[shelbydodgeimp]

my MDD gets warm, scratch that... it gets boiling hot. It is on 24/7, and most of the time it is working fairly hard (be it bittorrents, folding@home, gaming etc).

I have large data storage needs, and thus I am running one 250gb drive and two 120gb drives inside it (rear carrier is full, front carrier has the single 250 drive).

Its a fairly loaded setup, optical bays are both used (superdrive top, 48x cdrom bottom), 2gb ram, airport extreme on the board, geforce 4ti- the works (its a firewire800 dual 1.42ghz model btw).

The problem is that the machine gets so hot it keeps my entire room warm (too warm). Its 30 degrees outside, my window is wide open, the heater for the room is off and still it feels like its 90 in here. I would like to cool it down, if possible and this kind of constant high heat cant help the machine or its drives.

What I have already done is put a pci slot fan in the top pci slot, which seems to be cranking heat out of the computer. I then got two 20x20mm fans and zip-tied them to the back of the case between the case and the copper cpu heatsink (and yes I made sure its blowing in the same direction as the large fan that sits by the rear hd carrier).

I then put two more 20x20mm fans inside the bottom front of the case, by the front HD carrier sucking cool air "into" the machine.

I have been happy with that arrangement figuring its the best I could do short of water cooling... that is until I had an idea pop into my head tonight.

The geforce4ti seems to be consistant enough across the mac-pc platform line as to use the same basic fan connector and fan bolt/screw locations on the PCB. Aratic Cooling makes a kit for pc vid cards that basically goes in place of the oem vid card fan and supplies a large copper heat sink, large fan and ducting to control the direction of the air and "vents" it out the back of the machine.

Here is a picture of this kit:



Bare with me I believe this is uncharted waters for mdds here. The apg vid card in my mac sits with the business end of the card facing the ram cards and cpus. Thus I have no spare pci slot below the video card for a slot based fan system. Since this one "bolts" to the card itsself, all I have to do is:

1) ensure I dont run into trouble fitting it with those ram cards being so close
2) ensure I am not hitting the hot copper cpu heat sink.

The back of the MDD case is all open holes top to bottom, not unlike the G5 towers. Although I have no slot for this mod's vent system, since its plastic I could cut the end of the ducting and make a plastic extension that then brings it to the rear of the case between the slots and the cpu heat sink. Likewise if the thing sits too low and is interfering with the ram I could cut and shorten the bottom of the unit.

The next potential issue: the artic cooling part basically uses air around the card (which is hot cpu heated air) and then vents it out the rear to ensure "the air is not used again"- which implies this system would be using hot air to cool the card, which could mean nothing considering thats how its done from the factory (the card isnt overclocked after all).

The maker has a cad-made deminsions of the cooler so fyi
http://www.arctic-cooling.com/downlo...str_nv1_r2.pdf

So what do you all think, is it doable?

Next question: are there any (pref cheap) sata150 controller cards (pci) out for the mac yet? The factory sllllllow ata33, ata66 and ata100 bus's are kililng me. I can't even take full advantage of the superdrive since it was put on the ata33 bus from the factory.

[SSharon]

It is always nice to see another MDD user.
Your MDD will always produce the same amount of heat so moving it out of the case faster will be good for the components, but will do nothing to cool your room. Computer cooling is an exercise is moving heat, not reducing it, you would need an air conditioner for that.

I am sort of surprised your MDD gets that hot though. I have an older model, but with every PCI slot taken up and although it is noisy it isn't that hot.

[Tuoder]

Originally Posted by SSharon 

It is always nice to see another MDD user.
Your MDD will always produce the same amount of heat so moving it out of the case faster will be good for the components, but will do nothing to cool your room. Computer cooling is an exercise is moving heat, not reducing it, you would need an air conditioner for that.

I am sort of surprised your MDD gets that hot though. I have an older model, but with every PCI slot taken up and although it is noisy it isn't that hot.

Even air conditioners only move heat.

[Waragainstsleep]

My dual 1.42 at work has five drives in it. Doesn't ever get too warm.
Open the window?

[Sbtrfuge]

I've read that those graphics coolers won't work in MDDs, because of clearance issues. You could stillt ry it, but don't count on it.

That said, I think your room is warm for other reasons. I've never heard of a single computer making an entire room warm enough to have the window open in winter. Check your downstairs or upstairs neighbors. See how hot their rooms are.

[SSharon]

Originally Posted by Tuoder 

Even air conditioners only move heat.

Yes indeed. It was an oversight from years of people telling me to use a fan when it was hot which does nothing compared to an AC.

[DrBoar]

Have you blown out the dust from the PS?
Remove the loudspeaker and put in a small fan in the hole to add some cold outside air to the mix.
If you have the computer below a table make sure that there is a large slot between the table and the wall so that the hot air expelled from the computer is not recirculated back into the box