How do you keep your room cool when you have a PC that runs hot?

[Hugh_Mungus]

6 hours ago, DSprite said:

My 8700K is only at 64 degrees Celsius under load and my 1080ti only goes up to 70 degrees max (that ive seen). I have six case fans in my NZXT H440 all installed correctly. I live in Australia and it's around 30-40 degrees Celsius right now, so opening the window won't work. I like to have my door closed to avoid hearing noises when playing, but the air conditioning doesn't flow properly unless the door is open, and I live with my parents who say that a small fan draws too much power and costs too much".

 

How do you cool down your room?

@DSprite This is probably the best and cheapest Solution for you 

 Maybe $20 - $30 to build then after that Your only cost is buying 5lb bags of ice and that 12v fan.

 

This would be cost effective if you know / plan on gaming for Many Many hours like all day Saturday. 

[TetraSky]

During summer, I have a window AC. During winter/late fall/early spring, I just open the window.

A low cost solution, would be to have your PC in the next room, so that the room you are in doesn't get super hot. It would be a simple matter of putting the case on a table right on the other side of a wall and run your cables for the monitor and peripherals through a hole to it for the shortest possible run, that way you wouldn't need extension cables.

[vanished]

20 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

I wonder if there have been any serious attempts at ducting a desktop PC's heat to the outside.  Though you'd need more outward airflow than a PC generates even if you used the same kind of ducting that say, a portable air conditioner would use to reach a window.

 

Though ducting the heat out, if possible, would be more energy efficient than air conditioning the hot air.  But the real trick would be to do it and not have it be all stupid.

Hm, would it?  This has me curious actually... Lets say you did hook up something so that all air leaving your PC case was sent outside, and there was no heat exchange along the way, so basically you're just venting all air your PC "uses".  This air obviously has to be replaced by taking in additional air from outside, which will have to be heated (since we're assuming outside is cooler than inside for this case) to the temperature of the house.

 

So, how would the energy required to heat this much air compare with the energy required to refrigerate the same volume of air back down to room temperature?

 

I think it depends how cold it is outside actually.

 

For the sake of this analysis, lets assume the AC unit is designed intelligently and doesn't exchange any air between the room and the outside, only heat.  AC units have a typical coefficient of performance somewhere in the 2 - 3 region, lets say 2.5 for this.  That means that they can move 2500 J of heat energy while only expending 1000 J doing so.

 

If we then assume the heat capacity of the air is relatively independent of temperature, we can say that Joules of energy is proportional to temperature change.

 

So the amount of energy it would take to reheat air you're drawing into the house to replace what was vented would be proportional to the difference in temperature between the inside and the outside, where as the cost to run AC on the air would be proportional to the difference between incoming and outgoing air from the PC, divided by 2.5.  In short, the cost of venting would be dependent on inside vs outside temp, where as the cost of AC would be dependent on how much the PC heats the air.  Therefore, if it's pretty close to ambient outside and your PC is a real space heater, it is probably better to just vent it, but if it's super cold out and your PC isn't making much heat, probably better to just run AC.  Almost seems counter-intuitive but I think it makes sense when you think about it.

 

So without more numbers you can't draw a specific conclusion, but it is clear that there may not just be a single answer.  Then if you care about actual $ rather than Joules you'd have to look at the methods used for heating and the electrical cost of course, but it's a start.

 

13 minutes ago, Hugh_Mungus said:

@DSprite This is probably the best and cheapest Solution for you 

 Maybe $20 - $30 to build then after that Your only cost is buying 5lb bags of ice and that 12v fan.

 

This would be cost effective if you know / plan on gaming for Many Many hours like all day Saturday. 

Looks to me like that's an evaporative cooler, or maybe even something simpler.  Not actually air conditioning, and wouldn't work well in high humidity - something that using it would increase, thus limiting how long it would actually work for.

[AshleyAshes]

1 minute ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Hm, would it?  This has me curious actually... Lets say you did hook up something so that all air leaving your PC case was sent outside, and there was no heat exchange along the way, so basically you're just venting all air your PC "uses".  This air obviously has to be replaced by taking in additional air from outside, which will have to be heated (since we're assuming outside is cooler than inside for this case) to the temperature of the house.

 

So, how would the energy required to heat this much air compare with the energy required to refrigerate the same volume of air back down to room temperature?

 

I think it depends how cold it is outside actually.

Yes but an air conditioner has the same restrictions.  Air conditioners don't make cold air, they remove heat from air and then expel that heat outside.  So even an air conditioner needs to duct heat outside somehow be it a window unit, ducting to the window, or a central unit that's already outdoors.  If your window was also OPEN so outside air came in as hot air was ducted, yeah that'd not work at all for exhausting hot PC air but the same for an air conditioner.  Presumably as air is forced out of the room it'd come in wherever it normally comes it; From under the door, from the vents in the heating system, ect.

 

But for sure venting heat out of the building would be more efficient than leaving the heat in and then spending more electricity to cool it with an air conditioning system that in itself requires venting to go get it's own heat exhaust out the building to even work in the first place.

[DragonTamer1]

I don't, I let it heat up the room.

 

I hate the cold.

[vanished]

Just now, AshleyAshes said:

Yes but an air conditioner has the same restrictions.  Air conditioners don't make cold air, they remove heat from air and then expel that heat outside.  So even an air conditioner needs to duct heat outside somehow be it a window unit, ducting to the window, or a central unit that's already outdoors.  If your window was also OPEN so outside air came in as hot air was ducted, yeah that'd not work at all for exhausting hot PC air but the same for an air conditioner.  Presumably as air is forced out of the room it'd come in wherever it normally comes it; From under the door, from the vents in the heating system, ect.

 

But for sure venting heat out of the building would be more efficient than leaving the heat in and then spending more electricity to cool it with an air conditioning system that in itself requires venting to go get it's own heat exhaust out the building to even work in the first place.

My point is the difference is hooking up a pipe to your PC ensures that any air it takes in is just vented outside, where as an AC unit can have two independent loops - one that takes in air from the outside, gets heat passed to it, and then  vents it back out, and another that takes air from the room, moves the heat to the other loop, and then blows it back into the room, and so no air is actually "lost" to outside.

[Drak3]

6 hours ago, gbergeron said:

Have you ever heard of Air conditionner ?  

Air shampoo is better.

 

1 hour ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I open a window, works great when it's < 0°C outside

But for you, there is only one option: air conditioning.

Is it though? Pretty sure venting the PC's exhaust, using long cables to move it to another room, and undervolting one are all options.

[vanished]

Just now, Drak3 said:

Is it though? Pretty sure venting the PC's exhaust, using long cables to move it to another room, and undervolting one are all options.

Considering his ambient temp even without the PC is unlivable, yes, AC is the only option

[Drak3]

6 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Considering his ambient temp even without the PC is unlivable, yes, AC is the only option

If itbwas unlivable, how could OP be alive to type his post?

 

And your dominoes come crumbling down like a house of cards. Checkmate.

[vanished]

Just now, Drak3 said:

If itbwas unlivable, how could OP be alive to type his post?

 

And your dominoes come crumbling down like a house of cards. Checkmate.

Maybe he was writing this with his last bit of strength, begging for help before dying of heat exhaustion shortly thereafter

[NoxiousOdor]

I don't, I let it get nice and toasty and then I can sit around in shorts in the middle of winter and be comfortable in my room at 80^F

[BuckGup]

Open my window

[Beowulff83]

7 hours ago, DSprite said:

I live with my parents who say that a small fan draws too much power and costs too much".

Good thing they don't understand how much power your pc uses.

7 hours ago, DSprite said:

My 8700K is only at 64 degrees Celsius under load and my 1080ti only goes up to 70 degrees max (that ive seen). I have six case fans in my NZXT H440 all installed correctly

 

[Elo Gaming]

Minimalize the fans you are using and open the side panels so there is a neutral air pressure. The heat dissipates fully into the air. Now use those fans outside of you case directing the air out of you window. OR just turn off you PC and play on a Nintendo DS. those things are cheaper than a fan, use less energy, and play all the triple AAA titles on the highest settings. Mario Kart is one that is benchmarked to get 240fps at the ultra

[Dabombinable]

Open the windows and hope there is a breeze (running folding@home on this shits-and-giggles rig makes the room get bloody hot - Xeon X5450 @ 4GHz+GTX 970 @ 1.4GHz+GTX 650ti @ 1150MHz). Lets just say that it was a legitimately good heater during Winter, while hopefully helping cure cancer.

[Nup]

You're doing it backwards, use the computer to keep you warm

[vanished]

3 minutes ago, Nup said:

You're doing it backwards, use the computer to keep you warm

He's too warm, needs some way to keep cool

[AshleyAshes]

1 hour ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

where as an AC unit can have two independent loops - one that takes in air from the outside, gets heat passed to it, and then  vents it back out, and another that takes air from the room, moves the heat to the other loop, and then blows it back into the room, and so no air is actually "lost" to outside.

Erm, you might wanna look at portable air conditioners.  They have no exterior intakes and only have an exhaust.

 

 

The ducting exhausts hot air only, otherwise the machine pulls in interior air, cools it, then spits it back out again, while the heat is exhausted through the ducting.

[vanished]

1 minute ago, AshleyAshes said:

Erm, you might wanna look at portable air conditioners.  They have no exterior intakes and only have an exhaust.

 

 

 

The ducting exhausts hot air only, otherwise the machine pulls in interior air, cools it, then spits it back out again, while the heat is exhausted through the ducting.

I'm aware of the shitty ones that do it like that, and they're very inefficient, hence why I specifically explained the type I was considering in my example

[Guest]

8 hours ago, DSprite said:

How do you cool down your room?

I think the better question is how does AMD manufacture cards that heat my whole house with 4 feet of snow. 

[Drak3]

2 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Maybe he was writing this with his last bit of strength, begging for help before dying of heat exhaustion shortly thereafter

Now you're just being ridiculous.

[Ithanul]

9 hours ago, Minibois said:

I know, it's a meme. Like how people say "use watercooling to cool down your room".

But realistically, he could use a system like the in the video I linked to get the heat out of his room.. (kind of like an airco, push the hot air to outside his room)

....I wish peeps stop pushing that stupid misinformation around.

As someone who water cools, no, it don't cool down your room.  Helps with lowering noisy level but not with heat level.

[Donut417]

35 minutes ago, Ithanul said:

....I wish peeps stop pushing that stupid misinformation around.

As someone who water cools, no, it don't cool down your room.  Helps with lowering noisy level but not with heat level.

I get you. The fact is, if you own a higher end machine you have to deal with the heat. Either learn to bake, or spend some more electricity with an air conditioner. 

[Dabombinable]

1 hour ago, Ithanul said:

....I wish peeps stop pushing that stupid misinformation around.

As someone who water cools, no, it don't cool down your room.  Helps with lowering noisy level but not with heat level.

^That.

When I was running my Xeon I still had a working 120mm AIO-simply meaning that the heat from the CPU was dumped directly out of the case, instead of passing over components before exiting.

[PlayStation 2]

It's called proper air conditioning.

Apparently it doesn't exist.