awesome cooling technique that worked very well

[Desolator]

Just wanted to let everyone know about something totally awesome I tried.  I had two spare 70 or 80mm case fans and they blast pretty hard for awful brand ones out of ancient computer cases one or both may have been CPU fans actually.  I have a lay flat "case" with 2 externally mounted 5830's.  I wanted to cool them with my spare fans but blowing into the tail end would counteract the existing cooling and the same goes for the other end.  I couldn't blow down into the case because that would be really unwise and sucking air upward from a top-mounted fan would probably result in lower density air and less of it going through the card's actual cooler.  So I had to blow upward from below the cards.

There was enough room with my 1x to 16x adapter cables so I went to the hardware store and got a 4 ft 1/8" round wooden dowel.  I cut it into eight 5.5 inch strips and put about 3 inches of electrical tape around in a circle on each.  They fit perfectly inside the mounting screw holes and with a little more tape, I basically had a cooling fan on stilts I picked wood cuz it doesn't conduct and could stand directly on the motherboard without problems.  It worked pretty well temperature-wise but those fans just weren't amazing so today I got a Coolermaster sickle blade 120 or 140mm (I forgot) fan that can push a whipping 90CFM!  A standard crappy generic 70mm case can usually do about 20CFM.  That's umm...I forgot but it's a volume over time measurement so it's like gallons per minute of air but some metric version.  This thing took my hottest card from 71C @ 52% fan speed to 68C at 46% fan speed!  Definitely an improvement and I was able to overclock it a lot higher without much difference in heat.  This thing was blasting so hard, I was worried the thin wood wouldn't hold it down and it might take off  

So if you're looking for a nice way to cool your cards, just put a really nice fan or just any fan you have laying around in there under them on wooden dowel stilts.  It works really, really well.  I'll try and get some pics or a video of precisely how they're arranged later.

[teflone]

The future is amazing!!! seriously..

Did you hear that they landed on the moon ? 

[flyswatta]

Not quite understanding what you did that was so unique - pics?

[MaGNeT]

So much text... Could have done with one picture...

[pekv2]

So much text... Could have done with one picture...

Yea, I didn't even bother reading it when it was first posted.

___


Pictures!!!!!

[SmokeAndMirrors]

I keep trying to read what was so special about what you did, but I keep coming to the conclusion that this post has absolutely nothing significant about it. Wow.

[1.21gigawatts]

This thing took my hottest card from 71C @ 52% fan speed to 68C at 46% fan speed!

Whooopddeeeee dooo!  This is pretty insignificant if you ask me

[Desolator]

Not quite understanding what you did that was so unique - pics?

Oh, see what I did that's super uncommon on this forum is I made a post without being a sarcastic, arrogant asshole.  If you scroll up, you'll see that that's really rare.  If you're gonna be a dick on an online forum, get ready to come across people like me who are twice as mean back because I don't take that kind of crap.  Why don't you stupid little trolls go back into your mining cave?  If you have a problem with me giving detailed instructions on how to cheaply modify a rig to run better to help out other people, why don't you not hit the reply button because nobody wants to hear it.

Also, from seeing tons of pics of rigs with side mounted 50W hardware store fans and downward blowing quad fans or water cooling or just no additional fans at all and zero with upward blasting fans, it seems not a whole lot of people did this.  I got the impression from talking to others that they think it's too hard to mount a fan under it because you'd need crossbars and stuff.  Naw, a $1.50 wooden dowel and $12 fan works perfectly.  You can't beat that cooling performance per dollar per watt used.

I was gonna rush to get a pic up but since the person requesting it is a jackass, I'm gonna go back to doing it whenever I feel like it.

[zx9r]

One pic, please.

[Transisto]

totally awesome , awful brand ones out of ancient computer cases
CFM.  That's umm...I forgot but it's a volume over time measurement so it's like gallons per minute of air but some metric version.

I appreciate that you share your cooling tips but people complaining may not have read your post half way because of your writing style.

Take note :
Most people don't want to waste time reading about all your little inner thoughts.

PS : "Cubic Feet per Minute" is very self explanatory and common knowledge.

[flyswatta]

Not quite understanding what you did that was so unique - pics?

Oh, see what I did that's super uncommon on this forum is I made a post without being a sarcastic, arrogant asshole.  If you scroll up, you'll see that that's really rare.  If you're gonna be a dick on an online forum, get ready to come across people like me who are twice as mean back because I don't take that kind of crap.  Why don't you stupid little trolls go back into your mining cave?  If you have a problem with me giving detailed instructions on how to cheaply modify a rig to run better to help out other people, why don't you not hit the reply button because nobody wants to hear it.

Also, from seeing tons of pics of rigs with side mounted 50W hardware store fans and downward blowing quad fans or water cooling or just no additional fans at all and zero with upward blasting fans, it seems not a whole lot of people did this.  I got the impression from talking to others that they think it's too hard to mount a fan under it because you'd need crossbars and stuff.  Naw, a $1.50 wooden dowel and $12 fan works perfectly.  You can't beat that cooling performance per dollar per watt used.

I was gonna rush to get a pic up but since the person requesting it is a jackass, I'm gonna go back to doing it whenever I feel like it.

You call that being a dick?  Hardly - It was a valid question.  I was trying to figure out if it was something that I would consider doing.  I was merely expressing that I couldn't visualize what you had written and why it was so different from what people normally do.  

Some of the other posts?  Now THEY were trolling...

[Desolator]

fly, I was mostly referring to the other posts.  Yours sounded like a legitimate question  

I really think this is the cheapest solution that gets decent results.  Yeah you could go crazy with better cooling but this was about $13 total and lowered the heat so much that I think everyone should do it.

Here's some almost acceptable quality pics I snapped with one hand while on the phone:

Here's the best shot of where the legs go and how high up they are.  The green LEDs weren't really my idea, that's just what it came with unfortunately.







This one shows pretty well the actual layout.  The bigger, more powerful fan pushes colder air between the cards to help their intake and the smaller 80mm one clears the hot air coming off the back of the cards out of the way faster.  And I added pretty drawings rofl



They both use sequential molex connections with fan split-offs so they're running at 100% all the time and only take 1 line off the PSU.  Also, my board didn't have 2 fan hookups.

[zx9r]

Hmmm I like it.

I have an old case fan and always wanted to put it blowing from the motherboard upward trough the cards but didnt get how to put it. I like very much the wooden dowel stilts idea.

I tried putting the fan on both sides and on top of the cards as seen in some pics here but I dont like it at all, so I have the fan unused.

[shotgun]

fly, I was mostly referring to the other posts.  Yours sounded like a legitimate question  

I really think this is the cheapest solution that gets decent results.  Yeah you could go crazy with better cooling but this was about $13 total and lowered the heat so much that I think everyone should do it.

Sorry, but investing all that time to get a couple of Celsius change isn't worth it.

Here's a solution that will take a 85C card to 65C: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835213001 , point it from above at your cards. 240cfm does wonders. I have one in each of my rigs pointing down at the cards, and two 120mm 110cfm Silverstone fans at the front of the case pulling air in. I run closed cases with 4x GPUs each. I won't waste time with wooden dowels, that's too flimsy.

[sveetsnelda]

fly, I was mostly referring to the other posts.  Yours sounded like a legitimate question  

I really think this is the cheapest solution that gets decent results.  Yeah you could go crazy with better cooling but this was about $13 total and lowered the heat so much that I think everyone should do it.

Sorry, but investing all that time to get a couple of Celsius change isn't worth it.

Here's a solution that will take a 85C card to 65C: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835213001 , point it from above at your cards. 240cfm does wonders. I have one in each of my rigs pointing down at the cards, and two 120mm 110cfm Silverstone fans at the front of the case pulling air in. I run closed cases with 4x GPUs each. I won't waste time with wooden dowels, that's too flimsy.

Hmmm...  While Delta certainly makes nice fans, they're also loud as hell.  This fan is $30.  For that, I could buy two cheap 6" Honeywell air circulators, move the same (or more) air for the same electricity cost, *and* retain my hearing.  62db is LOUD and if you didn't have those deltas in a case, you'd have to fasten them somehow.  Those motors have serious torque and *move* when initially powered on.

[flyswatta]

Nice!  What do the 'stilts' rest on?  It looks like in one of the pics that one of them is resting on a chip?

[Desolator]

fly, I was mostly referring to the other posts.  Yours sounded like a legitimate question  

I really think this is the cheapest solution that gets decent results.  Yeah you could go crazy with better cooling but this was about $13 total and lowered the heat so much that I think everyone should do it.

Sorry, but investing all that time to get a couple of Celsius change isn't worth it.

Here's a solution that will take a 85C card to 65C: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835213001 , point it from above at your cards. 240cfm does wonders. I have one in each of my rigs pointing down at the cards, and two 120mm 110cfm Silverstone fans at the front of the case pulling air in. I run closed cases with 4x GPUs each. I won't waste time with wooden dowels, that's too flimsy.

It's not the best idea to blast 168F air directly onto your motherboard, which I bet has liquid capacitors and not one single ceramic part.  But I'd put one of those insane 200+ CFM fans below, probably on aluminum stilts instead.  You can also get like 1/4" wooden dowels that are very sturdy and just drill 2 holes on each side of your case and run 2 rails all the way across that you can wire tie some fans onto.  Either design would suck air in from all around the case and thus cool all the rest of the parts and then send the cards' heated air flying upward and away from the case.

As for the stilt placement, I bumped it before taking the pic but they were supposed to be on top of printed circuit lines, not chips

I think I might convert my case to a rails system like I mentioned.  That or this awesome cooling technique...a cat blowing on it

[naypalm]

Pretty good Idea and it is what I use on my current sideways in-case setup. I have four 80mm fans taped together that suck the hot air off the cards out into the room. Works great and solved my 6950 heat issues!

[shotgun]

fly, I was mostly referring to the other posts.  Yours sounded like a legitimate question  

I really think this is the cheapest solution that gets decent results.  Yeah you could go crazy with better cooling but this was about $13 total and lowered the heat so much that I think everyone should do it.

Sorry, but investing all that time to get a couple of Celsius change isn't worth it.

Here's a solution that will take a 85C card to 65C: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835213001 , point it from above at your cards. 240cfm does wonders. I have one in each of my rigs pointing down at the cards, and two 120mm 110cfm Silverstone fans at the front of the case pulling air in. I run closed cases with 4x GPUs each. I won't waste time with wooden dowels, that's too flimsy.

Hmmm...  While Delta certainly makes nice fans, they're also loud as hell.  This fan is $30.  For that, I could buy two cheap 6" Honeywell air circulators, move the same (or more) air for the same electricity cost, *and* retain my hearing.  62db is LOUD and if you didn't have those deltas in a case, you'd have to fasten them somehow.  Those motors have serious torque and *move* when initially powered on.

62db is not terribly loud, my whole server rack is running far louder than that with 6 servers operating 24x7. Blowing hot air on the MB is not an issue and yes the caps are ceramic. These boxes have all been operating 24x7 for months at a time without any issues whatsoever. If you're keeping your single rig in your house where you actually live that is one thing, but if so watercooling makes far more sense if you want efficient cooling with a lack of noise.

When you guys are talking about all this hand made one-off stuff you might want to consider that the time and effort required to get 2-5C of cooling effect is not worth it when you are need to do more than one case. Running multiple systems sanely requires consistency and repeatability. Wooden dowels and twisty ties in a mining rig, come on. What's next, lincoln logs to make an open case design?

[Desolator]

well, you didn't say it was a server rack with potentially server grade parts and server shaped cases.  Both setups and circumstances seem logical now except for one point you keep making.

You can't just say it's a 2-5C drop in my case.  The card is going to stabilize at around 64-67C regardless and it's not going to go any lower in 70F ambient temps.  It's going to stop attempting to get cooler and instead turn the onboard fan down from there and keep the temperature the same.  At least that's what Sapphire 5830's are set to do.  It's all a preprogrammed set of fan usage vs heat ratios built into the card and if it decides that lowering the fan from 50% to 44% and going from 68C to 65C is more logical than keeping it at 50% and getting it down to 58C because the fan is more likely to get damaged at that point than the other parts from heat, that's what it does.

So this exact setup took me from like 70 to 65 on average but the fan speed reduction was HUGE in graphics card terms.  According to my estimation, if my cards were formerly running at 78C, it also would have taken them down to 65C but the fan speed would have stayed the same at about 52%.

My point is, anything below 66C really, you can stop counting the temperature and start counting the fan speed reduction to determine how good your cooling system is.  And also...