LOCOBOX© v.1.3 PC Cooling Improvements


			Part 1-2-3 - beta version (Last update 20-05-05) Read Mr.Handy's safety manual


	What to do if you have a toaster instead of a Pc? take extra measures for cooling it, try to locate and eliminate as many heat sources as possible, shut down you hot pc and disconnect it from the AC outlet as a prevention against "ESC" (electrostatic discharge) touch the ac power supply with your palm wide open, before proceed.




	With the power off and the hardware still warm, open the case and locate by touch any warm areas inside, take extra precautions when doing this, the use of anti-static straps will help. Most common heat sources are represented below in a traffic light scheme. If you can't add an extra fan for any reason (lack of space or energy) you have an alternative, isolate the heat by placing heatsinks on specific areas (Fig.1).





	The cd-rom, the motherboard, floppy and some of the secondary hardware as capture or sound cards (PCI) are all devices that did not represent a threat to your CS (Cooling System) some beacuse of their metallic composition even acts as big heatsinks (C) like those old cd-rom drives.



	Graphic cards and ram modules are the perfect example of these heat sources to name a few. Fanless from factory and some times depending on a heatsink (C) they didn't demand such cooling power as the cpu, never the less if your gear is overclocked or modified in some way, keeping this devices at the lower temperature possible is a must (fig.2).



	The mayor threat to your CS: the ac power supply, processor, some of the chipsets and even those high speed h.d.d drives. For the first I strongly suggest to change it for a double fan power supply, for the processor it would be better to improve the sometimes lame thermal solution included but for the chipset and H.D.D's large heatsinks (C) and the proper compound (B) would be just fine (read further optimizations).




	A heatsink (HS) is a one piece metallic alloy that acts as a simple radiator isolating heat by applying the temperature transfer principle (fig.3) as a norm one can say that the bigger the piece the better the heat transfer but there are more aspects to consider. The alloy determines the refresh rate, different materials will refresh at different rates is better if the alloy is a mix of aluminium or copper. The importance of the shape lies in the disposition of the "nails" the more and the taller the best, believe it or not the color determines how fast the HS is refreshed, the best are always the bluish anodized HS, and finally the compound which is a putty made of pulverized zinc shavings and an inert material that allows heat transfer took place between the chip (heat source) and the HS. lets take a look how this principle works:.





	The graphic below this paragraph shows how a basic fan-heatsink installation should be, notice that whenever you install a HS there should be a mounting for better results, gluing the HS to the chip (small pieces only) would be fine as a prevention just make sure it won't fall. Keep this as a rule when using hetasinks always use a compound beetwen the chip and the HS fail to follow this rule will lead into bad heat transfer an a possible chip meltdown , if possible try to use colored aluminium (reddish or bluish) if not standard gray is better than nothing.

Let's start by placing a HS over the chipset or add a bigger one if it already has one installed, as the second largest chip on the mobo inside the case this chip will heat up as much as the processor even more due the fact that this one does not have any fan on, add if possible a 4 cm fan over this chip's HS.

The Gpu: well nowdays this chip already has its own HS & fan, even some ram chips on this specialized board has HS's but if not there're appropiated pieces and mountings for this card.

You'll see that the third heat producer inside the case is the hard disk if you are a SCSI or SATA happy owner you must know that these speed demons may run really hot, the solution I found under $20 was a big anodized HS with two frontal 4cm fans and a rack that mounts on a 5¼ bay.

Ram dimms can also be refreshed by clip shaped alumi-nium pieces that are in permanent contact with the chips on both sides of the board, this cheap implementation will prevent high temperature peaks during intense ram activity such as rendering or video edition.

If you squeeze your hardware to the last Mhz cicle (Amateur OCer) you must protect the cpu from melting down, forget about the factory installed thermal solution it won't be enough, look for a more adecuated solution like a bigger HS with double fans or even heatpipe technology.


	Lets see what we have learned, the configuration of an air-based cooling system stands on the laws of heat exchange and the best and cheapest way to achieve it is by combining fans, heatsinks and compounds where possible on certain devices in the computer. Keeping the temperature as low as possible will not only prevent the O.S from sudden crash but will also boost the whole system performance.