Cooling a computer in a very hot environment

[Bookman]

Gentlemen,

How does one cool a computer in a very hot environment, specifically the hard drives?, when air conditioning is not an option.

I have an Antec Twelve Hundred V3 with 7 fans, i5, vanilla graphic card, no games, and no excessive cpu use.

The temperature, which is often in excess of 45C, or 113F, causes my hard drives, (one of which, with often relocated sectors, will soon crash), to show temperatures up to 50C, according to Hard Drive Sentinel.

As cooling usually refers to the cpu or to the graphics card, and as the whole environment inside my case needs cooling, is there a simple, and economical, solution to cooling the whole computer, mainly the hard drives, and not just parts liable to heating?

Thankyou.

 

[Ankur]

45 C environment isn't that bad, attach the hard drives where your front in-take fans are there, let the intake air flow over them, mostly hard drives don't require much cooling, I think you do read-write operations quite often.

 

[Bookman]

Sir,

Two 100mm fans directly face the hard drives. Read-write operations (Ctrl-S in Word) are few.

 

[Virssagòn]

Don't care about the temps of your Hdd's, they never get too hot.
The gpu and cpu are the hottest parts of your pc, look up their temps.

 

[FuryRosewood]

i use the same case, i dont see how the harddisks could get too hot, has adequate airflow. Have you cleared the fan filters of dust?

 

[wolfeking]

People put too much thought into hard drive cooling. I have had mine in the optical bays a lot and that is passive to no cooling, and they never got above 40*. Outside in the summertime, when the average temp is about 45*, they run about 50*. The processor on the other hand cries for mama Intel in the summer heat.

 

[Bookman]

Gentlemen,

Fan filters are sparkling clean, with very adequate airflow.

My problem is obviously a rare one, but it has already killed two hd.

The temperature outside the case, in the room, is often 45C. Fans alone cannot reduce this, so what can reduce this?

Will liquid cooling reduce the temperature, - created in the main by outside heat, - throughout the case?

Thankyou.

 

[wolfeking]

If your ambient is only about 110*F, then heat is not your main issue with your hard drives. It could very well be a chipset overheating issue (not 100% on that), or an issue due to heat with your power supply. I will say from experience that hard drives, even low quality hatachi travelstar drives are good up to and beyond 120*F. You run into heat issues with Processors and Graphics cards far before you do with hard drives.

and Water cooling will not bring you down to or below ambient temps. You need a peltier or LN2 to get to that kind of temp, and that both can cause condensation which without proper precautions will kill your PC.

 

[Bookman]

Sir,

If the problem is the chipset, or the power supply, then it was also a problem for my previous computer, in the same hot environment.

 

[wolfeking]

You are not listening! I am not saying the hot environment is not affecting your computer. But it is not taking out your hard drives. I have had hard drives survive much higher heat levels just fine.

If your environment is too hot, it will easily affect your PSU or chipset no matter what computer you use. You actually need more power than you think to use it effectively at high temps.

 

[AngJinhang]

Actually, the hard drive temperature can go on to 54 degree Celsius and that is ok.
The CPU needs more cooling than the hard drive, sometimes intel processors can go up to 60 degree Celsius, if no cooling is available.

 

[wolfeking]

I hope you are joking. Intel quad cores, at stock voltage, runs 60+* with good cooling. If you try to run with less you end up damaging your processor.

And 54 is kind of low. HDDs can run without fault at 65* just fine. SSDs even more so.

 

[OvenMaster]

"2.8 Environmental specifications
2.8.1 Ambient temperature
Ambient temperature is defined as the temperature of the environment immediately surrounding the drive.
Actual drive case temperature should not exceed 69°C (156°F) within the operating ambient conditions.
Above 1,000 feet (305 meters), the maximum temperature is derated linearly to 112°F (44°C) at 10,000 feet
(3,048 meters).

Operating 0° to 60°C (32° to 140°F)
Nonoperating -40°to 70°C (-40° to 158°F)"

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/desktop/Barracuda 7200.11/100507013e.pdf Page 21

 

[mr.doom]

If you have enough cooling fans in your PC, then try this: place a normal, desktop fan in the front of the intake fans, turn it on, and let the fans take in cooler air. If that doesn't help, you should check the moisture in this room. What is the room you have your computer in anyway? This might help us determine the real problem.