The other thread about the OP's Dell's fan running continously got me thinking - how important is it to keep a PC cool? Are those fan pads things you can set underneath a laptop really worth the money? Do they help any?

Just wondering; I keep my work laptop on my toolbox, running all day, and in the summer temps inside break 100 degrees F fairly regularly.

 

they are like 14 bucks at office max, and the ones with extra USB ports are like 39. The cooler it runs, the faster it goes too. Most def recommend.

Adrianspeeder

 

my bosses video card has problems with heat...
my cousin builds 'puters and says "if you overheat it you will "screw up" the video card..
his now has "lines" that go across the screen with any type..banner..etc..

...zap!

 

The temps are very important, but you probably already have safeguards installed to protect the CPU and GPU. AMD says that 65 C is their upper limit, and I think that Intel has about the same. Nvidia has set 93 C (default) as the upper limit for my GPU, and I usually see about 75-80 in normal operation (laptop). There are 3rd party programs that will show your temps, and set thresholds different than default, or for the CPU, you can set the limits (or see where they are at) in BIOS without a 3rd party program.

 

You can never have enough fans to cool a 'puter. Once they overheat, then the videocard (possibly other internal thingies, too) will begin to have problems. When I bulit my own coputer, I made sure that I put several cooling fans into it, and I clean them alt least once a month. Zapster is right...

TSC

 

It depends upon what brand and model the processor is. I have seen tests of AMD and Intel processors where they took off the CPU cooling fan and started doing things like games. The Intel P4, PD would just slooooow down. Once they would put a fan back on, everything would go back to normal. When they did this to the AMD's, it fried the chip and motherboard. Things would smoke and get crispy.

 

Keep em cool.. my computer at home usually runs 45*C. My uncle (who is a computer dork) has a WATER COOLED computer. It's probably turbocharged and intercooled too.

 

Absolutely untrue... Too many fans can actually hurt the cooling and performance. Just like in a car engine, too much of anything can be bad. But what your looking at here involves the thermal conductivity of air. If you have say 1 SCFH (Standard Cubic Foot/ Hour) circulating through your case, it has to be able to absorb the heat from the CPU heatsink and GPU, as well as all other elctronic components. If that 1 SCFH is the maximum amount of air that can absorb the heat given off, then thats at its optimum level. If you go bigger and run more fans and get 2 SCFH, you think that you're getting more cooloing, but you'd actually be decreaseing your effectiveness. The air is moving too fast over the heat sink to absorb the heat, therefore reducing efficiancy and increasing the temperature.

Quintin,
I'd look at 3 things first... Look in your owners manuel temp operating conditions. Sometimes they'll say "Only run 30 min/hour in temps over 120" or something to that effect. The second thing is to ensure the air ducts are clean. In a shop, chances are they get clogged with dust frequently. This will improve cooling more than anything else.
akheloce pointed out that in the Bios there are safety features designed to protect your PC from thermal meltdown. This is true, but you need to make sure that they are enabled. Any questions on how to do that, PM me.

 

It's important to keep your PC "cool", but at the same time too many fans can be bad. Check your fans, they can get pretty dusty.

I like that.

 

Thanks for the advice, y'all. This is mostly a work exclusive computer that I literally can't afford to have go down. I may look into one of those cooling things this summer. I shot the case at different points with an IR thermometer, and it never exceeded 75 degrees F or so.

Jamz, I read that quote on another message forum and thought it was pretty cool, so I can't take credit for it.

 

Quintin, use your own advice that you add to seemingly EVERY *oil* thread on this forum. "Don't think so hard".

Just use a little common sense. Computers of today are relatively tough machines. Status quo, baby!

 

Laptops are a different beast than a desktop. Cooling is a MUST with a laptop. Our troopers and transport police have laptops in their cruisers.
Panasonic toughbooks are designed for adverse conditions. If you have a
vanilla laptop I would advise using a COOLING PLATE with the unit.
Rember the old Fram commercial(pay me now,pay me later)?

 

It's alot less important that the physical computer is cool, what is important is the chipset and video card (if so equipped). While the heat of the laptop MAY give you an idea of how the CPU and GPU are doing as far as heat, it is not a reliable means of measure. When I mentioned the 65 degrees for the CPU, that was CELSIUS, not F. (it's about 150 deg F) Your laptop may feel not too hot, and the CPU could be burning up inside, or vice versa. I just dont want anyone to get the idea that just because the surface of the case is only 75 deg F, or the case feels really warm, that that necessarily has anything to do with the temp of the chips. A cooling plate will help keep the CPU cool, but a monitoring program is really the only way to know what temperatures you are running.

 

Touche. :o

 

While I'm not trying to analyze whether or not additional fans are necessarily better, this statement simply isn't true. Faster air at a fixed temperature will always remove more heat than slower air. It is one of the basic principles of heat transfer.

If you have a standard desk-style computer case, you'll want to set up the front fan to blow in and the rear fans to blow out. ATX computer cases were designed specifically with this air flow path in mind.

Grim