   Would you invest in it?
  I've been thinking about computer cooling lately, and I considered the pros and cons of many different cooling methods.  And as a result, I came up with my own idea.Most standard fresh-from-the-factory computers tend to have poor cooling systems.  Typically they come with some fans and heatsinks and no directed ventilation over specific troublespots (gpu and cpu come to mind...).  I would imagine that this is because these computers are designed to be as cheap to produce as possible, and due to the relative lack of power for most computers (we're not talking about hardcore gaming computers), the extra ventilation is not necessary.  But take this into account: many times these computers are sitting under people's desks.  Now, underlying desk environments are going to have very poor ventilation.  The intake of air is basically recycling what's coming out, and over time this air becomes very hot.  Now bringing in this hot air is not doing very much good cooling wise: the thermal difference gap rapidly closes and soon the computer just continues to heat faster.  Even if the computer is not in a relatively poorly ventilated area (such as under our desks...), this ventilation system is still bringing in air that was previously used to cool the machine already due to the fact that we tend to use our computers indoors.  This practice is inherently flawed: it raises general cooling costs and eventually becomes ineffective in cooling computers, mandating further downtime to cool the computers.  My school is an excellent example for what I am trying to illustrate.  Recently, my school purchased brand new Dell machines for our computer labs.  Our labs before this had awful emacs.  Due to the airconditioning system, it was often to coolest room in my school.  When we got the new Dells and the air conditioning system broke down, the labs were blisteringly hot even during the winter.  In fact, the room was still extremely warm with the airconditioning system (I would estimate 75-80 degrees F, typical homes are heated to 68 degrees F as a comparison).Another popular system, especially for the hardcore gamers, is a water cooling system.  This system seems to present many practical flaws.  Firstly, it is extremely expensive to implement and is also very bulky.  Secondly, it suffers from the same problem as environmental-ventilation system described above:  it still ventilates the same used material previously used to cool the system.  It is true that several tanks can be used in a cycle allowing each to cool, but the heated water still heats the air and the heated air in turn keeps the water heated a little.  This system merely delays the effect of the heating due to the higher density of the water.  Third, this system brings _water_ of all things into a computer's internals.  I can think of no worse system than that -- if something breaks, then your computer might as well be scrapped.  Sure, you can rationalize it by saying it's very unlikely to break down or next to impossible, but then nuclear meltdowns are also rare to near-impossible, with current regulations and standards, and I don't see people lining up to live next to nuclear powerplants...Now, what I propose is a system that may be difficult to retrofit to pre-existing homes and offices, but would be easy to implement in new buildings.  Imagine a system of tubes (small ventilation shafts, really) imbedded into walls that would lead to some air-producing station (it could actually lead to the outside, but in larger settings, I would imagine a processing station might be necessary to bring enough air from cooler places in...).  Now these tubes could lead to small standarized openings in walls or floors similar to standarized outlets.  Computers could have separate plugs (flexible tubes akin to vaccuum-cleaner tubes) that had a fan on the end connecting to the wall-tubes and a larger fan on the computer end.  The computer could sense the air in the tube and compare that with the temperature of the air around the main air-intake area and turn on the plug-fan if that air was cooler.  This system would solve the problem of ineffective warm incoming air as long as the alternate air was cool enough.  The effectiveness of this system would be even more pronounced in poorly ventilated areas.What do you think?  Is my idea feasible?  Would you implement my system it if it was cheap enough to?   
  This just sounds like a more modern take on the raised-floor air cooling that you see in server rooms (and that we've spent the last 20 or so years of moving to commodity hardware to get out of).A heat-pipe system would probably work, but I think the solution to the heat problems lies largely in the design of better chips -- Pentium Ms and the like put out a lot less heat than the top end P4s.I'm not sure getting people to install anything in their home is a good idea in terms of computer equipment -- most people don't have ethernet jacks in every room, for example.   ;  It seems a rather Rube Goldberg-ish solution for a simple problem, which you've already identified correctly. If fans work poorly in enclosed areas, the solution isn't some weird contraption of air pipes; it is to put your computer in a non-enclosed area! I mean, duh. As for increased cooling costs, that's going to happen whether or not your fans work properly. The computer is putting out some given amount of energy; if the room is too warm, then that energy must be removed whether or not the fans are apreading it out effectively.   ;  Isn't the cheapest solution to remove your case, ans put a standard desk fan pointing at the PC? Not ideal but a peoper cooling system is quite pricey, neh?   ;Quote:Original post by CrimsonSunWhat do you think?  Is my idea feasible?  Would you implement my system it if it was cheap enough to? Your idea doesn't make any sense. As you point out most of the problem is in the build of the PC. Companies compromise on cooling to save money - so why would they install the fittings for your system when that would likely cost just as much? The customers are the same. Why would they buy a tube attachment if they aren't willing to spend the same amount on proper cooling in the first place?On top of that is the cost of installing the system into new homes. As you can't know which room the owners will want to use it in you have to fit it in every room and given that the owners will actually only use their PCs in two or three rooms you are wasting money installing the parts that never get used.Next issue is that while many, many millions of homes have PCs not all do so you are wasting money again building this into new homes that will never even see a PC. it is a waste because not every PC is poorly cooled so. Lastly not every PC has cooling problems so many of those homes that do have PCs in won't need the system. In short a vast waste of resources to fix a problem that could be fixed for a few bucks per bad PC.;  Why would i need that if i have one pc? It doesn't produce that much heat, probably less than 100W when iddle and less than 150 when rendering. My processor temp. is 42C (108F) , and that's after 20+ hours of continuous rendering. Room temperature is more like 15..18C (59..65 F), outside temperature is 0C (32 F) and i once seen it going to -35C (-31F)It would make much more sense to 1:use computers adequate for task (WHY people use P4 3.0GHZ+ for text editing?), b:it would save a lot of power if most of software(text editors, IDEs, etc.) wouldn't always be written to eat 10+ times more computational power than necessary for doing what these applications are doing.   ;  Try this rather expensive case.   ;  I have a reservator 1 (http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/view.asp?idx=160&code=021) with a quiet fan blowing it, I like them!I suppose you could pipe up a computer room with connectors on the desk to the  water cooling CPU coolers and connect them all to a truck radiator attached on the roof.Now that WOULD be madness!If anyone has tried something like this it would be worth posting a link!  I remember how hot my house got when I had regular LAN parties.   ;  We have such a centralized air cooler for those computers:Mammouth(sorry, in french only, but there are shiny pictures)10'000 fans inside the computer, and 8 huge fans outside. However, the noise from the huge fans outside is pretty annoying.(I never went inside).BTW the one on the left is the fastest computer in Canada, and the 51th in the world, just after the US Army Research Laboratory.   ;