Cooling idea, anyone seen this? What do you think?

[Paiynn]

This is a VERY rough draft of what I'm looking into doing (pic below). 120mm fan in front of machine funneled into 2.5" flex tube (not metal) which will drop right on top of the HS. The HS will have no fan, and have to be custom made to mount thru the motherboard holes due to the possible weight of the tubing (which will be secured though). In addition this will allow the HS to be approx 3"-3.5" tall. The drawing of the tubing is poor, it will acutally curve out on the far side of the case missing the cards (2.5" is my clearance there) and come straight into the HS. The tubing will slide down the entire heighth of the HS with proper holes in it for the air to escape at the bottom.

Here are my thoughts on the benefits of this:
1. Incredible air flow.
2. Cool air drawn from outside the case.
3. The heatsink will be larger since theres no fan on it.
4. The closed system will keep warm air from recirculating back into the HS.

I visualize this working at least as well as a watercooled system. Of course, I'm not an engineer or anything. Flame on baby!

Survey says?

 

[Paul -The Mad Hatter]

Well, I hate to be negative, but I don't think it will help much more than a delta 38 on the hs.

Although here are my suggestions: make the duct smaller, which means closer to the hs. You could either cut a hole in you case, or if you have a place for an exhaust fan; put it there. I wish you good luck and hope it works out for you.

 

[merlins_wraith]

Just a few thoughts to ponder here:

1) Why get rid of the fan on the heatink?

2) Where are you going to let the air ecaspe to? If your opening at the heatsink isn't big enough then it will cause back pressure which will essentially throttle your fan output back.

3) You will want to make the duct from the fan to the heatsink as short as possible. This will give you greater pressure and airflow as well as keep your case more open for general system airflow.

Hope this helps.

 

[Good Looking Ferengi]

120mm fan! wont it get loud? also, you might want to do something about all the extra dust you will accumulate on your heatsink by funneling air like that. Air filter maybe?
one other thought, I think it is more important to dissipate the immediate hot air on the heatsink rather than inject it with cool air. For that, a small fan, maybe a delta 38 would be a more effective cooling solution. If you're still going forward with your project I recommend leaving a small fan on the heat sink just in case. Remember, its only a matter of seconds before your cpu fry w/o adequate cooling.

 

[cjtune]

You might as well continue the ductwork from the heatsink to some blowhole for exhaust. Fit another 120mm fan at that end to aid the first 120mm fan -axial fans are not good at overcoming impedences in airflow path but two of them in series will be better.

But them again, why don't your consider the 'cohesive cooling/ Hoot chute' technique where a blower is mounted onto the casing side panel and blows right onto the (fanless) heatsink. cuts down on the ductwork.

Try with your CPU underclocked first to be safe.

 

[ManOfKnight]

i don't agree with your idea, due to the fact that the heat had NO where to go...maybe if since you are going for a BIGGER heatsink, you combine an 80mm on the HSF WITH the 120 blowing on it...but then you still need a lot of air blowing in...i think i would blow OUT rather than in