Internal or External cooling ?

[ArcThanatos]

So what are people's thoughts on cooling, internal and external, which would people prefer and why ?

would you rather have a external cooling ? if so do you, if not whats stopping you from an external cooling system ?

 

just trying to work something out and see if people want external cooling and why there is a lack of it 

[Crunchy Dragon]

I didn't know external cooling was a thing to be honest.

[GDRRiley]

almost no one does it because as LTT found out if you use a hard piper like copper your just going to dissipate the heat in the room, and if you use soft stuff you get a lot of evaporation. that is why most people stick to internal cooling. 

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I didn't know external cooling was a thing to be honest.

what how your on LTT

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

If we're talking about something like these http://www.performance-pcs.com/external-cooling-system, then the immediate problem is cost. Why spend hundreds of dollars on a cooling system when I could spend at most $50 and get pretty much similar results?

[ArcThanatos]

the full room cooling yes of course it was going to dissipate before the rad, im not talking running it on a massive scale, im talking more local to the PC, keeping runs shorter. hard tubing is kinda not a great idea externally, but you can hardline it to the back of the case and then go soft tubing, the evaporation will happen regardless. but say you can keep it local to one PC why is it not such a big thing ? whats stopping people doing it ? (putting aside evaporation) 

[Gikero]

57 minutes ago, ArcThanatos said:

... why is it not such a big thing ? whats stopping people doing it ? (putting aside evaporation) 

Complexity + cost vs ease of use and more or less the same results.

It could be a fun project. It is so overkill and situation specific that it won't likely be a normal thing to do. Add in the downsides, all that exposed cooling. I'd hate if a kid accidentally damaged it, killing my PC in the process.

That being said, it would be fun.

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 hour ago, GDRRiley said:

what how your on LTT

 

Ohhhhhh right. That little detail didn't stick in my memory haha

[GDRRiley]

it is also sometimes done in large scale server environments where they cram a lot of compute power in. 

[ARikozuM]

My Rosewill Challenger had some grommets at the back of the case. My thought was that it was for soft-tubing with the rad outside of the case or farther away than normal. I think it would make more sense if the loop could send the heat to the other side of the room or into the vents so that the proximity of the case isn't heated dramatically.

[Drak3]

5 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

My Rosewill Challenger had some grommets at the back of the case. My thought was that it was for soft-tubing with the rad outside of the case or farther away than normal. I think it would make more sense if the loop could send the heat to the other side of the room or into the vents so that the proximity of the case isn't heated dramatically.

My old HAF case has those, my 780T has punch outs that just need to be punched out to do the same thing.

[Ithanul]

7 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I didn't know external cooling was a thing to be honest.

It is, you don't really see it on most builds since most builds don't require such cooling.

Now, I seen it in small SFF cases where space is tight and large folding/boinc rigs where serious heat is being pushed out by the computer.

 

Then there are the MO-RAs.

I seen people modify the large Case Lab cases to fit these monsters, but those radiators are big.

Or, people bolt them onto the bigger cases:

 

Myself, most of my builds are internal, but my main rig will be going external considering I got a MO-RA in a trade (has a good chunk of its accessories) that I plan to use.  Still getting a few parts and making sure that my two D5s can handle the loop.

[Alariel]

I'll stick with internal, mainly because of aesthetics.

[ArcThanatos]

so ease of use and aesthetics is a good point, im using a Thermaltake core v21, it has the cut out to port the heat out.
i live in a pretty hot area for summer, and i was thinking an easier way to drop room temp heat in summer would be to port it directly out a window. moving the PC from windowless side of a room to the other has changed the heat ALot. on my Old FX4300 putting a AIO on it dropped temps buy about 10c (yeah that thing was a space heater. summers were not fun with it).
generally you can't get your PC below ambient temps. but keeping room ambient's low could be do'able if location of the PC and the cooling isnt far from the window. similar to what linus was trying to achieve but on a smaller scale and closer proximity to the window. making heat transfer out alot higher than how he done it.

not the damage resistance part is defiantly a thing that needs to be in place. and a quick release of something in place for moving it, stuff like that needs to be in place i know. just wondering how i can approach the situation, but the talk and feed back is helpful. 

[Mick Naughty]

If I could do it cleanly I would. But as it was pointless cooling wise as I can get the same results with less rads inside my case then I could with them piled up outside it. Also was very hard to move around. Doing it with qdc fitting would be preferred.

[ArcThanatos]

what stops people from doing it cleanly thou. like what makes it so much more expensive of messy. or why would more rads be needed ??
im not playing stupid im actually trying to confirm thoughts an research this.
is it like mounting issues, why would it cost more? 
cooling wise depending on the application it could be better or worse.. like some mATX or ITX cases

[Mick Naughty]

Not all cases have pass throughs to get the hoses out. Not everyone has the tools to mod the case for holes. You would need yo fab some stand to hold the rads outside or mount them to the case. Which can be difficult. Especially if you mount to a back panel which needs to come off, so you would need extra hose tucked inside to still be able to remove it. 

 

Doesnt cost more, if I wanted the same two rads in my case as I wanted outside it, I would still have to by them. Same

money is being spent. Unless you want more stuff to make it easier such as quick disconnect fittings. Don't need more rads because of external cooling. You don't "need" anything, as you're only doing what you want. 

[ArcThanatos]

ok well i have a design to hold the rad's and even potential EK pump\res up to 200mm in height, it is a stand alone bracket you could drop on your desk, i could design something that could mount to a 120-140 fan mount. so say you had access to these pieces would it be worth getting if you had the ports\cut outs of the case to accommodate the external cooling system ?

 

[Mick Naughty]

That's completely on you. If you don't mind taking up more space and making it harder to move the pc then go for it. Depending on how far the pump is from the case, may have to extend the molex and 4 pin to run it.

 

if you want this for a sff build the you don't have much of a choice. I wouldn't do it myself. Even the smallest case I want, id prefer to run it on air then ruin the asthetics doing this. 

[ArcThanatos]

yeah, fair enough, im just trying to gauge the thoughts towards it, see i know how to design and make some pieces, just wondering if people like the idea of external cooling, i mean for some more extreme things some people might, but from what i have seen the external systems arent what you would call cheap, and the flexibility on what they offer isn't much, i was thinking if you were going to go external having the choice of what you use should be more flexible. the portability is defaintly something. power wise things could get interesting.

for me personally im thinking for my setup, my pc sit infront of a window, and in summer i use a evaporative cooling system (i don't live in more dry climate) on the house, these work best when a window is slightly open, now what i was thinking is have a 150mm wide pannel with rad's and fans mounted to said panel and have that mounted into the window (so it uses the window frame to hold in place, but doesnt take up the whole window, only 150mm of a 400mm wide opening.) this would create a exhaust point which would be assisted by the evap aircon for the house, it would draw the incoming cool air thats p[umped into the room to this exhaust point and pump a larger portion of the heat produced by the PC directly outside, which should keep my room below 45c in summer (yes thats how hot it generally can get with a PC in a room where i live, not comfortable at all) so something like that for me would be worth it. yes it loses portability, but it i dont want to lug it about i just want to  leave it be and use it. it would also reduce noise levels, and keep the general inside temps of the PC cooler as the rad isn't needing to be cooled down inside a preheated enviroment.

as for other people if they wanted to use a external bracket then a simple design panel with the flexibilty to install what you want on it would be more appealing than being forced to buy one with a pump rad and all that jazz for $300 and have no real say in what goes into it. im sure more people would rather the flexibility of their liquid loop, i mean thats what i seem to think that is what people want correct ?

[Mick Naughty]

Well it's nothing new an so plenty of cases were disigned for just that. Just more of a hassle then I prefer. Actually more noise with the fans not being muffled by the case and/or fan filter. 

 

Also wiring up 9 fans to a hub and the power to the hub wasn't as clean as I liked but I tend not to have clean builds anyway. 

 

Doing internal cooling isn't losing flexibility, I ran my 540 both ways. It was a waste of time and effort as it yielded no gains. I don't have anything putting off heat in thmy case as everything was under water. Only way I would like it is if I had a small case or really like all the extra tubing and having more to look at. Temp wise is was the same as there's only so much you can drop the temps. Only gain was running the the fans a little slower as I had more rads externally. 

[ArcThanatos]

well i found my SS AP180's to be rather quiet (actually make less noise when they arent drawing air thru a filter). i didn't mean internal cases are less flexible, i was talking about the existing external cooling options that exist, they are pricey and they are built to pnp, not really a customised thing.
wiring wise it could be interesting but say you can get hands on a DC power adopter (like a phone charger or router power pack kinda thing) than you could wire it into a fan controller that you could install onto the panel. so the panel could be designed to house the controller, self powered and that would remove the need of running wires out of the case, but at the cost of a power point. 

 

i think if you were to port heat directly out of the house, you might not make your PC cooler, but you might be able to drop ambient temps a bit (maybe a few degrees but hey in summer... makes a wooorld of difference).
im using a Thermaltake core v21, its a great little cube case, but short of buying another one of these cases and bolting them together, maybe some SFF cases could benifit form am nice clean looking rad stand with a simple and clean cooling system installed, yeah you lose portability, and if thats your thing id advise keeping it on air, but say you just want the case and you wanted to do a small build, you like the case and design, so u make a build for it but it runs hot, a small rad an pump set up externally wouldn't be such a bad thing as long as you keep it small and flexible. allow the builder to choose their parts to install onto the panel, would that be something that is better than the current offerings of premade external cooling systems would it not ???

[Mick Naughty]

Yea if it's what you want you are gonna deal with the drawbacks of external. Especially if you are gonna go through the work to make it exhaust out of the house and wire up a controller to turn the pump on and wire it up to another outlet. There are plenty of options out there like that already. I don't want those drawbacks and don't want to mod my cases any further.   

So yea if it's worth it to that person they won't care about the issues. 

[ArcThanatos]

so in a general stand point, its a select market that would do this wouldn't it. like naturally more people would opt for internal or air, but there would be some people who would want to use external, just they are more few and far between i guess. 

[Mick Naughty]

Think more would like it but like I said not every case is made for it so if it isn't plug an so play people won't do it. Like the people who get aio coolers and call it water cooling. if I felt like spending more money on my computers I would but it's not top of the list.