How to cool Ceton?

[Oingofan]

Anyone using heatsinks?

[frijones]

I balanced a 120mm fan over the Ceton PCIe and my video card.  Dropped the temps by almost 20^oC.

[babgvant]

What kind of temps are you seeing? If they are too high, I’d try to add a little bit of active cooling that pulls air across the board before using a heatsink.

[Oingofan]

I’ll have to check my actual temps, but it was hot enough to burn my finger.  I already have 4 fans in it: P/S fan, left/right case fans, and the CPU fan.  They are all fans designed for being quiet yet move some air.  I put my hand at the back of the P/S and can feel some good heat coming out.  Let me check my actual temps.  I could be worrying about nothing…thx

Wayne

[Aaron Ledger]

Just so you know what to expect, up to 65C is within spec. If you are running WMC, the current InfiniTV drivers include an add-in that allows you to check the temperature from WMC.

[Oingofan]

OK, I was able to run the diagnostics and it showed 69C and then went up to 75C.  So definitely out of spec.  I have my HTPC all bundled within a Wesena E6 case and as you can see in the pictures, the fans on each side are blocked by drives.  Suggestions?  Thx!

[Aaron Ledger]

At a glance, it appears you might be able to stick a 40 or 60mm fan on the side of the drive cage to push air onto the InfiniTV. It looks like the expansion card area is a bit of a dead zone with respect to airflow and the chassis configuration, but it should be easily rectified with the added fan.

[Oingofan]

Aaron, are you talking on the left or right of the drive cage?  On the left, there is already a fan there.  If right next to it, there is room, but there are no holes in that location.  If on the right, it would still be bypassing the expansion slot area.

[babgvant]

I think part of the problem is that the PSU is pulling air out of the case so there isn’t any pressure build up. If you have a 120MM PSU, it might be worth a shot to install that w/ the fan facing down then use both 80mm as intakes. This should cause air to exhaust out the vents over the CPU. If that doesn’t help you could also try pulling out the PCIe shield next to the card so air has an easy place to exit the case.

Another option is to build a PCIe slot cooler (I’m not aware of any low profile one you can buy). The easiest way to do that is to cut a 60mm hole in some cardboard and screw a fan to it, then use some double sided foam tape to attach it to a PCIe bracket and aim it at the tuner.

[Aaron Ledger]

Andrew’s suggestions are also good. The quickest sure fix is to add a fan to generate local airflow over the card. If you’re willing to experiment, you could also try installing both of the case fans such that they exhaust and then remove an expansion slot cover next to the InfiniTV. The idea here is that you are drawing cool air in from outside the case through the expansion area which then gets exhausted out by the fans after passing over the InfiniTV.

I’ve attached your picture with the potential fan locations. As Andrew said, cardboard, double-sided foam tape or velcro, etc. will come in handy for mounting the fan.

[Author]

Posts