"drhowarddrfine" wrote in message...
> It just dawned on me that a water cooling kit/parts would make
> a great Christmas gift for my son but I think it won't solve
> his problem.
A badly made/assembled liquid cooling solution could also cause major
problems, so be a wee bit careful!
> He has an AMD 3Ghz cpu and his whole room heats up pretty
> bad during the summer.
His PC will only be dissipating 140 watts or so of heat at outside. This
alone won't make a huge difference to the ambient temperature of a
reasonably sized room.
> I thought water cooling would be the neat way to reduce all
> the fan noise and heat
It won't reduce the amount of heat dissipated into the room. If anything a
water cooling solution will increase the efficiency of the heat removal from
the CPU - and thus even more of it will be radiated out into the room.
> but here are my thoughts which I'd appreciate
> you confirming:
>
> 1) He'll still need a fan for the radiator so the noise may not go
> down that much.
Corrrect. Whether the noise will reduce depends entirely on whether the fans
on the radiator are quieter than whatever he's using at the moment. As water
cooling radiators tend to come with large, low speed fans, it is possible
that a water cooling solution may create a net reduction in noise levels,
but this would depend on the components chosen and the existing solution.
> 2) The heat from his cpu has to go somewhere so it will still
> be in the room.
Yes, and as mentioned above there may be more heat dissipated into the room
via the water cooler than there is via the air only solution. However, again
as mentioned, I tend to wonder how much the PC is actually contributing to
this warming during the "summer months". If the PC *was* largely to blame,
wouldn't the room be warm during winter as well?
> 3) So the only way to get rid of the heat in the room would
> be to mount the radiator outside the room.
That's one option, yes. However, whether it's a practical proposition is
something only you can answer.
Mounting the radiator externally would obviously require a waterproofed
fan - and fans sold for PC use tend not to be.
> Is there a good way to extract all that heat?
Like I said, I doubt the heat output of the PC box alone will be enough to
superheat his room. Does he have a CRT monitor and/or TV set, and a couple
of incandescent lightbulbs in there? If so all of these will be puttin' out
more heat than the PC case itself.
> If it can't be done then it can't be done.
Of course it can be done, but the questions are whether it's a step that's
practical for you to take, and indeed whether it's going to achieve what you
hope it will.
--
Richard Hopkins
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
(replace nospam with pipex in reply address)
The UK's leading technology reseller
www.dabs.com >> Stay informed about: Please confirm my Qs about water cooling 
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