whole box from the office, that's bound to be as good as it's gonna get. Everything else in the box runs relatively cool, but the 1.5TB drives run really hot and are placed at the wrong spot in the case, so they gotta be moved when I do the video card swap, other than that it's a good cool and quiet box.
Other devices include the Netgear GS108 prosafe switch, which actually runs pretty hot, and a HP MP620 networked color printer. The switch gets pretty hot as well, so I'm going to try putting in somewhere where ventilation is easier to achieve.
Oh, and there's 3 24" monitors at my desk, and 2 monitors at hers (22" and 17"). This is not really changeable as I'll be running nVidia surround and she plays a LOT of WoW, so the extra monitor is helpful for googling/etc.
