Summer time - how does your PC cooling solution perform?

[mclane]

I am using dedicated chess computers with 8 Bit cpu.
They are the better products.

[pedrox]

A couple of summers ago I had problems with one of my PCs, a bulldozer, when I started all the threads, the PC was set to the limit of 83°C and one more degree and the PC is turned off. The box of the PC has a side fan I think of 26 cm, and another back and front of 12 entering and removing heat. After cleaning the fans and some things more the temperature lowered me enough to spend the summer.

This summer the problem was repeated, but more serious, my PC was at 83ºC and playing tournaments with only 1 thread. I thought that I would have to try to change the paste between the microprocessor and heatsink. I also looked to buy a special fan-heatsink, but some of these have a height of more than 16 cm and with my 26 cm side fan I would have trouble placing it.

Then I started playing with the AMD processor control software, I removed the turbo-core and it lowered my temperatures a bit. Changing to an equilabrated mode in the Windows configuration, the temperature dropped to 40ºC, but then the PC went at half speed and it was slow.

Finally I opened the box and I started to clean the fans, they did not seem too dirty, but when I removed the fan from the heatsink I saw a large layer of dust, like 1 mm, when I removed it and try again my PC, now the temperature does not pass of the 30 degrees and full of the 50.

[smatovic]

Bump. Heatwave in Europe, how does your gear run?

34°C @Hamburg, my laptop is fine, decomissioned my water-cooled GPU workstation last year.

Code: Select all

srdja@tank0:~$ sensors
coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0:       +46.0°C  (high = +105.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)
Core 1:       +46.0°C  (high = +105.0°C, crit = +105.0°C)

thinkpad-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
fan1:           0 RPM
temp1:        +51.0°C  
temp2:        +38.0°C  
temp3:        +35.0°C  
temp4:            N/A  
temp5:        +28.0°C  
temp6:            N/A  
temp7:        +32.0°C  
temp8:            N/A  
temp9:        +38.0°C  
temp10:       +43.0°C  
temp11:       +40.0°C  
temp12:           N/A  
temp13:           N/A  
temp14:           N/A  
temp15:           N/A  
temp16:           N/A

[Modern Times]

Mine run fine, but I don't run them at all in 30C+ temps, because they make the house even hotter. (Forecast tomorrow is 35C). My laptop is fine, but I don't run chess on it so it isn't under huge load so not surprising.

[smatovic]

I don't run chess on my laptop either, but I did use it to connect to the Google
Cloud Platform and run Zeta on a Nvida V100 for a couple of hours, they had
an special offer back then with free GPU hours...

--
Srdja

[MOBMAT]

I have six computer systems, one of them a 128-core (4x32) server. The big server is in the basement where temps tend to be less than the upper part of the house. I have a shop fan/filter system down there but I don't run it all the time. It is staying cool enough to run 24x7 at full load, although it is not an optimal setup: neither as cool nor as dust free as a proper datacenter.

I am right now getting bids for a roof solar system. My electric bills are very high. It's not just the computers but the AC and other appliances.

--Jon

Does the big server run on 115V?

have you a put watt meter on them to see how much they really are taking up? I think A/C is the killer, esp. in hot climates. Amazon has a lot of options fairly cheap meters.

Solar isn't cheap and the break even time is years. Good luck.

[jdart]

Does the big server run on 115V?

have you a put watt meter on them to see how much they really are taking up? I think A/C is the killer, esp. in hot climates. Amazon has a lot of options fairly cheap meters.

Solar isn't cheap and the break even time is years. Good luck.

Yes, the big server is 115V. I don't know what the wattage is but it wouldn't surprise me if it was hitting 1500W under full load.

I think the solar guys calculated breakeven at 6-7 years. I don't actually know what my current usage is or what the bill will be--the way it works is, they net out what you use from the grid and what you get from the solar, and they bill you once yearly.

--Jon

[jdart]

By the way, re cooling, I am testing out my new Threadripper 3970x system. I did not want to water cool it, so I have an air cooler made for the TR4 socket. First time I started measuring the temps they seemed awfully high. However, this thread:

https://community.amd.com/thread/247177

seems to indicate the CPU temp danger zone is somewhere around 85-95 Celsius. My system is playing online with 32 cores right now (ponder on), so it's at 100% usage, and it is at 70.5 Celsius. I've seen it a little higher but not over 80. So that seems ok. We keep the inside temp under 80 Fahrenheit (27 Celsius) with the A/C.

--Jon

[MOBMAT]

By the way, re cooling, I am testing out my new Threadripper 3970x system. I did not want to water cool it, so I have an air cooler made for the TR4 socket. First time I started measuring the temps they seemed awfully high. However, this thread:

https://community.amd.com/thread/247177

seems to indicate the CPU temp danger zone is somewhere around 85-95 Celsius. My system is playing online with 32 cores right now (ponder on), so it's at 100% usage, and it is at 70.5 Celsius. I've seen it a little higher but not over 80. So that seems ok. We keep the inside temp under 80 Fahrenheit (27 Celsius) with the A/C.

--Jon

It appears that your air cooling is set up nicely. The most important aspect is good thermal transfer between the cooler and the CPU. You can have the best cooling system available and it won't work correctly if the heat can't get out.

I have an off the shelf HP Omen system which came with water cooling. I run the 4 CPUs at 75% when doing chess stuff and the temp stays between 65-70C and the CPU doesn't throttle back. The GPU is air cooled, though, so the water only aids the CPU. They seems to have engineered it pretty good. A far cry from 32 cores, though!

[Milos]

Ah, I did not thought about people using AC in their houses, I know them only from data-centers.

--
Srdja

That's because you live in country of uncle scrooges where ppl would rather swim in their own sweat than pay 33 Euro cents per kWh for an AC system...