"fans seems to work fine" & "It's not enough that they spin"...

[Tim]

On Tue, 2011-09-27 at 09:42 +0200, J.Witvliet at mindef.nl wrote:
> I think (..) he meant, a larger fan produces less noise than a smaller
> one, and one larger fan produces more air-flow than several smaller
> ones.

A dead CPU fan, in a case with several fans, can be a single point of
failure.  So the original question isn't as clear cut as might first be
thought.

But, yes, I was thinking along the lines of large fans are better, in
themselves (see my other reply from a few minutes ago).  Plus they cool
the whole card, or whole motherboard, versus just a tiny part of them.

> But heat should be tackled multiple ways:
> A) produce less (cpu, gpu, disk)

The trouble with various power reduction techniques is that they're,
often, counter-performance (e.g. turning the disk off, or other idle
hardware off, that takes significant time to awaken).  Dynamic CPU speed
changes are a different matter, being easier to make rapid changes, but
probably not making as much of a contribution to power and heat
management as you might want.  Not to mention that on a busy computer,
they're not going to get put into slow/quiet/power-save modes.

> b) internal disposure (alu-case instead of iron, ducts for air)

Computers can be made with more ventilation, but that does require
careful planning.  You couldn't just perforate the case, because that
would disrupt airflow patterns (the internal fans usually rely on the
case as a duct, so air flows past everything, rather than just taking
the shortest route and bypassing some things), and you make the computer
susceptible to spilled objects getting inside it (liquid, or otherwise).

> c) environmental conditions (cooler room)

Here's a big problem with the current system (basic fan cooling).  It's
dependent on the ambient temperature being cool enough that the fan
cooling will be effective.  In some locales, the ambient temperature is
already very high.

-- 
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