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General Fan Performance Guide
Lars Olsen writes: "As a complementary article to his comprehensive General Heat Transfer Guide , Dave Smith has written another great article for Amdmb.com called General Fan Performance Guide. This is an indepth guide to the performance of the fans we have in our PC's. Here's a quote: 'The specific purpose of this guide is to take the science associated with fans and translate it into a meaningful document that will allow the reader to understand how fans work and how they apply to computers. It provides a brief summary of DC power and drives. It finishes with an introduction to the concepts of sound generation and measurement.'"
Another fan page.
*rimshot*
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
when you live in Quebec?
Just put the computer in a garbage bag and throw it in the snow. Cheaper than any cooling setup. Need extra long cables though, and you may need to relocate while the show plow passes.
Another alternative is using a shop-vac, which can be switched in blower mode. You can put the device in the garage, and using a few dozen feet of plastic tubing, you can route that cool air right to your CPU. Lots of cubic feet of fresh air per minute. A bit noisy, but, listen to this folks, it doubles as a vacuum cleaner! How cool (no pun intended) is this?
Think different!
J.
--- Worst tagline ever.
I'm not sure it's actually funny, but it should earn me idiocy points.
While reading the article I stuck my hand inside my case to get a feel for the air flow, and managed to nick the tip of my finger against the heat sink fan. Ouch. No apparent damage to my finger or the fan, but sure did make me jump.
For those who are wondering why I had an open case, I've been replacing a partially failed hard drive (IBM Deskstar at that, lasted 14 months).
Usually, they're virgins, and they tend to be a little too... eager.
<whisper from off-stage informs me that we're talking hardware>
Nevermind.
The acustic properties of this must be considered.
If you close the thing up completely then
the heat won't escape as the sound deadening
will most likely also prevent heat from escaping.
Ideally one would have a system with air flow to a colder outside source and the whole thing
closed up.
One must consider what frequencies and by how much
one wants to deaden the sound. Padding the inside
of the case seems like a fire hazzard to me.
I would pad the OUTSIDE of the case if that is
what you want to do.
Remember, the padding might touch power components
and thus be exposed to very high temps and ignite.
Nice for insurance money if that is what you want.
I would rather have my house not burn down.
It isn't just lower sound that you worry about
but also safety and thermal control. Thermal control is why the fan is there in the first place.
Remember, if the outside air is hot then the
cooling effect of the fan will be incorrect.
For extreame cooling with very little sound (no
sound) use copper pipping and a full nitrogen tank. Make a coil or laberinth base with the copper pipe (a flat snake all bunched up)
Have your tank out of the room. Have the pipe come through the room. It will be a platform which the computer is mounted over (but not on as
that would be too cold.)
Open the nitrogen valve. The nitrogen will flow through the pipe and create incredibly cold temperatures. Ice will form around the pipe (which is really pretty cool). This quite system is expensive and unconventional. Make sure the nitrogen vents outside. This system has been
in use for years in labs where liquid nitrogen is 'free' in that one just needs to refill one's own tank. If you have to pay for the nitrogen then that's a bummer. But you gotta pay or the whole damn econmy grinds to a stinking halt.
So now you know the quitest way to cool something. There will be sound at the tank and at the release at the end of the pipe, so put those outside the room.
PS: just so you know that there are other uses for this, you can rap the copper pipe (1/4 or 1/2 inch in this case) around a keg and then outgas the nitrogen. That'll keep your brew chilly! Hey, and for you folks making music, you can put the CPU right next to the keg. . . (which will be frosted into a spirl of ice).
We did this in our lab for our summer party.
Gotta love that nitrogen tank.
Drink up, boys. Less talk and more heavy drinking.