Hotspots?

[DoubleJ8]

What's the best, and easiest way to check for hot spots in my case?

 

[DOHCrazy]

Its pretty hard, cause when you take off the side panel most of them go away.

Do you have a window? Ive heard of using some type of smoke, though ive never used ti adn dont know if it could hurt your components.

 

[archilochus]

The best way is to use a remote themal sensing probe.You would place the sensing bulb in various areas suspected of high temps.
The temp monitor on my fan controller has one of these.Its a Thermaltake Hardcano 9.. The sensing wire lead is about 3' long.
It has a digital readout. www.sidewindercomputers.com has one with 2 readouts..THE FANMAN

LINK

 

[DoubleJ8]

The thermal probe is just a more stuff I can't afford.


Anyone have any experience with the smoke thing?

 

[Trent]

generally you need something like a theater smoke machine and you have to run it in front of your machine and let the intake fans pull it through the case, of course you need a windowed side panel because if you remove the side the same problem as above because it eliminates the flow in your case.

 

[Susquehannock]

Many DMM's have thermal probes built in now.
You could likely get one for under $35 delivered
if you shop around.

Good luck!

 

[DoubleJ8]

I have a windowed case. Would an insence stick or two work?

 

[moorcito]

I have a windowed case. Would an insence stick or two work?

I've heard of people doing that. It should work just fine.

 

[DoubleJ8]

Great, thanks. Now, just to double check, the smoke will pool where there is no airflow, showing where there is a hotspot. Correct?

 

[legelf]

Yes it would I just finished reading a post that was talking about using incense sticks and a piece of glass or plexi in place of the side cover to determine hotspots. Place the incense stick in front of the intake fan and watch for where the smoke doesn't go ther'e's your hotspot.

 

[Korndog]

if u can get an infered camera, like borrow from a friend or something, that would work very nicly, i believe a few people here tried it

 

[DoubleJ8]

Would my intake filter clean the smoke? It's a pretty perminant part of the case.

 

[legelf]

try and remove the filter as it will disipate the smoke before it enters the case

 

[The-Traveler]

You need a window in order to check for hot spots and assuming you have one, the best method is to take the back case panel off and stick your hand in through the space between your PSU and cd roms. Now you watch your hand move around, carefully, and feel where the hottest places are while the machine is running.

Its much better then the smoke thing, for hot spots anyway.