Best way to route cables for cooling?

  • Thread starter Thread starter At my comp
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A

At my comp

I have been wondering if the position of the wiring in my PC is
decreasing circulation. I am running an AMD64 system, and I would like
to know if someone could post some links to examples of an ideal wiring
(the most efficient way to route the cables and power connectors) for an
AMD64 system.
 
I have been wondering if the position of the wiring in my PC is
decreasing circulation. I am running an AMD64 system, and I would like
to know if someone could post some links to examples of an ideal wiring
(the most efficient way to route the cables and power connectors) for an
AMD64 system.
Click to expand...

Generally speaking they should be neat, direct, kept
restrained (clips, wire-ties or whatever) if there's a
chance of them moving out of position towards a problem area
like a heatsink or fan. They should not be folded sharply
but rather gradual- even if you needed to fold over a ribbon
cable, a bend could take a 180' turn from being a sharp
creased fold or by having a few extra millimeters of gradual
curving. Wires should also be left alone if there is no
real reason to reroute, especially with the cheap insulation
displacement types of connectors you may introduce an
intermittent contact by repeately pulling/twisting/etc,
reconfiguring such wiring. Perhap not the first time such
is done but these connector types aren't meant for
repetitive stress.

Don't put flat ribbon cables up against fan intakes or
exhausts, and dont' route them such that they form
partitioned off walls around hot runnning parts. These
should be fairly obvious things to see, it is not really
necessary to rewire a whole system in a hope to gain a
couple of degrees... if your temps are too high the cables
are usually that last things to be looked at, IF as
mentioned above they aren't particuarly, badly routed.

Mainly the routing should keep cables out of harm's way
(like fan blades) and away from sharp edges if your case has
any exposed metal that isn't well finished or rolled over to
be a smoother edge. Power wires and plugs should never be
such an impedance to airflow that they would need
redone/changed for any cooling issue rather than safety or
esthetics. In a cramped case with multiple hard drives one
should try to avoid a staggered overlap of PATA cables such
that they block more than a cable-width of space beind a
drive- as the remaining space (total width minus cable
width) is enough for flow to cool a drive, but further
reduction could become too large. This presumes a mild
ambient (room) temperature. If the system is in a very hot
environment then additional airflow make be necessary or the
better approach- to condition the air ahead of time.

The main issues in cooling are usually the intake and
exhaust air passages, if they're open enough or mostly
obstructed (all too common on old or cheap cases), to the
extent that it limits the efficiency of installed fans,
requiring more holes or more fans, and more noise.
 
At my comp said:
I have been wondering if the position of the wiring in my PC is decreasing
circulation. I am running an AMD64 system, and I would like to know if
someone could post some links to examples of an ideal wiring (the most
efficient way to route the cables and power connectors) for an AMD64
system.
Click to expand...



What kind of case do you have?
 
kony said:
Generally speaking they should be neat, direct, kept
restrained (clips, wire-ties or whatever) if there's a
chance of them moving out of position towards a problem area
like a heatsink or fan. They should not be folded sharply
but rather gradual- even if you needed to fold over a ribbon
cable, a bend could take a 180' turn from being a sharp
creased fold or by having a few extra millimeters of gradual
curving. Wires should also be left alone if there is no
real reason to reroute, especially with the cheap insulation
displacement types of connectors you may introduce an
intermittent contact by repeately pulling/twisting/etc,
reconfiguring such wiring. Perhap not the first time such
is done but these connector types aren't meant for
repetitive stress.

Don't put flat ribbon cables up against fan intakes or
exhausts, and dont' route them such that they form
partitioned off walls around hot runnning parts. These
should be fairly obvious things to see, it is not really
necessary to rewire a whole system in a hope to gain a
couple of degrees... if your temps are too high the cables
are usually that last things to be looked at, IF as
mentioned above they aren't particuarly, badly routed.

Mainly the routing should keep cables out of harm's way
(like fan blades) and away from sharp edges if your case has
any exposed metal that isn't well finished or rolled over to
be a smoother edge. Power wires and plugs should never be
such an impedance to airflow that they would need
redone/changed for any cooling issue rather than safety or
esthetics. In a cramped case with multiple hard drives one
should try to avoid a staggered overlap of PATA cables such
that they block more than a cable-width of space beind a
drive- as the remaining space (total width minus cable
width) is enough for flow to cool a drive, but further
reduction could become too large. This presumes a mild
ambient (room) temperature. If the system is in a very hot
environment then additional airflow make be necessary or the
better approach- to condition the air ahead of time.

The main issues in cooling are usually the intake and
exhaust air passages, if they're open enough or mostly
obstructed (all too common on old or cheap cases), to the
extent that it limits the efficiency of installed fans,
requiring more holes or more fans, and more noise.
Click to expand...

I untangled many cables, and everything appears to be in order. Wires
very close to the CPU were carefully tied away, and I also moved ones
that were hanging near the video card to the case's front interior. It's
definitely cooler now that the wires practically run like bundles of
spaghetti.

(By the way, this is an Antec Sonata, which is the best case that I have
ever had and would probably get again, but this has been very frustrating.)

The online seller assembled and tested the barebones (case, mobo, cpu,
and memory). While reorganizing my wires, I found a "PSU sensor
connector" that they neglected to connect. Luckily, my power supply has
been so quiet and cool that I never cared to monitor its speed. Does the
monitoring wire have anything to do with making the fan run better?

I am confused about whether or not the exhaust fan should automatically
activate at this time of the year or not (much cooler now than summer).
Since it has been cooler, the fan doesn't seem to work at full speed or
else it won't run at all. It turns on if I touch a blade quickly, and
today it needed a couple of gentle spins. The exhaust air is cool and
almost quiet and it isn't running at full speed like in the summer where
it would make a faint vacuum noise. Is this type of fan supposed to turn
on automatically regardless of how cool the system is? If so, is it
stuck and need grease or is it probably the wire?
 
At my comp said:
I untangled many cables, and everything appears to be in order. Wires very
close to the CPU were carefully tied away, and I also moved ones that were
hanging near the video card to the case's front interior. It's definitely
cooler now that the wires practically run like bundles of spaghetti.

(By the way, this is an Antec Sonata, which is the best case that I have
ever had and would probably get again, but this has been very
frustrating.)

The online seller assembled and tested the barebones (case, mobo, cpu, and
memory). While reorganizing my wires, I found a "PSU sensor connector"
that they neglected to connect. Luckily, my power supply has been so quiet
and cool that I never cared to monitor its speed. Does the monitoring wire
have anything to do with making the fan run better?

I am confused about whether or not the exhaust fan should automatically
activate at this time of the year or not (much cooler now than summer).
Since it has been cooler, the fan doesn't seem to work at full speed or
else it won't run at all. It turns on if I touch a blade quickly, and
today it needed a couple of gentle spins. The exhaust air is cool and
almost quiet and it isn't running at full speed like in the summer where
it would make a faint vacuum noise. Is this type of fan supposed to turn
on automatically regardless of how cool the system is? If so, is it stuck
and need grease or is it probably the wire?
Click to expand...




The real question here is temps.? Are they in the acceptable range? Unless
you have a couple of flat ribbon cables totally blocking air-flow you're not
going to see that much difference, maybe a couple of ºC at most. It sounds
like your system has things well under control. How about giving us your
average MB/CPU/and room temps?
 
Alceryes said:
The real question here is temps.? Are they in the acceptable range? Unless
you have a couple of flat ribbon cables totally blocking air-flow you're not
going to see that much difference, maybe a couple of ºC at most. It sounds
like your system has things well under control. How about giving us your
average MB/CPU/and room temps?
Click to expand...

The temperatures don't seem to be the issue because the fans are pushing
cool air and I have even felt inside of the case. It has been pretty
quiet all day since I reorganized my cables.

My room is the warmest in the house all year, so stating my thermostat's
temp setting won't help.

According to my CMOS (after 7 hours today):
CPU - 51 (My old XP1800 ran mid-50's in the winter and usually early
60's in summer and could easily heat up more and reboot in muggy weather.)
SYS - 36
PWM - 37

Like I said, the guys who assembled the barebones didn't hook up the
sensor fans except for the CPU's. 3000 RPM was reported.

Is the exhaust fan not running as high now because of the cool temps, or
should it always be on???
 
Is the exhaust fan not running as high now because of the cool temps, or
should it always be on???
Click to expand...

Your exhaust fan probably has a thermistor on it. It'll change according to
what the temp inside the case is.
--


"I don't cheat to survive. I cheat to LIVE!!"
- Alceryes
 
Like I said, the guys who assembled the barebones didn't hook up the
sensor fans except for the CPU's. 3000 RPM was reported.
Click to expand...

That's fairly common, and is necessary on some systems.
Many boards with early bios (or even later bios) have
problems sensing low RPM fans. Most decent power supplies
have circuitry that automatically throttles the fan(s),
therefore resuling in a situation where fan slows,
motherboard sensing is erratic or causes an alarm.

Is the exhaust fan not running as high now because of the cool temps, or
should it always be on???
Click to expand...

Don't know, depends on the fan & sensor... either is
possible.
 
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