cooling 3.5

Case fans

Pull cool air through the system from one side and pushes the hot air out the other end.

The motherboard layout

Contributes to how well a case can works. Wiring, devices, and power shouldn’t be in the way.

On board fans

Are connected to adapter cards. They’re there to cool adapter cards down.

On board fans may be

Bulky so when installing an adapter card with an onboard fan make sure there’s room.

Onboard fans are

Usually seen on high end graphics cards.

standard fan sizes

80mm, 120mm or 200mm

Fans are often variable speeds

They run at slow speeds while cool and faster as computer heats up

Passive cooling

No fans no noise.

Heatsink

Takes heat from component and spreads it across many individual fins to increase surface are for cooling.

Careful!!! Heatsinks

Get very hot and can burn you easily.

Thermal pad

Conducts head like thermal paste but without mess.

A thermal pad

Isn’t as affective but makes good connection. Not reusable.

For CPU

Thermal pad/paste.

After thermal pad

Place heat sink

After heatsink is placed

Fan is placed on top.

Liquid cooling

Coolant is circulated through computer like in automobiles.

Liquid cooling is usually used in

High end systems, gaming, graphics, and overclocking a system.

Passive cooling uses

Heatsinks and other methods to cool hardware w/o mechanical devices like fans or pumps.

Active cooling

Entirely dependent on energy consumption in order to operate.