Better cooling?

Yo Whats Up · April 28, 2018

So, I have a lucifer K2 cooler

However, these 12 things that I've circled in red are touching the side "door" of my case (but just barely, if they were 0.5cm shorter they wouldn't be touching). I can slightly open the "door" of my case by removing one of the screws so that it's still held by the other screw, it will be about 1cm open on the top side of the door, where the screw that I'm planning to remove is. The material of my door at the specific points at which these things are touching it, is something like transparent plastic, it's not metal or glass, it feels like plastic and I can see through it. So, how do physics work, will I get better cooling if those things are in contact with my case, or are they supposed to be not touching anything besides the air itself? And yes I know that the more a case is open, the more it's cooled cuz there's colder air coming from outside, but let's ignore that part for the sake of this question

Jurrunio · April 28, 2018

It wont be a measurable differece between touching the end of the heatpipes to the door. Heatpipes dissipate heat through moving heat from the baseplate to the fins with a huge surface area. On the other hand, it only touches the door on a very small surface, not to mention there is hardly any heat left at the very end of the heatpipes.

tarfeef101 · April 28, 2018

Sounds like your side panel is acrylic. Anyways, they can touch and it'll make no temperature difference. They might scratch the panel though, acrylic is fragile. You cannot cut a heat pipe as there is liquid/gas inside. So you will have to live with contact, or open the panel (or replace the cooler)