Why are blower cooling bad ?

Separate dedicated A/C unit (Window) to PC directly (what I did previously) or box which PC sits in (may experiment here some).

Anyways you can control the A/C unit, bypass the current controls, basically power to the blower/fan motor and compressor and control the temperature how ever you like. Using a temperature controller to operate motor starters or solid state relays is not that hard, add in a few protective measures as in a power relay that opens if temperature gets too high that shuts off your computer automatically can be added while keeping it simple and relatively cheap. Previously I insulated a case to keep it from sweating and cold in, hooked up ducting to and from that case with snap on and off ducting to an A/C unit. Everything gets cooled, even stock HSF end up performing well when cooled to around 0 c. I ended up running around 5c-10c for the most part and test runs at about -10c (basically ICE would not melt inside the case). Case just got very obsolete and never redid that. Now I am more thinking any case will work if you just enclosed the case with a cool enclosure which will make everything much more simpler.

Window AC is noisy as hell. Also a Window AC will ice up long before it starts outputting -10C air. I have seen them ice up in open air trying to get down to 20C.
 
Window AC is noisy as hell. Also a Window AC will ice up long before it starts outputting -10C air. I have seen them ice up in open air trying to get down to 20C.
no, enclosed loop means just that, moisture is not going to come in to form ice. A heat up period of over 0c can also be used periodically, to melt any ice off of the evaporator coils in the A/C unit. Yes, some A/C units are more noisy then others, while that noise is being directed/muffled in this situation your right, some may not like the noise and it would not be for them. There are also options where you can have a remote A/C unit and duct the air to the pc. I did not have an issue with noise since where I live, I hear not only my own A/C unit but neighbors as well. Also note this is a period of time or tail end of it where folks were using delta fans (I was one of them) that was louder than any A/C unit I've own so for me it was a noise reduction.

For a period of time, very short actually, I was below 0c, that temperature is not too friendly with mechanical moving devices like fans and hard drives, fans would make noise, hard drives would fail. Reason why I ended up above 5c range which seems to alleviate issues with hard drives and fans.

That is how I got my Radeon 9700 Pro from 325mhz all the way up to 425mhz, normally I kept it around 410mhz. Not only the card was way beyond it's time, the OC made it even more awesome. It was a Tyan 9700 Pro, probably the first card that had sensors and software that showed the different voltages, which was key for the hardware volt mod I did. Made a circuit with three pots to hook up to the different voltage controllers and used the Tyan software to adjust the voltages to optimize the OC using PowerStrip (was first program that could OC ATi cards) I also modified the HSF on the card. The image shows how the cold air which could be below freezing, blew right over the card as well as the CPU, motherboard, ram etc. This was some 16 years ago lol. Used that case setup for around 10 years or so with different motherboards, GPUs and worked wonders for OCing over and over again. PC cases back then were not as opened as they are now. Today I have different ideas. Some old timer nostalgia in the end.


OVmod.jpg

R9700proVoltModed.jpg

ColdairIn.jpg
 
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no, enclosed loop means just that, moisture is not going to come in to form ice. A heat up period of over 0c can also be used periodically, to melt any ice off of the evaporator coils in the A/C unit. Yes, some A/C units are more noisy then others, while that noise is being directed/muffled in this situation your right, some may not like the noise and it would not be for them. There are also options where you can have a remote A/C unit and duct the air to the pc. I did not have an issue with noise since where I live, I hear not only my own A/C unit but neighbors as well. Also note this is a period of time or tail end of it where folks were using delta fans (I was one of them) that was louder than any A/C unit I've own so for me it was a noise reduction.

For a period of time, very short actually, I was below 0c, that temperature is not too friendly with mechanical moving devices like fans and hard drives, fans would make noise, hard drives would fail. Reason why I ended up above 5c range which seems to alleviate issues with hard drives and fans.

That is how I got my Radeon 9700 Pro from 325mhz all the way up to 425mhz, normally I kept it around 410mhz. Not only the card was way beyond it's time, the OC made it even more awesome. It was a Tyan 9700 Pro, probably the first card that had sensors and software that showed the different voltages, which was key for the hardware volt mod I did. Made a circuit with three pots to hook up to the different voltage controllers and used the Tyan software to adjust the voltages to optimize the OC using PowerStrip (was first program that could OC ATi cards) I also modified the HSF on the card. The image shows how the cold air which could be below freezing, blew right over the card as well as the CPU, motherboard, ram etc. This was some 16 years ago lol. Used that case setup for around 10 years or so with different motherboards, GPUs and worked wonders for OCing over and over again. PC cases back then were not as opened as they are now. Today I have different ideas. Some old timer nostalgia in the end.



Pics of the AC side connections?
 
Pics of the AC side connections?
Your looking at it. I don’t have pictures of the A/C unit plenum, remember these are some old ass pictures. Anyways the black corrugated plastic pipe is mounted to the case window which pivots, the fitting snaps on and off with ducting going to it. You can actually see the exhaust plenum in the back. All other holes were sealed. Today cases makes this method impractical in my opinion. Case was insulated throughout, rubber insulation.

This cooled everything, GPU CPU, ram motherboard power supply etc. I believe in the above picture the CPU was an Athlon 1700 OC to 2.1 ghz +
 
Your looking at it. I don’t have pictures of the A/C unit plenum, remember these are some old ass pictures. Anyways the black corrugated plastic pipe is mounted to the case window which pivots, the fitting snaps on and off with ducting going to it. You can actually see the exhaust plenum in the back. All other holes were sealed. Today cases makes this method impractical in my opinion. Case was insulated throughout, rubber insulation.

This cooled everything, GPU CPU, ram motherboard power supply etc. I believe in the above picture the CPU was an Athlon 1700 OC to 2.1 ghz +

The problem is Window AC units don't have hose attachments. they are big flat intakes with vent outlets. Like this:
itioner-mechanical-rotary-controls-2-way-air-flow-eer-11-1-auto-restart-covers-up-to-150-sq-ft-3.jpg


Not really very practical for doing closed loop on a PC. Even if you get something like this to work, still noisy as hell, and if you say, "You need AC anyway", well you need another one to cool your room. If this one is closed loop on your PC, it isn't cooling your room.

If I was going to go that nuts cooling, I think I would simply do some kind of liquid cooling loop with ice water cooling. Much quieter, and much less cumbersome. Something like this:

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...-cooling-now-over-3-years-operational.222083/


Or, you know, just do the sane thing and start with a properly designed quiet air cooling for both CPU and GPU.
 
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The problem is Window AC units don't have hose attachments. they are big flat intakes with vent outlets. Like this:
View attachment 181005

Not really very practical for doing closed loop on a PC. Even if you get something like this to work, still noisy as hell, and if you say, "You need AC anyway", well you need another one to cool your room. If this one is closed loop on your PC, it isn't cooling your room.

If I was going to go that nuts cooling, I think I would simply do some kind of liquid cooling loop with ice water cooling. Much quieter, and much less cumbersome. Something like this:

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...-cooling-now-over-3-years-operational.222083/


Or, you know, just do the sane thing and start with a properly designed quiet air cooling for both CPU and GPU.
Not practical today due to current case designs but a box maybe. As for noise, if you already have a window unit - your not going to add more noise and most likely will reduce the noise since it will be directed into something. Not sure the point, yes for some an A/C unit they can't handle, the noise that is. As for hookup, a little imagination, some framing and you can have a perfect in/out duct setup on that A/C unit above. Now I won't even have to worry about that aspect since basically the PC will have it's own small room with it's own dedicated A/C unit. I could even sound isolate the hell out of it ( I do have a number of sound tiles).

As for ice water, not sure what you are driving there, a chill water system sounds great except if your system is exposed, as in moist air, you can get condensation. If an enclosed system where the chill water is used to circulate air through a heat exchanger (taking moisture out and preventing going below the dew point inside the case) and that water cools GPU, CPU, anything else -> To me that would be golden/ideal. Noise can be isolated from the work/play space to some other area while the chill water is pumped to and from the system.

Now when are serious overclockers practical :D.
 
Blower type coolers generally do not use heatpipe-based heatsinks; they typically use vapor chambers. Both operate on the same principle, but vapor chambers are more efficient at transporting heat to a physically close heatsink, as is the case with blower coolers.

Also, the orientation of the heatpipes do not matter. The heatpipes don't do the heat transfer to air, the fins of the heatsink do. Well technically yes they would contribute, the amount of heat dissipated by heatpipe-air transfer is negligible compared to fin-air.
Yep, from GTX 480 to GTX 580 there were some die changes but the biggest difference in the cooling was definitely moving from heatpipe block on the 480 to vapor chamber on the 580. The 580s ran like 10-15 C cooler sometimes lol. I ran 480s in triple SLI for a while and that was like a furnace lol.

With SLI effectively being dead blower cards don't serve much purpose for consumer cards anymore. OEMs will still have blowers made since it makes it easier for them to implement into their case designs.
 
The problem is Window AC units don't have hose attachments. they are big flat intakes with vent outlets. Like this:
View attachment 181005

Not really very practical for doing closed loop on a PC. Even if you get something like this to work, still noisy as hell, and if you say, "You need AC anyway", well you need another one to cool your room. If this one is closed loop on your PC, it isn't cooling your room.

If I was going to go that nuts cooling, I think I would simply do some kind of liquid cooling loop with ice water cooling. Much quieter, and much less cumbersome. Something like this:

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...-cooling-now-over-3-years-operational.222083/


Or, you know, just do the sane thing and start with a properly designed quiet air cooling for both CPU and GPU.

I did a chilled water loop under 0C with peltiers. I put the mobo in a cooler chest with desicate and sealed it so I didn’t have to worry about condensation. Also nice since mechanical moving parts was to a minimum.
 
Yep, from GTX 480 to GTX 580 there were some die changes but the biggest difference in the cooling was definitely moving from heatpipe block on the 480 to vapor chamber on the 580. The 580s ran like 10-15 C cooler sometimes lol. I ran 480s in triple SLI for a while and that was like a furnace lol.

With SLI effectively being dead blower cards don't serve much purpose for consumer cards anymore. OEMs will still have blowers made since it makes it easier for them to implement into their case designs.

It really all depends on the case air flow. If there isn't a lot of air movement, the blower is preferable to exhaust the hot air.
 
Blower cooling is better, if done properly, because it helps removing heat from the case!

My MSI GTX 980 OCV1 blower has been running with a silent 80C fan profile for 5 years. Still running flawlessly.
 
Blower cooling is better, if done properly, because it helps removing heat from the case!

My MSI GTX 980 OCV1 blower has been running with a silent 80C fan profile for 5 years. Still running flawlessly.

A 980 is also a 165W card. A two slot blower works great at that TDP.
 
It really all depends on the case air flow. If there isn't a lot of air movement, the blower is preferable to exhaust the hot air.

so then in a case like the phanteks mitx enthoo evolv, the blower fan would be better than the AIB coolers correct? but the fan curve speed will also be louder
 
so then in a case like the phanteks mitx enthoo evolv, the blower fan would be better than the AIB coolers correct? but the fan curve speed will also be louder

My biggest problem with all of those mITX towers is that they completely starve the video cards of airflow. Personally, I think a blower style cooler is better in that case.
 
My biggest problem with all of those mITX towers is that they completely starve the video cards of airflow. Personally, I think a blower style cooler is better in that case.
Thats what i was thinking as well thanks for confirming
 
Being starved of airflow, still doesn't make the blower outperform the open air cards. Open cards start off so far ahead, that even when starved they typicall still outperform blowers:

https://techbuyersguru.com/founders...video-card-coolers-definitive-analysis?page=1

The CPU temperature is higher in the comparisons with the open air card up to 5C in the ITX case. That article is specifically testing GPU temperatures, but not everything people do with a computer is playing games and being GPU bottlenecked, so higher CPU temps might be a factor.

Further, that article is very case specific. In the case of the Enthoo Evolv ITX, (which the question pertained to and the answer directed toward) there is a cut out for airflow that would greatly improve the GPU airflow restriction for blower cards (depending on the HDD's used) where an open air card is going to be slightly restricted by the PSU and PSU shroud.
 
The CPU temperature is higher in the comparisons with the open air card up to 5C in the ITX case. That article is specifically testing GPU temperatures, but not everything people do with a computer is playing games and being GPU bottlenecked, so higher CPU temps might be a factor.

Further, that article is very case specific. In the case of the Enthoo Evolv ITX, (which the question pertained to and the answer directed toward) there is a cut out for airflow that would greatly improve the GPU airflow restriction for blower cards (depending on the HDD's used) where an open air card is going to be slightly restricted by the PSU and PSU shroud.

In the case of the Enthoo Evolv, you can't just guess you have to test. But every article I have seen, regardless of case, open air cards outperform the same card with a blower, because they start so far ahead.

Now if you are talking which is better for the CPU, then blower wins. Though this is really only an issue, if doing something that taxes both. Gaming tends not to fully load the CPU, and Video encoding doesn't see the GPU contributing much heat.

Unless they make a MUCH better blower card than what has hit the market so far, I will never buy one.
 
The problem is Window AC units don't have hose attachments. they are big flat intakes with vent outlets. Like this:
View attachment 181005

Not really very practical for doing closed loop on a PC. Even if you get something like this to work, still noisy as hell, and if you say, "You need AC anyway", well you need another one to cool your room. If this one is closed loop on your PC, it isn't cooling your room.

If I was going to go that nuts cooling, I think I would simply do some kind of liquid cooling loop with ice water cooling. Much quieter, and much less cumbersome. Something like this:

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...-cooling-now-over-3-years-operational.222083/


Or, you know, just do the sane thing and start with a properly designed quiet air cooling for both CPU and GPU.

Nice project but it would be nice to see the final results. Also I was expecting to see dryer vent hoses everywhere... At least that's how I would do that. Oh well, all I can tell is that living in cold area doesn't help much and I still need AC anyway.
 
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Nice project but it would be nice to see the final results. Also I was expecting to see dryer vent hoses everywhere... At least that's how I would do that. Oh well, all I can tell is that living in cold area doesn't help much and I still need AC anyway.
People buy and use these portable A/C units everywhere and the benefit outweighs the noise for most. With modern well ventilated cases, you would not need any ducting, hoses etc. If pure cooling, on a tight budget, to cool everything from power supply, VRMs, CPU, GPU, chipset, memory in one swoop. Here is an option to consider:
  • Buy a 5000BTU A/C unit, I've seen them as low as $99. Unless you have one already
  • Most have an accessible home window and room configuration that supports this, mount the A/C unit which for this size usually takes less than 10 min of actual work
  • Build an enclosure around the A/C unit and computer case
    • This can be as cheap or expensive as you want or to just experiment
    • For example using foam board for both insulation and noise, not something that will last
    • To a framed clear or not polycarbonate panel enclosure for long term use and durability is another option
    • Either way, make it easy to just pull the whole enclosure away from the A/C unit or put access panels or doors to the computer
      • If after any tests, experiments you dig it, you could put the computer on rollers or a pull out drawer (I would just keep it simple myself)
  • Most A/C units now have remote controls so turning on and off and setting the temperature would not be too difficult. If not, an access panel to do that would be easy to make as well
  • Now most A/C wall units only cool down to the the low 60'sF, to really get cold as in approaching 0F or freezing, you have to modify and add either a thermostat or temperature controller to the relay that turns on and off the compressor with it's own temperature sensor
As a side note, any blower card when you pump 5c to 10c inlet air temperature into them will have more than sufficient cooling to max out OC's, CPU air coolers even not the best will knock down 20c of temperature. It can be an amazing ride is the jest.
 
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