Opinion?

[ANoland]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/pcmods/cooling/717a/

I was thinking about getting one of these for my system.. I've never done anything big to my system, certainly never done water cooling.. and I'm antsy thinking about that even. So, I was curious if any of you have heard anything, or tried this. Supposedly it can cool up to 30 degrees celsius. My system has four drive bays.. so plenty of space..

And curious.. if you guys can give me information or point me to somewhere on the web on how these things work and what they do... :-P not sure what it's really called.. so I can't google it.. lol. A cooly fan controller temp thingy?

http://www.thinkgeek.com/pcmods/cooling/6411/

thanks for atleast reading

[Darthtanion]

Re: Opinion?

Your bay cooler should only be a consideration if you have horrible airflow to begin with. Proper internal cooling (with air at least) is accomplished by bringing in cool air from the low/front portion of the case and having it travel through and be expelled from the upper/rear area of the case. This is one reason that cable management is so important in modern computers. Being that the bay cooler will be mounted in a 5.25" drive bay... located in the upper front portion of the case... there will be minimal effect for cooling. Also, if you have decent cooling to begin with, this can actually hinder your airflow and cause worse cooling. If you're dead set against water, then work on good airflow in the enclosure. If the case simply won't allow this, you can either get another case or modify the current one to allow for optimal airflow and cooling.

As to the Aerogate device, it is a combination rheostat/thermal monitoring device that allows you to set a fan to a thermal probe and also sounds an alarm if the temperatures get higher than you want (at least it looked like the audible model). These devices are more entertaining than functional as a rule since they like to automate your cooling; they send more power to the fan associated to the thermal probe that is reading higher than you want. There are pros and cons to this sort of device, but if you're the kind of person who juat wants to install it and forget it, it may be something to look into.

[ANoland]

Re: Opinion?

Well... the fan controller atleast looks cool :P lol, I was just curious.. I just don't like the thought of near all my components.. :P Thanks for your input :D My comp is a work in progress here... slowly but surely will rise to decent specs :)

[Darthtanion]

Re: Opinion?

If it makes you feel ebtter, it took me several years before I finally went with a water solution. Now that I have installed water on two of my systems and a peltier on the third, I'll probably never go back to conventional cooling. With the increased output of modern processors, heat is more an issue than ever before. Water is a much quieter cooling method and I always make sure to run the water setup outside the system for 24 hours to make sure it doesn't leak. From there its all good.

[Terry East]

Re: Opinion?

Don't go with the AeroGate 2 by any means. One of the four fans it controls is built into it and it's noisy. I replaced mine with the AeroGate 3. Four seperate fans can be attached. Alarms can be activated, each fan independantly controlled. Also, four temp sensors. However, there is no provision to increase fan speed automatically when a set temp is reached.Anyone know of a controller that allows automatic increasing of fan speed with higher temps? And then lowering back down?

[Darthtanion]

Re: Opinion?

http://www.tweaktown.com/document.php?dType=review&dId=606

[Terry East]

Re: Opinion?

Thanks! Looks pretty good, too bad about the settings not saving during reboot. I'm gong to follow up on it.

[Darthtanion]

Re: Opinion?

I have heard that newer revisions of this rheo answered this concern, but I haven't seen it with my own eyes so I can't vouch for this.