Summer Heat and PCs - turn them off!

[FastForward]

Hi all....it's summertime for most of us and the temps are rising. I got a new quad core PC recently and noticed temps in here go up on average by 3-5 degrees c!!!

Last night I turn the PC off and came back to reasonable temps (e.g. drying tent @ 18c) instead of 25c.

Moral of the story: any farmer with a PC near their growing area should turn it off at night (or maybe sleep/hibernate it if does enough) and you should see your temps drop. Ok, so you can't help it when lights and PC are on, but it helps.

These new multi core machines are fuggin' radiators....

 

[theherbalizor]

They also consume alot of power. I have a 900w psu that really stuggles at time with all the outboard usb stuff it powers, etc.

Save alot on electric by only using when needed.

Have you tried the Thermaltake cases. This is what I have been using for years. They are brilliant, but a little loud.

 

[darookie2000]

I put it on standby or hibernate when I'm not using to save a lot of electricity (and to keep my power usage relatively stable)

 

[FastForward]

Yep, I started doing that but Vista is a piece of shit and bluescreens when I do it :(

 

[ReelBusy1]

I just shut down at night....

 

[darookie2000]

Another thing that might help your normal usage is that most newer PCs have a power save CPU mode, where it draws less (supposedly). I'll try to plug everything into the kill-a-watt later to see how much of a difference (if any) it makes.

 

[Whippleschnitz]

Don't bother with the hibernate option on Windows, it has never really worked well. You'd be better off just shutting it down. You should be able to put it into a low power sleep state by creating a custom power scheme by going to Control Panel>System & Maintenance>Power Options. This will work better than hibernate. But like you mention, just shut it down when you're not using it and you will cut the heat and electricity you're wasting.

 

[SeenTheLight]

Agree that Hibernate is crap, but Sleep works fine - as long as you have a half decent motherboard. I use Sleep on my PC every night (XP) and never have a poblem when I wake it the next day.

The Datacentre at Level 3 in London went down over the weekend cause of heat problems!! Nice that even the experts get hit!

 

[FastForward]

The Datacentre at Level 3 in London went down over the weekend cause of heat problems!! Nice that even the experts get hit!

They used to keep the doors at TeleCity open on all floors in the summer because their a/c was shite....all it needed was someone to slide into the ground or first floor with a laptop and a piece of ethernet and there's untold amount of good/badness to be done ;)