Media Center PC: Heat Issues

dj.fattysize · Post by **dj.fattysize** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 7:07 am

Hey everyone, I have a somewhat unique question that I'm hoping you can help me with:

For the past 6 months or so I have been using an old 500MHz AMD K7 computer I had lying around as a Media Center PC in my living room. I have been keeping it in a cabinet in the bottom of my entertainment center that is completely enclosed (i.e. virtually no natural airflow into the compartment with the computer). Up until now I have only been turning it on when I want to use the system and not leaving it on all the time. However, I decided that I'd like to put some money into it and plop in a bigger hard drive and maybe get a DVD burner. If I were to do this though, I would also want to make the case quiet enough so that I can keep it on all the time.

Here is my dilemma...obviously keeping the computer in a completely enclosed cabinet is not the greatest idea for heat considerations. So, I'm willing to cut exhaust holes in the back of the entertainment center, however, I'm worried that this still might not be enough. I was wondering if anyone has had any idea on the cooling requirements for a job such as this. Keep in mind that I'd still like to keep this thing quiet since it will be in my living room. I'm not opposed to (and actually I would probably prefer) building a case from scratch, however, once again, I'm not sure what kind of cooling I really need for this sort of a set up. Is it simply a matter of keeping moving air over the key components (CPU, GPU, RAM) at all times (regardless of temperature), or will I need to resort to more drastic measures?

On the plus side, the system I am using is certainly not a powerhouse as all I use it for is media stuff, so I'm hoping this might help a bit with the heat and noise:

500 MHz AMD K7
192 MB RAM
NVidia Geforce 3
Soundblaster Live 5.1
soon to be 200-250 GB HD
CD Drive
200W Power Supply

Thank in advance for any insight you can provide.

geordie · Post by **geordie** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 2:48 pm

For that sort of setup I'd guess just a hole in the back so there isn't a buildup of hot air over time would do just fine.

Just one point though - I doubt the bios of any mobo supporting a 500MHz AMD processor will be capable of seeing any more than a 120GB drive at it's full capacity.

Mar. · Post by **Mar.** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 4:00 pm

Something like that isn't going to produce a whole lot of heat. You do need openings for air to enter and escape, though.

dj.fattysize · Post by **dj.fattysize** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 11:09 am

Ok, cool, its good to know that this shouldn't be that big of an issue.

geordie - yeah, thats a really good point about the hard drive, I had completely forgotten that old motherboards couldn't support anything over 120GB. I'll have to check to see if there is a BIOS update for it...otherwise I'll just have to settle for two smaller ones rather than one large one.

teejay · Post by **teejay** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 11:42 am

My ancient VIA KT133A motherboard doesn't support 120Gb+ drives either... but most MS OSes can do logical addressing of the drives that can overcome this limitation. It's a pain to install an OS on a drive that is recognized as 120Gb and then suddenly shows as a larger disk (Windows showed the entire data partition to be corrupted and promptly tried to "repair" it, destroying 120 Gb of data in the process) but it can work. Note that Windows 2000 (Server) only supports this from Service Pack 3 and up, so if you're considering that OS, get a disk that installs SP3 or 4.

Another option would be a small system disk and a large external one through firewire/USB 2.