Advice needed on cooling PC....
 

It already had a vast array of fans but I have shoved in so much extra shit that it overheats.

What can you add to it that will keep it cool - not too expensive as this is going to my step brother when my new system arrives.

Thats going to be a while though and I want to play 'Second Life' without rebooting every 5 mins.

Any ideas?

prestone

Do you have the case open on the side? I lot of people think it stays cooler if the side is off. That is incorrect. Make sure the air inside the case is flowing properly to get it out of the case (no opposing fans, etc). check the fan over the CPU (replace it with a good one).

Cheapest way to keep it sub-40 in just about any condition is a cheap all-enclosed water cooled system, like the Silent Water from Thermaltake (About $55 from ZipZoomFly.com). You can watercool the video card as well with another waterblock for it but it?s not necessary with most of the newer video cards.

Thats interesting - I have taken the side off - I will put it back on - Thanks :)

Thats A LOT cheaper than I thought - I will give that a try as well.

tough without specs. What kind of case is it in now, and how many extra case fans have you added?

Most common problem is your fans blowing the wrong way. one side needs to blow in and one side needs to blow out.

It works really well, I have three of them and on the low setting they are quiet, much quieter than high-end air cooling systems. And on low they keep my core2duo's below 40C so it's all good. They are just really *big* though, they take up a lot of room so some cases are screwed. You can mount the radiator in a few different places though so it'll work in most cases.

I love my comps but Im affraid I dont keep upto date as much as I should.

To me it seems that there is this small chip on the motherboard with a small heatsink that gets red hot that could be the issue - I think it is something to do with the AGP - but the vid card itself is cold.

I have an old heatsink and fan from a P3, I am going to stick that on it to see if it helps.

this case makes me cream...so quiet and cooled.
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...actur e=ANTEC

That is very close to the one I have. Antex is nice.

some other extras... Memory Cooler, Expansion Slot VGA Cooler, could use thermal adhesive heatsinks as well like Ram Heatsink, Thermal Compound, but a must is a very good CPU cooling fan.

even though all example links are @ zipzoomfly, i recommend shopping at tigerdirect.com for the best deals, gl bud! :)

Check your overall airflow - make sure that the air is moving through the case and not just piling up. I had an issue with mine getting warm, turns out that one of the fans on the back was backwards (pushing air in instead of sucking it out) which meant that the air was coming in and going out the through the power supply... but not moving any air at the front of the case.

You can test this will a little bit of smoke (incence works good). Just let a little go in the front of the PC, and see where it comes out from. If it isn't coming out, you have an issue.

My computer now I can put my hand on the front grill of the case, and feel the air being drawn through to the back... and there is no fan on the front, only on the back (and it is a dual code with a big ass video card with it's own fans).