Cooling InfiniTV Tuners - Large solid heatsink?

[tomtoth]

Have a pair of Ceton's in HTPC case. Ceton's occasional are over temp. I have put passive copper heatsinks on each card, in addition to fans to the side AND directly on top of cards. I have 4 PCI-E slots, which are loaded:
Ceton | intel nic | Ceton | GT430

Now, with fans on high speed.. Temp's stay below 70, but the noise is quite loud. Now I understand that water cooling just moves the fans to a radiator, but I'm thinking they can be quieter.. but I'm curious if there are any plates that fit ceton tuner cards. I think my heat issues are because of the proximity of video and ceton tuners.

I realize that it may be cheaper just to get a bigger case/mobo with more PCI-e slots to spread them apart.. but have a HTPC 5000B so its kinda of one of the largest footprints for an HTPC.

When I searched for ceton cooling.. it seems the copper heastsinks and extra fans is the de-facto standard, but nothing about water.

Ideas/suggestions?

[jerryt]

My suggestion would be to try ducting airflow to the heat sinks.

I was recently trying to cool two hard drive in a small case. I could not find a fan big enough to keep them under 100F while in use on hot days. Thought about building some rather involved water cooling set up, but tried ducting the air flow that was there directly onto the hard drive. Huge difference.

Ducting can be built from cardboard or plastic sheets. A little bit like a craft project.

[barnabas1969]

I'm not using the Ceton right now, but... The temps on my Ceton were always below the max (usually in the high 50's), but I tried the little copper heat sinks anyway. They didn't change my temps at all. My Ceton was also right next to a fanless GT-430 video card. I have an 80mm fan running slowly, pulling fresh air from outside the case, blowing directly on the two slots where the video card is and the Ceton was. It works fine and is silent. If yours is climbing above 65C, I suggest making sure that you have enough fresh air being pulled into the case... preferably blowing directly on the Ceton.

BTW, your case is nowhere near "one of the largest footprints for an HTPC". Mine is almost twice as tall as yours.

Oh... and I wouldn't touch water cooling with a 10' pole... especially not for a TV tuner.

[erkotz]

I can't say I would really recommend water cooling the InfiniTV, it should be completely unnecessary, and I honestly doubt you will be successful at it as there isn't one specific hot component, unlike a GPU or CPU. Not to mention water damage isn't covered under the warranty

How hot is your case's ambient temperature? Is it possible you have a pocket with no airflow where the InfiniTV is? The InfiniTV really doesn't put out that much heat, and should be fine with essentially any airflow.

[tomtoth]

What prompts this, is I'm good for 2 weeks, computer on 24x7, then all of a sudden, I'll get "not enough tuners available", and sure enough only 1 card tuner is being seen, I'll reboot, and then I'll see the other tuner at like 76 or 79C so I assume it overheated someway somehow. I've moved my cards around so ceton's aren't back to back. I have rear and top cooling of the Cetons. I also got the fan that erkotz suggested (in a post somewhere), that goes right on top of the card,(using the rear plate mounting screws) I can't remember the brand off hand, but I thought that would be fix. I adjusted cards and fans again, found that I think a majority of my fan noise was coming from the 45day old GT430 video card I just stuck in it.. So then again, the bad fan on the GT430 may contribute to higher temps in case.

I know under 65 is normal temp, but it just seems like it gets quite hot. I'm going to try a ducted solution like previous poster suggested.. I don't think the stick on copper heat sinks worked like I wanted them too...


Anyone use "Arctic Silver ASTA-7G (2-PC-SET) Premium Silver Thermal Adhesive" ? These seems like it may work well to attach a heatsink/fan combo directly to the chipsets?

[tomtoth]

Having ceton heat issues again.. So inspecting the card, I removed the metal piece.. I see 5 chips. Now, does anyone see how gluing (using Arctic Silver ASTA-7G) a larger solid copper heatsink across all those chips can hurt? As I see it right now, the metal does nothing..

[STC]

I feel you may be going about this the wrong way.-
You should perhaps look at venting the warm PC air out more efficiently.
What is the ambient air temp where the PC is located?

I only have one InfiniTV. I keep everything cool with a 120mm fan hot glued to the base of the chassis aimed at an angle to the installed video card and InfiniTV. It is silent and moves a lot of air inside the case. I also have a PCI slot blower running through a rheostat (runs very quiet) that really helps to vent the chassis along with the case fans. All fans spin slow and quietly.
These things combined, mean my tuners rarely go above 50 degrees C.

[lurch66]

I have 1 Ceton with a gt430 1 slot below it. It was running 72c as well about a year ago. I mounted a pci slot fan sideways next to my pci card's so it pulled air from the cards and pushed it out the back of my case. I also installed a spot cool fan at the back of both my video and ceton card so it blows across both heat syncs where it is picked up by the pci slot fan. My temps are now in the 40c rang. If you would like me to post pic's let me know. It is a little loud but I am lucky enough to have my master closet directly be hind my entertainment wall so all my gear is in my closet.

[tomtoth]

I already have a large fan on top of cards. Mobo has 4 slots, all used, 2 ceton's, 1 intel nic, 1 gt430, I Tried moving cards around until I had the least heat, which oddly enough was next to each other. The idea for heat sink was to be more effective of blowing heat away from cards, unlike now where I Can hear the fan in another room. I'm open to new case idea's, I Was going to upgrade fans, but I wanted a quiet PC since its in my living room. This is why I originally looked at possible water cooling.. The 2 rear exhaust fans I Was thinking of replacing.. There are 2 larger side intake fans, but because of placement in entertainment center they probably don't flow enough air.. No spot for front to rear fan placement. I was looking at other cases, as its seems a few front mounted fans maybe what will help..

[STC]

I know this might seem backward, but have you considered getting a full size ATX case? With everything stuffed into that thing, I can see why you're having problems.

[STC]

-Does your PSU have a fan or is it passive?

[tomtoth]

This nMEDIAPC 5000B case actually seems quite spacey..(Wire management is a mess because I've been messing with it) I've been looking at other cases.... haven't seen anything I like... would *LOVE* a front mounted time display.. and perhaps a front mounted fan.. PSU has a fan, its an 380w earthwatts .. IT was cutting off due to heat issues last month.. but sorted that out.. I've got a micro ATX zotec mobo with a 35watt dual core intel CPU.. So if you have any case suggestions..

This looks good, even if it is 300-400$

http://www.origenae.co.kr/en/htpc_s14v.htm

[STC]

I have one of these. An Ahanix D-Vine 4. They don't make them any more but you can still find them around. I retro fitted the same nMedia display to it that you have. Brushed aluminum front plate.

[barnabas1969]

@tomtoth: Several of us have asked you what the ambient temperature is in the room where the HTPC is located. You haven't answered that question. Also, in one of your more recent posts, you mentioned that your PSU was even overheating... and that your fans can't pull in cool air because of how the PC is situated in your entertainment center.

It's important to know how warm the room is. It's also important to provide ventilation in your entertainment center. For example, you should not put the PC in a closed cabinet without any ventilation. It could also cause problems if your PC is in a cabinet that is closed on 5 sides (only open at the front or rear) and also with very little clearance above and on the sides of the PC. You need to provide a place in the cabinet for the heat to rise out of the cabinet, and for fresh air to come in to replace it. It's best if the fresh air intake is low on one side of the cabinet, and the heat exhaust is high on the other side... or to have both ends of the cabinet completely open.

[tomtoth]

I reopened thread to see peoples thoughts of directly gluing a heatsink to the multiple ceton chipsets, then using air to cool the larger area heatsink.. I can not fathom why the metal plate is where it is, and if it serves a real purpose that a directly applied heat sink couldn't do better...

@tomtoth: Several of us have asked you what the ambient temperature

75 to 78 Degrees.

It could also cause problems if your PC is in a cabinet that is closed on 5 sides (only open at the front or rear) and also with very little clearance above and on the sides of the PC.

This IS my problem, the case I have has side ventilation which doesn't help being in the entertainment center. I have top clearance with fans exhausting through the rear. This is why I'm asking if anyone has a case that has FRONT fan ventilation as many only have sides. I have actually moved this case to a diagonal position and running all fans to see if I can vent more efficiently which it does not, I ceton cards still stay 65 and up.

[CyberSimian]

I can not fathom why the metal plate is where it is, and if it serves a real purpose.

It is presumably an RF (radio frequency) shield. Its purpose is to prevent the RF radiated by all of the other components within the case being picked up by the tuners, and potentially causing interference.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

[tomtoth]

I can not fathom why the metal plate is where it is, and if it serves a real purpose.

It is presumably an RF (radio frequency) shield. Its purpose is to prevent the RF radiated by all of the other components within the case being picked up by the tuners, and potentially causing interference.

RF shield that makes sense. Though I wonder if it was removed.. if it would make that much of a difference?

[newfiend]

I feel you may be going about this the wrong way.-
You should perhaps look at venting the warm PC air out more efficiently.

I agree with this... If you’re having heat issues you need to find a more efficient way of venting the hot air out of the case. Have you thought of modding the cabinet in such a way where you could add fans to it? You need to find a way to vent all that heat out and away from the components giving off the heat.
Blowing a fan across the hot parts will help but it is not venting the hot air outward and away from the components.

Have you thought of modding the case to add an exhaust fan above the PCIe and PCI slots to suck hot air out while adding a fan toward the rear of the cards blowing across the heat sinks you added that way you could have cool air blowing across the heat sinks then up and out the exhaust port and essentially out of the case. If you could do that and add some much needed ventilation with some fans your temps should really drop. There are shops like this http://www.mnpctech.com/MnpctechBilletFanGrill.html that specialize in very nice looking grills. You could add an exhaust fan above the cards by cutting a hole in the case (measure first and make sure you can fit a fan) and add a custom grill over the cut out hole and make it look quite nice. It would be a bit of work but I think it would fix your problem. Adding more heat sinks to the Ceton card will help a little but it’s not going to fix the ventilation problem. And that's what you have IMO.
This may be a case with better ventilation to consider http://www.coolermaster.com/product.php?product_id=6056 then add this for the clock and IR http://store.antec.com/Product/accessor ... 125-1.aspx
newfiend~

[STC]

This IS my problem

This is where you need to focus then. Can you live with the HTPC outside (on top perhaps) of the cabinet? By the sounds of it all the hot air being expelled from the HTPC is just getting sucked back in again. Round and around and up the temp goes perpetually.

[tomtoth]

There are shops like this http://www.mnpctech.com/MnpctechBilletFanGrill.html that specialize in very nice looking grills. You could add an exhaust fan above the cards by cutting a hole in the case (measure first and make sure you can fit a fan) and add a custom grill over the cut out hole and make it look quite nice. It would be a bit of work but I think it would fix your problem. Adding more heat sinks to the Ceton card will help a little but it’s not going to fix the ventilation problem. And that's what you have IMO.

I like this idea, I may look into building a wood case with something like that. (But 10 to many projects as it is right now)

I would have thought that passive cooling first, then active. If I can add a large heatsink to the chipset, means there is more heat mass, and therefore needs less airflow over the heatsink to cool to acceptable temp. As of now, I need LOTS of active airflow to move heat away.f