I am building a system at work which has the following (important to this discussion) specs:
4U Industrial rackmount chassis with 460 watt PSU
4 PCI-X + 8 PCI slot passive backplane
Dual Xeon CPUs @2.0GHz single board computer (SBC) @533MHz FSB with 4GB PC2100 DDR RAM
Matrox Imaging Odyssey XPRO (1GB) RGB video capture card
Matrox Imaging XG (256MB) video display card
Eight other PCI cards installed
The SBC installs in the backplane between the four PCI-X slots and eight PCI slots. All is cool over on the PCI side. On the PCI-X and SBC side, I have a potential heat issue to address. It may not even turn out to be a problem, but the hardware in this computer costs about $80,000 so I don't want to find a problem later.
The SBC is a full length PXI-X card installed toward the middle of the chassis. The heatsinks on the two CPUs are are about 2x3x3 and each has a 80mm fan. They are at the far (away from the back) end of the card and low air toward the back of the chassis.
The next slot in front of the SBC is taken by IDE, Floppy, COM, LPT, and USB port cables.
The next slot in front of the SBC contains the Matrox Imaging XG display card. It has a large finned heatsink (about 3x3x0.5) on top of the Oasis ASIC (graphics processor), with no fan.
The fourth PCI-X slot contains the Odyssey XPRO video capture card. It has two Motorola G4 processors each with heatsinks and fans (about 2x4x0.5). This card is about 1/2 inch from the left-side chassis wall.
At the far end (away from the back) are two 120mm fans blowing air across the cards. And not doing a very good job because there is so much stuff in the way.
The BIOS reports that the Dual Xeon CPUs are running 31-C and 34-C. When I run my hand over the cover of the chassis I detect a hot spot (feels like 50-C) which is about 4x4 inches and is centered about one inch above the Oasis ASIC on the video display card and two G-4 processors on the video capture card.
I can't move the cards to other slots, there is no room for water cooled, Peltier, or cold plate heatsinks... the cards are in adjacent slots. I am screwed there.
So my only option so far as I can see is to add fans. I have an area about 3.5x3.5x1 inch to add fans. Would it be better to blow cool air into the system above the hot area? Or exhaust air from above the hot area? And does anyone know of small fans that have really high air flow (screw the noise)?
4U Industrial rackmount chassis with 460 watt PSU
4 PCI-X + 8 PCI slot passive backplane
Dual Xeon CPUs @2.0GHz single board computer (SBC) @533MHz FSB with 4GB PC2100 DDR RAM
Matrox Imaging Odyssey XPRO (1GB) RGB video capture card
Matrox Imaging XG (256MB) video display card
Eight other PCI cards installed
The SBC installs in the backplane between the four PCI-X slots and eight PCI slots. All is cool over on the PCI side. On the PCI-X and SBC side, I have a potential heat issue to address. It may not even turn out to be a problem, but the hardware in this computer costs about $80,000 so I don't want to find a problem later.
The SBC is a full length PXI-X card installed toward the middle of the chassis. The heatsinks on the two CPUs are are about 2x3x3 and each has a 80mm fan. They are at the far (away from the back) end of the card and low air toward the back of the chassis.
The next slot in front of the SBC is taken by IDE, Floppy, COM, LPT, and USB port cables.
The next slot in front of the SBC contains the Matrox Imaging XG display card. It has a large finned heatsink (about 3x3x0.5) on top of the Oasis ASIC (graphics processor), with no fan.
The fourth PCI-X slot contains the Odyssey XPRO video capture card. It has two Motorola G4 processors each with heatsinks and fans (about 2x4x0.5). This card is about 1/2 inch from the left-side chassis wall.
At the far end (away from the back) are two 120mm fans blowing air across the cards. And not doing a very good job because there is so much stuff in the way.
The BIOS reports that the Dual Xeon CPUs are running 31-C and 34-C. When I run my hand over the cover of the chassis I detect a hot spot (feels like 50-C) which is about 4x4 inches and is centered about one inch above the Oasis ASIC on the video display card and two G-4 processors on the video capture card.
I can't move the cards to other slots, there is no room for water cooled, Peltier, or cold plate heatsinks... the cards are in adjacent slots. I am screwed there.
So my only option so far as I can see is to add fans. I have an area about 3.5x3.5x1 inch to add fans. Would it be better to blow cool air into the system above the hot area? Or exhaust air from above the hot area? And does anyone know of small fans that have really high air flow (screw the noise)?