Heat/Dust issues
Posted: Sat Aug 31, 2013 10:00 pm
I've moved to a new town in the last 6 months or so. Not the most attractive place on the planet, but the work is good. Anyway, the place is hot (>45oC in the summer) and during the day temperatures avg. just over 30oC inside (old, clunky aircon). The other problem is the iron ore dust (mining town). My old HTPC that was working well up until we moved now sounds similar to a jet passing overhead while it is idling. I opened it up and did my best to clean out all the red fuzz covering the components with little improvement. It doesn't seem to cope with the higher temps and even at night (~20-25oC ambient) it is still quite noisy.
So I want to build a new HTPC rig which will primarily be used for movies and surfing the web. I also don't have a lot of space to play with, so I'm looking at a mini-ITX build. What I'm aiming for is a case that has a small foot-print, with low air velocity (hopefully to minimise dust intake) and a filter over the intake. Maybe a positive pressure system? I'm not sure if I'm using the right terms. I've done a bit of research and have pieced together this system -
Case - Silverstone FT03B-Mini
PSU - Silverstone ST45SF-G 450W SFX
MoBo - Asus Z87I-Pro
CPU - Intel i5 4570
CPU Cooler - Corsair H90 140mm CPU cooler
I'll pick up an SSD (samsung evo?) and about 8Gb of memory to go with it. I have a Xonar Essence that I want to put into the PCIe slot so I need to be sure that the heat sink will not obstruct that.
I'm not sure about any particular component, though I like the look of the case. The PSU is supposed to be noisy at higher loads, but I'm hoping that with the ITX and no GPU it shouldn't get into that range. The MoBo is supposed to have good WiFi inbuilt, but I'm not an expert... and I was looking for energy efficiency and slightly better inbuilt graphics capability in the haswell processor. And, lastly, the CPU cooler was chosen due to the fact that it is unlikely to obstruct the PCIe slot, it's got a 140mm fan (which I'm happy to swap for another), and I'm hoping that a water cooled system will have a better chance at functioning in the environment that I'm in. I understand that a air cooled system can be quieter, but this is likely in more optimal environs with a big, roomy case...
If any of my reasoning is flawed let me know
Thanks all.
So I want to build a new HTPC rig which will primarily be used for movies and surfing the web. I also don't have a lot of space to play with, so I'm looking at a mini-ITX build. What I'm aiming for is a case that has a small foot-print, with low air velocity (hopefully to minimise dust intake) and a filter over the intake. Maybe a positive pressure system? I'm not sure if I'm using the right terms. I've done a bit of research and have pieced together this system -
Case - Silverstone FT03B-Mini
PSU - Silverstone ST45SF-G 450W SFX
MoBo - Asus Z87I-Pro
CPU - Intel i5 4570
CPU Cooler - Corsair H90 140mm CPU cooler
I'll pick up an SSD (samsung evo?) and about 8Gb of memory to go with it. I have a Xonar Essence that I want to put into the PCIe slot so I need to be sure that the heat sink will not obstruct that.
I'm not sure about any particular component, though I like the look of the case. The PSU is supposed to be noisy at higher loads, but I'm hoping that with the ITX and no GPU it shouldn't get into that range. The MoBo is supposed to have good WiFi inbuilt, but I'm not an expert... and I was looking for energy efficiency and slightly better inbuilt graphics capability in the haswell processor. And, lastly, the CPU cooler was chosen due to the fact that it is unlikely to obstruct the PCIe slot, it's got a 140mm fan (which I'm happy to swap for another), and I'm hoping that a water cooled system will have a better chance at functioning in the environment that I'm in. I understand that a air cooled system can be quieter, but this is likely in more optimal environs with a big, roomy case...
If any of my reasoning is flawed let me know
Thanks all.