• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

high-ambient CarPC cooling

T

Tha_Bomb

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 15, 2000
Messages
1,283
Well, summer's almost here, and I would like to get a CarPC soon. At any rate, I'll have to go through a summer here, me and the CarPC, and I wanted to know what the best thing to use would be for low-power high-efficiency cooling. I'll most likely have to use some sort of liquid cooling, and that will be even on the hard drives, via a Koolance HDD cooler.

I'm planning on getting an EPIA for the "server" PC in the trunk, but the Raptor drives are rated to "only" 55C, which may seem like alot, but the air OUTSIDE the car gets to almost 130 here in the summer. Cars are another story.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is I know water will get to 100+ and be pretty useless to cool a PC. Is there any way to remain power-efficient and cool the water? How good do radiators work? Will they get it cool enough do you think? I can't do a refrigerator for the water, since I want to run it 24/7 with a dedicated battery. I'm looking for under 50W including 2 raptors, pump, fans, everything.
 
get like 3 rad's...have two on the same loop that goes to hdd's and cpu's then have those in a bath of water....with a 3rd radiator cooling that water off with 4 120mmfan's(2 on each side) should be ultimate watercooling :)
 
Ha. Yeah, the air gets too hot here in Vegas. The cars internal temperatures get to be as hot as 160+ ... :)
 
then you aint puttin a pc inside a car without inefficient or high power cooling. Maybe you could find a way to make a small wcing loop and make a small chiller that would leech from the car's generator when its on, and get some HUGE caps for when the car is off. but hey, im no expert, i could be wrong:)
 
Or you can put tecs on it with a gigantic air cooled heatsink. It is not like your car isnt a giant 12v PS :D

A 1700+ stock DLT3C will cool well, probably just as cool as a EPIA. Maybe just as cheaply as well.
 
why dont you run a line to the cars radiator or somthing :-P that is damn hot though.... I would say (i unno what thread and how well it worked) but the guy put alcohol in his w/c setup to evaporate from heat and we know what happens when alcohol evaporates
 
Originally posted by boardsportsrule
get like 3 rad's...have two on the same loop that goes to hdd's and cpu's then have those in a bath of water....with a 3rd radiator cooling that water off with 4 120mmfan's(2 on each side) should be ultimate watercooling :)
Click to expand...

The radiator-water-radiator transfer is only adding more thermal resistance to the system, it'd be better off with only one loop and a large radiator.
 
I'm looking for max efficiency, so 1 large radiator would do good. are there any 120x360mm or 240x240mm radiators so I can put alot of big fans on the one radiator? I'd probably have Panaflo M or H fans.
 
YOu could on a heater core but I dont remember from what car
Too bad search is down cuz u could search for heatercores

Like 2x120mm
 
some one here was selling a massive radiator..i would want to get one that maybe 4-6 120mm fans can fit on each side!!!
 
what about when the car's off then, it would get REALLY hot...maybe you should have it in standby mode when you turn the car off, lesspower will be drawn
 
Or why not just get a laptop, a clarion carpc, or a kenwood keg. I dont know man this seems a little extreme. Almost unplausable. Anything can be done with enough time and money but this seems like it will require alot of both to run all the time in a car in the heat. Maybe you should change one of your parameters. Like either turn it off when you arent in it, make an external radiator for it, or move somewhere cooler. Good Luck with whatever you do.
 
Originally posted by boardsportsrule
some one here was selling a massive radiator..i would want to get one that maybe 4-6 120mm fans can fit on each side!!!
Click to expand...

I picked one up on Ebay for $15 with the fans and powersupply :)

Fits 6 120mm fans on each side, and is as wide as an 80mm fan.



None the less, the best solution maybe to go with a Celeron processor. Yeah, they generally suck. But they tend to already run at lower temperatures (depending the model). So that helps the cooling quite a tremendous amount. The trunk in a car doesn't have the luxury of Air Conditioning. But, if you put it under the dash, you could pipe the A/C line into the case. This would greatly cool the CPU. Because if you're driving in the heat we get and don't have A/C on, you're nuts :)
 
well, I would turn it off if it was just a carpc, but I want to get wireless for media/internet to my laptop from the car, as well as a "gaming" PC in the front with a steering wheel and all for the passenger. I probably won't get it all in the next few months, but one step at a time.

There would be nothing cooler than the passenger in the car to be able to play Need For Speed while someone else's driving. Then of course, a Divx/MP3 server in the back with wireless, to serve up media to the front, or through wireless to a laptop. :cool:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top