Passive Cooling with a Box Fan!

Like everybody else on this thread I want to cool my pc down. However, unlike the rest of you guys I just had an inspiration! It began like this: It's Mississppi and it got really hot and I bought a box fan for 10$ at Home Depot. Instead of using it on myself I decided to pop the side panel off my case and stick the fan next to it. The fan was a perfect fit, and all my temperatures dropped by 3-5 celsius as I remember except for my cpu. My cpu started climbing gradually to well above normal which was well above anything I was comfortable with. The cpu fan speed also ratcheted up about 1000 rpms. I then realized that the box fan must be interfering with the cpu fan, so I turned the box fan around to suck air out instead of blow air into the case. All my temps dropped nicely. Now I do this permanently and get 26-30c cpu, 39-43c gpu, and 50c chipset. So I began flipping out over the chipset, which has no fan only aluminium heatsink, and became determined to get fans all round. However, I am extremely loath ditch my box fan. It gives me very good temperatures at its lowest setting and it can practically levitate at the highest setting. However, I can't use it as effectively in conjunction with other case fans as all the smaller airflows get chocked off by the giant box fan airflow. So here is my great inspiration, and if you read the title of this thread you now understand what it is, use only high quality copper heatsinks for all my parts and use the box fan to cool the whole thing down at once. I attached a picture of my current setup to give you an idea of how this works. So what do you chaps think eh?

 

Where is the picture?

Passive, as I understand it, means absolutely no active. The fan in the psu counts as one. Until you get rid of every fan in the case, it's not totally passive.

 

I am way ahead of you, my #2 Folding Rig does not even have a case. :-D

I have seen a mod simular to what I think you are talking about. Should work pretty well, using a fan blowing in is a good way to see if you are getting enough airflow if you have heat problems. I kinda like the idea, a box fan can move some air and is not as high pitched and annoying as some computer fans. And ahh, your pict don't work...

E

 

Rofl, your #2 is just hilarious, but mine's a micro atx also so I can't laugh too much. I just tried flipping the box fan around to blow air on the parts and not suck it through them, and I'm getting good temps. In celsius: GPU is 42-44, CPU 25-28, and my chipset is way down to 36/37. My fan speed is up about 200rpms though. Okay, so I admit that "passive" might be somewhat too mainstream. Let's call it a "unified theory of cooling." Anyway, here goes for the pic again.

 

If the noise is ok, and heck, with all the high pitched fans i have running, I might try your method of cooling. The little fan I have on #2 is ok with a light overclock.

How is the noise verses a bunch of case fans?

E

 

I did this a few weeks ago, CPU 36C, HDD #1 33C, HDD #2 34C, HDD #3 33C.

I can barely hear the fan on low.

 

Lol, Buck. Those hard drives really did it to you now eh? I am disappointed in the high cpu heat. As I said below, mine generally stays at 27 during idle. But keep in mind that both of us, judging from your picture, still have fans on the components themselves; though, of course, case fans proper become superfluous. If sound is the big issue, then I have to agree that a box fan is very soothing.