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Old Man Winter Is Finally Put To Use


Old Man Winter Is Finally Put To Use

Submitted by: My own creation via Submit a Kludge!

Favorite Comment: Fixer Blackmoore says, “You’re just jealous that this guy has a wider tube to the internet than you have.”

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  1. ms says:

    It should decrease temp for few degrees

  2. Edward says:

    That will do absolutely nothing, that fan is so weak that the air won’t even go half way out.

    • xzc426 says:

      I think he has a fan on the window end. Plus, hot air rises and cool air goes down. It should circulate on its own even without the fans.

      • Malisyn says:

        Forget all that. Three monitors, a G15 keyboard, random stacks of blank CDs (or are they?). Toss that knocked down dust covered fan in, which was probably the cooling system before those hoses, and it doesn’t take much imagination to see that whatever this person does with computers spends too much time doing it.

      • Damadar says:

        Sorry, just wanted to point out the irony of saying that someone spends too much time on their computer, when a keyboard can be recognized from a pretty crappy picture.

        Pot, Kettle. Meet. K.

        • Qwerty says:

          The small screen on it makes it EASY to see wich brand it is <.< it can be used for some basic texts and such, quite lame tho..

    • Stoneshop says:

      Try it, you’ll be surprised. Also, it looks to be fitted to the processor fan, so it would be pulling air in. Plus, the HSF is not your standard comes-with-the-CPU unit but some aftermarket one with a quite a bit more powerful 80 or 92mm fan.

    • James says:

      Dumb ass, its an intake fan for cool air from outside to flow to the CPU.

  3. JB says:

    Just setup the computer outside!

  4. impsonsay says:

    This may take a minute.. My computer froze.

  5. William says:

    Looking at the screen, this person appears to have sought professional advice and obviously knows what he’s doing.

  6. Wendy D says:

    I can’t wait ’til a squirrel discovers this tube and starts filling it with acorns.

    • that guy says:

      what if the squirrel tries to get his last acorn whilest the pc is running
      “vvvvvvvvvvvflsshhhhcccccc’fan falure error’*guy comes back from toilet*ok who did red paint into the tube?”

      what do you use in the summer, when its hot and you really need a good coolingsystem?

  7. Orv says:

    We have a less kludgy version of this to keep our server room cool. Hot air from the back of the server rack gets dumped directly outside, and filtered outside air comes in to replace it. Since the outside air is (nearly) always cooler than the air coming out of the rack it’s a net win.

  8. Pat says:

    While bubble wrap is a good shipping material, I’m not sure how effective it is at conducting air.

    • M says:

      I appears to be insulation a flexible silver drier tube and some PVC pipe

      • Stoneshop says:

        Surely that tube needs insulation, otherwise the blistering cold outside air flowing through the tube would instantly freeze the user’s toes right off if they happen to touch this rig.

      • BigMal27 says:

        Since most insulation works at trapping a pocket of gas/air (clothes, fiberglass in walls, double-paned windows), bubble wrap is a great idea, as long as neither side is hot enough to melt it.

        As such, I wouldn’t try this on the dryer hose while still attached to the dryer, even if it does keep the room/house cooler in the summer.

  9. RovingRanger says:

    That’s a good idea, actually. It beats opening the window itself because if you accidently leave it open the whole room is about 20 degrees the next day.

  10. eB says:

    No way – I run our Mac Pro and external drives with extra rendering projects in the winter just for the added heat! My 8×8′ office gets to 80˚ in no time!

  11. LiveAlohaEveryday says:

    Sorry, I was distracted by fire producing entangled design of power wires. Oh, there it is. Should add hanging support from shelves and yellow caution tape.

  12. NeedPlumbing says:

    For those who think the internet is a series of tubes…

    • ck159 says:

      Clearly it is.
      Not only that, but this tube has been carefully constructed to steal the neighbors internet while carefully insulating the whatever-internet-juice-is to prevent additional deterioration.

  13. Blackmoore says:

    You’re just jealous that this guy has a wider tube to the internet than you have.

  14. saintknowitall says:

    More amazing is that the 12 items he has plugged into the wall outlet hasn’t popped the circuit breaker.

    • Skyfire says:

      You’d be surprised. I have at least one outlet where the plugs are on two different breakers. Then again, he might have swapped in a bigger breaker

      • Stoneshop says:

        If it’s mostly peripherals, then it’s no big deal. The monitors are the biggest consumers at 20..30W each, then probably an external drive or two, an USB hub, switch/router, printer, scanner, speakers, etc. None of those would even hit 20W; you’re looking at maybe 600W total for this rig. That’s close to 6A if it’s in US currency, 3A in Europe or Australia.

  15. Risu says:

    Central Air, now for your Personal Computer!

  16. SCORPIONOX says:

    Mr. Freeze strikes again, this time through more subtle means.

  17. Bridge says:

    I’z in ur nayborhoodz, steelin’ ur intarwebz.

  18. The Creator says:

    It actually works quite well. I have fans at both ends, and even at minimum speed the idle temps stay below 38*C. If I turn up the fans the quad core gets down to ~5*C easily even under load. Any condensation occurs only on the outside and is very minimal due to the dryness of the air. Inside the tube are 2 sets of A/C filters plus the screen on the window itself, and a fan grill, so no unwanted guests or debris get in :P . As for the insulation, it is a silver dryer duct wrapped in bubble wrap, both layers being air tight. The only cold air coming into the room is from the PSU exhaust fan, which is close to room temperature by the time the air hits all the heatsinks. Bottom line is I have it adjusted so the room stays ~68-75*F while the CPU stays ~85-105*F.
    …and about the power issue, the whole setup sucks about 800 watts total for everything, well within the 1300 watt limit.

  19. Blackmoore says:

    And you wondered where all of your bandwidth was going? Now you know.

  20. smaht says:

    What’s it like sittin there with that big hose between your legs?

  21. PosterGrampa says:

    I don’t care how much heat comes from Ur computer it will never get hot enough to heat Ur house George. Though if U add in the dryer vent it will help reuse some of the heat for Ur home & lower Ur heating bill some what, :) but it will never be as much as U spend running those 2 items :(

    • > I don’t care how much heat comes from
      > [your] computer[;] it will never get
      > hot enough to heat [your] house George.

      Actually, that depends on two things: how well insulated your house is, and how frequently you open the door.

      With sufficiently good insulation and sufficiently infrequent door opening, you can actually heat quite a large house with nothing but body heat. Add a couple of computers and a range for cooking, and you could probably open the door (briefly) a couple of times a day. HTH.HAND.

  22. tyberius says:

    The Creator, you are, like, my hero. I’m loving this! I had a similar setup in mind, for extreme OC in the winter (on really cold nights, it goes down to about -10C around here, -20 if I get lucky), but my room doesn’t exactly lend itself for such a kludge (the closest window being like 6-7 meters from my comp, and I’d trip into the air duct all the time). In one word: kudos!

    • Anna Rexia says:

      It’s nothing new. Do a search on [H]ard|OCP. People were doing this sort of thing in the early 90s.

      • tyberius says:

        I know that there are cooling enthusiasts who have tried just about everything from cannibalized fridges to liquid nitrogen, but I’ve never actually seen this solution. And this is the *exact same thing* I’ve had in mind.

    • TheAntiCat says:

      I have a friend who installed his gaming rig in an old dorm fridge. I have never witnessed his computer crash, even under max load. Crysis at full tilt? No problem.

  23. Ryno says:

    The baby jesus does not approve.

  24. SA says:

    SH*T!!! Why didn’t I think of that?!?!

  25. Asuna says:

    hrm….good idea but i see a problem for doing this in my room…..wake up in the morning, find my computer is now a block of ice

  26. Chronicles says:

    it looks like he originally grabbed an oscelating fan and thought this CLEARLY wont do and just threw it to the ground!

  27. Jompe71 says:

    3 screens, a glas of red-bull, empty dvd’s, a powerful computer and overall disorder.
    Either there is something illegal going on here or a FBI stakeout was just blown.

  28. KZN02 says:

    I usually do the opposite, putting my hands by where the computer exhausts heat (without obstructing it) for warmth during the cold.

  29. Rick says:

    I actually let my desktop run with the minimal cooling with the window closed. My computer room/home office is the warmest room in the house! As far as most of the previous posts… EXACTLY what I was thinking but by the time I went to reply you all beat me to it.
    1.) The fire hazards…
    2.) Dust covered fan (previous cooling solution).
    3.) Stakeout OR something illegal.
    4.) Squirrel or any number of animals such as mice, birds, homeless people seeking warmth.
    5.) Just set up the computer outside if you are playing chess with deep blue.

  30. Dr.Death says:

    i have the exact same computer case minus the bubble wrap hose

  31. Jason E. Memphis says:

    Al Gore invented this (no he really did). Just look at the sheer number of recycled items in this rake.

  32. Sarge says:

    Let me just say that there are a lot of efficient and cost-effective ways of cooling the heat-producing components of your PC… and this isn’t it.

    First off, this is trying to cool down the whole darn PC case. If you’re gonna run old air into your case, run it right to the CPU’s heat sink or over to the video card.
    To be fair, I suppose the idea this guy had was that he might as well pipe cold air to the inside of his PC case. Not really such a bad idea, but his execution was poor at best. He’s got two 120mm fans on the side of his PC, but he’s only piping cold air to one of them. Now, unless he’s got that other fan shut off, it’s blasting room-tempature air in right beside the cold air from outside…. effectively cutting the possible effectiveness of this kludge in two! If you want to pipe cold air directly intpo uyour PC case, at least close off all the other air-intake holes.

    If he really wants to put old man winter to good use, he needs to build a liquid cooled system. Put the radiator outside (but put a tarp on the radiator to keep the snow off it), and run some extra long tubing between the PC and the radiator. Now THERE’s a kludge I’d like to see!

    • tyberius says:

      Actually, cooling the entire case makes more sense. First, it is easier to connect the duct to the side of the PC case, because if you need to go in and do maintenance, you just take off the side panel and go for it – if you were to connect the duct to the video card and/or the CPU cooler, you’d have to pass it through the side panel first, and it would be a whole lot messier.
      Second, this way you get to cool just about everything. CPU, GPU, the voltage regulator circuits for both, the memory chips/modules for both, NB, hard drives, and of course the PSU ends up way cooler too. With your solution, you’d end up just cooling the CPU or the video card directly – if you wanted to cool both, you’d have to split the duct first, which would lead to a whole another mess. Ofc the other parts would get some second-hand cool air too, but still, it would be a classic case of overthinking things.
      And as for the second fan on the side of the case, how do you know it’s not shut off?

      Your liquid cooling idea is good too, but it wouldn’t look half as good on photo, plus there’s the problem that I mentioned above with cooling everything in the case. It would be WAY less cost-efficient.

    • The Creator says:

      Actually, that second 120mm fan you see is the CPU fan inside the case. The cold intake fan blows right below the CPU fan on the video cards and also hits the CPU heatsink. Basically, the whole case gets flooded with cold air. I have all other fans except the HDD and PSU fans turned off. The inside of the case ends up having a slightly positive pressure, meaning cool air makes its way to everything and comes out the crevices, so no dust ever gets in. Tyberius is completely right as well, so if I take the side panel off I don’t have to mess with the duct as it’s only on the side panel. It’s a win-win-win situation.

  33. Mike says:

    Arent you worried about humidity?
    Whats humidity?
    You know moisture outside?
    Whats Outside?

  34. Kludge-a-nator says:

    Judging by the fan just thrown on the ground under the desk, I’m guessing that this isn’t the guy’s first attempt at an alternate fan system, and btw I’m surprised that this kludge didn’t involved duct tape, that’s what really surprises me!

  35. The Cat says:

    I’m curious how you got the window end outside without having to have the window open. This’d be great here where it’s currently -40°C, but I’d like to keep my window closed.

    Also I bet that hose gets kicked all the time.

  36. Minor says:

    It’s not a cooling system, It’s an expensive winter home for squirrels.

    • tyberius says:

      Minced squirrels, that is; The Creator mentioned it has fans on both ends.

    • tyberius says:

      Not to mention that the rig sucks cold air in, so the weather you find in the tube is the same as outside, minus lots of degrees of wind chill. It doesn’t get better until you get through the second fan and into the PC case, and by that time, freezing to death will be the least of your problems :)

  37. The Creator says:

    For everybody wondering, that fan on the floor is indeed the cooling system from summer. However, the whole room would often heat up to around 85*F. Right now it’s cooling the router/modem/switch, as those tend to get quite hot with constant, heavy use.

  38. Trainguyxx says:

    you know, this is actually one of the best ideas ever…strange i know, but…if you can get some kinda filter on the end of that tube, you might just have a good way to cool your computer during the winter XD

  39. Petrolhead says:

    I have a friend who had a similar radical idea to cool his computer. He used a liquid cooling system which connected to his pool. He had 0 fans in the setup and the computer stayed very cool all throughout the year.

  40. Bp says:

    For summer I did the same thing but shoved the tube into the AC and kept it there with duct tape. But condensation shorted out my cd drive and it kept opening on its own during use. But my cpu was running at 4C and overclocked 30%. >:D

  41. toodamnhigh says:

    this seems so idiotic and yet…I cant see anything wrong with it…

  42. ms says:

    it’s like watercooling

  43. Sir Digby says:

    About as much as it likes being fed below ambient air.

  44. tyberius says:

    If you’re referring to water droplets getting into the stream, they should be filtered out by the AC filters The Creator put into the tube.
    If you’re referring to water condensation, it can’t occur here… the common way to extract water from air is to cool it down, but since the air is the coolant here, it’s the coldest part of the setup, so everything else is just warming it up, thus adding to its ability to absorb water rather than taking away.
    I tell ya, this is one badass setup.

  45. Robert says:

    You’re a doofus, then.


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