So the time has come to say goodbye to Fenrir... he was a good machine, a beast in his day, but like all his predecessors, he has succumb to heat death. In fact, it wasn't long after his birth, he lost the first... and then the second of his three video cards. As it stands now, under idle with nothing but a browser open, the CPU is running at 81 degrees. He doesn't have much left in him, it seems.
The problem is that where I am, space is at a premium, and the only place I've been able to put my machines is against an exterior wall that has zero insulation, gets direct sun, and has poor ventilation. Yes, I realize this has been my own actions that have signed the death warrants of my machines.
Now, I have one potential solution to this issue... and that would be to place the machine downstairs... in the basement... and run the video cable and USB up through the wall to the monitor/keyboard.
The downside, of course, is... it's an unfinished basement - inherently dusty, and only likely to be visited for occasional maintenance. On the upside, it's consistently cooler than where the machine lives now... and would allow for as large an enclosure as I feel like building.
Which brings us to my conundrum. If I move the machine into the basement, I'm loathe to rely on air cooling, as the potential (even with filters) to get particulates on the component boards is high. Even with a vertical build and bottom intake and top exhaust, I'm concerned about gunk sticking to the boards. So I'm pondering a liquid cooled build, with blocks on every component possible, to draw as much heat out to a radiator/fan assembly that would be far easier to clean. Hopefully enough so that a piezoelectric plate could handle the rest of the cooling for the mainboard, and I could essentially keep the unit in a stagnant air chamber.
So... question 1: Is this a terrible idea, and I should simply stop this line of thinking now?
My thought that is if I draw out heat from the major components and create what is essentially a sufficiently cold box around the main board and attached cards... do I really need ventilation?
The problem is that where I am, space is at a premium, and the only place I've been able to put my machines is against an exterior wall that has zero insulation, gets direct sun, and has poor ventilation. Yes, I realize this has been my own actions that have signed the death warrants of my machines.
Now, I have one potential solution to this issue... and that would be to place the machine downstairs... in the basement... and run the video cable and USB up through the wall to the monitor/keyboard.
The downside, of course, is... it's an unfinished basement - inherently dusty, and only likely to be visited for occasional maintenance. On the upside, it's consistently cooler than where the machine lives now... and would allow for as large an enclosure as I feel like building.
Which brings us to my conundrum. If I move the machine into the basement, I'm loathe to rely on air cooling, as the potential (even with filters) to get particulates on the component boards is high. Even with a vertical build and bottom intake and top exhaust, I'm concerned about gunk sticking to the boards. So I'm pondering a liquid cooled build, with blocks on every component possible, to draw as much heat out to a radiator/fan assembly that would be far easier to clean. Hopefully enough so that a piezoelectric plate could handle the rest of the cooling for the mainboard, and I could essentially keep the unit in a stagnant air chamber.
So... question 1: Is this a terrible idea, and I should simply stop this line of thinking now?
My thought that is if I draw out heat from the major components and create what is essentially a sufficiently cold box around the main board and attached cards... do I really need ventilation?
