My PC Overeating Conundrum in Off Topic

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ID:183203
 
Sep 22 2007, 9:50 am
So, I have a pretty slick PC for what I use it for, a Core 2 Duo E6400, an ATI Radeon x1950 Pro, and two 200 GB Samsung SATA HDD's.

The thing is, the motherboard is mini-ATX, so everything is smashed together.

I can run Team Fortress 2 maxed out with HDR, anisotropic filtering, and anti-aliasing, but my graphics card overheats.

Ok, so to solve that I turned anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing off, and capped my frame limit at 55 manually.

So my graphics card didn't overheat. But after four hours of continual play, my hard drive overheating (I am guessing), my PC froze, and started droning a beeping sound.

A restart to my Windows desktop again froze and started droning.

So I turned it off for the night. It seems to be working ok now, I'm assuming because it's cooled down.

What should I do? The x1950 Pro's fan is so close to the PCI card below it that the airflow is restricted, but the motherboard layout forces me to use all the PCI slots.

The hard-drives are mounted near the front of my case (no window on my side), where there is no fan available. The other two fans are on the processor itself, one larger fan jerry-rigged with one screw on the side blowing inwards, and a large fan on the back also blowing inwards.

The airflow in the case is terrible.

Maybe if I took out the TV Tuner card I could allow the video card more airflow or whatnot, but that may not solve my HDD problems.

Any assistance or ideas are appreciated, thanks!

~Kujila
#1 Sep 22 2007, 10:41 am
How's the airflow in your case?
#2 Sep 22 2007, 10:42 am
You could dremel a hole for another fan, maybe.
#3 Sep 22 2007, 11:11 am
In response to Jon88 (#2)
Dremel!? Are you insane? S***, a dremel bit would wear out before it friggin gets half way through a case.
#4 Sep 22 2007, 12:14 pm
In response to D4RK3 54B3R (#3)
usually the best thing for overeating is diet and exersize.
#5 Sep 23 2007, 7:00 am
My friend's brother's (aunt's uncle's) PC case was tiny and weird and it'd die running Age of Empires 2.

The only solution: OIL COOLING (OH YEAH)
#6 Sep 23 2007, 8:27 am
One thing that might help is to reverse the fan on the back of the case to blow outwards...

It sounds funny, but look at where your power supply outlet fan is... Right above the case fan, correct? So guess what your case fan is doing? Sucking in hot air coming out of the power supply! Sure, hot air rises, so the air from your PS should be going up and away from the case fan, but if your case fan is strong enough (and chances are, it is), it's probably capable of pulling that hot air back down and into the case before it gets a chance to float away... On top of that, it's also redirecting the hot air radiating off of the PCI cards below, and blowing it all back into the case...

Reversing it to pull the air outwards will prevent it from recirculating all of that hot air... And, thanks to the rules of air pressure, the air it pulls out of the case will be replaced by the same volume of air sucked in from other gaps/holes in the case (the bottom, the front, sides, etc.), all places that should have fresh, cool air supplies...

The difference might not be more than a few degrees, but it's a start...
#7 Sep 23 2007, 10:47 am
One of my friends had a computer that was constantly over heating. He didn't have many options, so he just took the case off the PC and ran a fan directly on the computer's insides.

If you got any room to spare, as far as PCI slots go and stuff, you can pick up some extra internal fans that go into the PCI slots. They can be anywhere from $1 to $50 depending on how nice of a fan you get.
#8 Sep 23 2007, 9:50 pm
In response to D4RK3 54B3R (#1)
In one word? Crappy.

~Kujila
#9 Sep 23 2007, 9:55 pm
In response to Kujila (#8)
what wattage is the power supply?
could be that it isnt high enough to properly run the fans, most video cards have a min watt requirement, make sure your power supply meets it
#10 Sep 23 2007, 10:05 pm
In response to Falacy (#9)
450

~Kujila
#11 Sep 24 2007, 1:52 am
If you really want to solve your overheating problem, install a custom cpu fan and maybe a couple of extra fans around the case and you can either set your GPU's fan speed to 100% or get a custom cooler for that as well. Custom coolers are great in the long run as they generally fail less and keep your parts cooler so they'll live for longer :D
#12 Sep 24 2007, 8:50 am
Installing a new fan would probably be the best course of action. I actually run my PC with the side taken off and leaned so that it allows a ton of air to flow, but prevents cats from trying to nest in it (the second I take the side off my computer, the cats are trying to move in, I've nearly had fried kitty for dinner more than once).

Besides that, you could set your computer in a better ventilated area. Also, putting an external fan on some of the vents would probably reduce the heat a good but, but you would have a lot of airflow around your desk.
#13 Sep 25 2007, 8:35 pm
In response to Kujila (#10)
You could also trying getting a liquid cooling solution. Just tonight I was in Enid and the local Radio Shack had a liquid cooling solution kit for PCs, it cost about $150.00. But from what I hear, if the kit leaks, it could fry your entire system.
#14 Sep 25 2007, 9:03 pm
In response to Revenant Jesus (#13)
It sounds like he has a rather small case though, so fitting all the liquid cooling parts in there might actually do more harm to the drives and graphics card. I have always wanted to see them in action, I hear they work very well for overclocking, making it pretty much impossible to fry a chip.
#15 Sep 25 2007, 9:31 pm
In response to Danial.Beta (#14)
The one I was looking at was fairly small and it actually came with a replacement power supply, a fan, the liquid filtering thing and some tubes that went about the case in various ways. I didn't spend a whole lot of time looking at it, because quite frankly, my PC never gets above 110 degrees.
#16 Sep 25 2007, 10:45 pm
In response to Kujila (#10)
Kujila wrote:
450

yep that's definitely an 'overeating' problem. :)
#17 Oct 4 2007, 2:04 pm
In response to digitalmouse (#16)
Are you kidding? The airflow in that case is EXCELLENT. The x1950 pros have a history of overheating. I suggest you buy arctic silver 5, clean the thermal gunk off your graphic card's heatsink, and apply that, or, for a more expensive alternative[along with buying the arctic silver 5], buy a new heatsink and fan for the video card. [Note, that the beeping sound was your graphics card when it shut down.] Set the front fan to input, back fan to output. Also, why did you buy a micro-ATX motherboard? That case supports ATX.
#18 Oct 7 2007, 9:45 pm
In response to SpikeNeedle (#17)
SpikeNeedle wrote:
Also, why did you buy a micro-ATX motherboard? That case supports ATX.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/ document?docname=c00787409&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&os=2093&produc t=3271566&lang=en

$499

Retail cases horrible - had two more drives needing installation and no room available.

~Kujila
#19 Oct 8 2007, 12:24 am
Get a really nice case. ANtec nine hundred anyone? :)
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