Cooling issue

Technology and Gaming
#1

Okay guys, I have a cooling issue with my gpu. When playing F1 2011, it likes to crash my computer, it reaches about 75 degrees. Only that game though.

Anyway here’s a little diagram of my PC’s cooling. I have 2 fans on the side of the case, they’re not pictured but the red arrows are at about the right heights. Of course direction of the arrows relates to the intake/exhaust of the fans.

I guess the issue here is the side fans; They’re tri speed ones, atm set on low, because they can be pretty damn loud. They have filters on them for dust, but does this reduce how effective they are? The bottom one feels like air is being pushed back though it, maybe a combination of the filter and the gpu blowing towards it. The gpu has one of those fans that radiates the air outwards in all directions.

SO I was thinking either turn up the fan speeds(on the side OR on the gpu), and have a loud computer, or making that bottom fan an exhaust fan, to help pull the hot air away from the gpu, instead of acting against the gpu fan. But that would mean only one intake fan on the computer, would this increase it’s overall temperature by a significant amount?

fyi, I have no other cooling issues; the cpu cooler is new, I don’t see temps over 45 on that.

EDIT: I guess the card is a XFX HD5750, if it matters.

#2

Get a separate fan for GPU, and put it somehow. Some cases have dedicated screw holes for fans.

#3

Do you have the same issue with the side of the case or dust filters removed?
Maybe there isn’t enough airflow with the dust filters on. Just by looking at the diagram, im seeing two intake fans that will have something (filters) slowing down the flow of air and two unobstructed outtake fans.

Is there room for another intake fan near the HDD’s?
There doesn’t look to be much room left in that case though for the air to move around in.

Also, have you tried a large fan in place of the two smaller ones? It can move just as much air at a lower RPM making it much quieter. I have a 12cm at the back, a 21 at the front and another 21cm at the top of my setup and it is very quiet.

#4

I’ll experiment with removing the filters tomorrow. It would be a shame if that was a cause, I only fitted them last week with the cpu cooler; I was thinking it’s better to occasionally clean the filters than have to clean all the fans and parts just as often. I’ll experiment with filter position too. Atm it’s case>fan>filter, maybe airflow off of the fan blades would be better if it was case>filter>fan. And in theory it’d still be clean. And I can also make the fans slightly shallower in that case, which is always good in a tight case.

Also I do like the idea of larger fans = less noise, I was adamant that all the fans I buy be the largest the case fits; but on that note I’m not wanting to butcher the case to fit a really big fan on the side. Also the blue fan in the back was in the front to begin with, but with sideways drive bays, it was so utterly useless where it was, I moved it.

#5

I wouldn’t make the lowest fan in the case an exhaust fan. Principles of convection apply; hot air rises, so the coolest air will typically be down at the bottom of the case. You don’t want to suck that out; you want to channel it upwards.

#6

Just thought I´d add that no GPU in the world would crash at 75c something´s not right there.

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