(Lots of pictures below)
Hey all,
Living in Ireland an' all, I have decided to take advantage of our crap weather, and harness the cold into cooling my CPU. So, armed with my Nokia 7650, I have taken lots of lovely(ish) pics of my extremely cheap, homemade cooling solution.
Before: ____ After:
Idle : 37*C _____ Idle : 29*C
Load : 56*C ____ Load : 50*C
Obviously, the CPU temp varies with the temp outside, but this is an average reading, with the outside temp ~ 12*C. The system works best at night with the drop in temperature outside.
When its around 1-3*C outside, I¦ve seen the CPU temp drop as low as 25*C at idle. I overclocked my 2.8Ghz to 3260mhz when it was ~10*C outside, with still just the stock sink and fan.
Required Items:
- 1x Drainpipe
- 1x Poster tube
- 1x 80mm/92mm/120mm Cooling Fan
- 1x 2 core cable
- 1x Roll of sticky tape
- 1x Roll of tin foil
- 1x Terrys chocolate orange carton
I had all the items at home, and I¦m sure you may have too.
(All below comments refer to the picture above it).
As you can see from this picture, the system basically sucks the air from outside the window, along the tubing and in through the rear 80mm exhaust hole on the case.
This shows the tubing entering the rear 80mm exhaust hole. I cut the grill with some pinchers(wire cutters). Very simple.
Above shows the tubing inside the case. There isn't any foil on the inside section, for fear of short circuiting etc. The tubing extends over the CPU stock sink and fan.
A close up of the tubing extending over the h/s and fan. It¦s held up with a simple piece of wire coming out of the top, the other end tied to a horizontal bracket.
This shows the end piece of the tubing that positions over the CPU. I added some extended pieces at the bottom and left side to direct the cool air onto the h/s and fan.
The h/s fan busy at work, sucking in all that cool Irish air. I suppose the air keeps my DPS power thingy cool as well. (The card with the blue fan on the left).
Now, as for the intake system - here are some pics. I removed one of my 80mm exhaust fans from my Antec case, and stuck it in a Terrys Chocolate Orange carton, which has a great funnel shape. As you can see, I cut holes in the top of it to wedge the fan firmly in place. I'm sure there are many similar packets/cartons in the U.S., etc.
This shows a side view of the carton, outside the window (you can see the window sill at the very bottom), which I attached to the tubing with lots and lots of sticky tape.
Here we see the tubing leading to the funnel and fan, coming in through the window and down. When the window is closed over, and the tube is right up against the windowpane, there is only about a 4-inch gap. So you barely know the window is open. I really gotta clean that window sill on the inside! :o
This pic shows the tubing coming down the inside wall, and connecting to the drainpipe. All the foil-covered tubing used, is the poster tube cut up. I covered it with foil just to keep the air inside the tube cool. It also makes it look neater - underneath is just a mass of cut-up tube and sticky tape!
You may wonder how I got power to the fan. What I used was the Serial ATA daughter card that came with my motherboard, which has an internal and external 12V power connector onboard. I then simply cut the 2 wires on the 80mm fan, extended them by using about 2 meters of 2 core cabling (see previous pic), and then attached the 4 pin connector at the end.
Here¦s another pic of the Serial ATA card, with the internal power connector.
All in all, it¦s a bit crude I know, but its very effective. It also removes the noise of a 80mm fan from the case, and puts it outside instead! As for insects and bugs, well, I might look inside in a few weeks and see what the fan has sucked in! But there's nothing on the h/s, so I¦m guessing there not getting caught. I might put in a filter or something.
With all that cool air, the case temps go down aswell. Before the setup was put in, hot air used to come out of my PSU, but now it's nice and cold.
Anyway, what do yas think? ;)
Why not take a look at my site, Hicks Pics!
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