Cooling air circulation question

If you have a computer in a hot, humid room (like mine, ugh), won't the intake fan just be pulling in hot air and make the inside of the machine even hotter, or does the intake fan actually cool down the air before it hits the CPU?

Insufficient data to give a concrete answer. Because...: this really is an equation which relates to velocity, volume, etc. of the airflow as well as the ambient temperatures and humidity.

But, a more generalized answer is that no matter how muggy it is outside the box, the modern PC will otherwise be MUCH HOTTER inside the box than ANY outside ambient temperature. Also, the fact that the cooling fan accelerates the air that it's pulling in means that the air will HAVE to cool down a little (2nd law of thermodynamics).

So bottom line...: does the cooling system work less efficiently in a very hot and humid environment than it would in a dry cool environment? Of course. Does that mean that you shouldn't run a cooling system? Of course not. But it's probably in your best interest to invest in really good fans, and more than one, to get an advantage over your difficult conditions. In my opinion, when buying fans, larger and slower is better than smaller and faster.

Hope this helps a little...;)

the hotter your PC runs the more liable it is to gives you strange behavior, like rebooting on its own, or very slow operation.

I live in Maui where its 85 degrees pretty much all year around, before I lived in a dusky house with no AC it was pretty humid and hot all around my computers hated me pretty much they never worked efficiently until I invested in an AC unit. Now its a little more spendy on my electric bill but my home stays aroun 65-70 degrees an my PC's are loving it. They are faster and overall better performing. No more LAG or weird operation!

The colder it is the better the performance. a CPU can run at Subzero temperatures to it maximum potential.

if you don't want to buy an AC unit they make cases that do Subzero temps. or at least cooler then what the surrounding temps are inside/outside the PC.

VapoChill Series

We have one, but my dad's a cheapskate and keeps the turn-on temp at 78º. My room's the hottest one in the house in the summer. I hope my new cooling case will help a bit, as I'm getting into online gaming for the first time.

expect allot of lag in video performance because when playing Newer Games online and you have a very low ping - under 50- and your puter is chugging thats video lag, your card kicks in and burns even hotter when you play games because its no longer using the 2d spec (unless your playing Diablo :) ) it uses the entire power of the card.

Do you have a window in your room? perhaps you can do this the ghetto way, pretend your room is the insisde of your computer, put a fan that is the size of your window or if you have several windows then buy some more fans and stick them in the space above the 2 panes.

if only one window keep the door open and put the fan in the window try to seal the sides where there is a gap the best way you can, but point the direction of the fan out the window and have it blowing out the window, that will be your exahaust fan.

if you have more then one window then you can have one fan blowing in and the other blowing out circulating inside the room keeping it cooler - Much cooler. when you have the AC going and you have the sealed fans going but your not losing much Conditioning and the AC isn't producing more cold air either its right about the same as it always was, it also won't use as much if not anymore electricity that it did when your room was not fan circulated.

You mean lag's caused by overheating? I thought it was network problems. :( Hopefully the cooling case will help me with my gaming. Maybe if my machine's too hot, that'd explain why I always get killed in UT, because I can't react fast enough. You can only react as fast as your comp will let you.

Lag is also created when the worst connection is there. When everyone but one person has ping of < 100ms and the other has 3500ms ping, it makes a world of difference. Then the game is like a drug induced world. People continously walk forward, then suddenly rise in the air and fall to death. Then you emply one whole drum of an M60 into the guys chest and do nothing while the enemy puts 2 shots into you and you drop. or magically you throw three grenades when you only have one. Drifting off there... My beast with a geforce 5200 128 mb ram blah blah runs older games (5 years or so) with some stutter online, but I play BF vietnam and it plays almost flawlessly the whole time...

That'd explain why sometimes I'll be shooting people over and over and they just shoot me once and I die.

it would be a definite combination of clusters.

try to log on to a server when your ping is below 50 :). however that will never be possible if your on dial up :(