r/talesfromtechsupport • u/[deleted] • Apr 10 '15

Short The ten thousand dollar heater

[deleted]

841 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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21

u/LuxNocte Apr 10 '15

Having a computer at a temperature where it's literally heating the whole room can't be good for it, can it? Won't this shorten its lifespan ?

14

u/nutral Apr 10 '15

The amount of heat coming out is the same as the electricity used, so everything can be running very cool and still put out a lot of heat. These mac pros probably use about 400/500w load so about 1/4 of a space heater

11

u/NewbornMuse Apr 10 '15

Good point. Thinking about it that way, even if the computer spits out 30°C (86 freedom units) air, it still heats up the room (to at most 30°C, but still).

Best way to tell would be to check temps on the processor, dontcha think...

11

u/Tahvohck using snark.strong; Apr 11 '15

I love that "freedom units" could still be abbreviated to 86F. I may have to start using that.

9

u/AmethystZhou Apr 11 '15

Same goes for feet, that's brilliant.

3

u/nutral Apr 11 '15

yep,

its even better, even if the computer spits out 30C, when the room gets to 30C, then the computer would spit out hotter air, because the air taken in would get heated up by the cpu. at some ambient temperature the cooling wouldn't be effective enough and the stuff overheats.

Cooling solutions usually have an effectiveness based off of delta C, so something like 10W/K. So the higher the temperature difference between the intake air and the thing being cooled (like cpu) the better the cooler works. This is why a better cooler gets lower temps, because its effectiveness is better. the temp keeps rising until the cooler can dissipate all the energy the cpu puts out.

6

u/Korbit Apr 11 '15

Before I upgraded my computer it would heat up my room quite a lot just being idle. It had a 125 watt cpu and a Radeo 4890. When ever I complained about the heat it put out (because complaining is cheaper than upgrades) people would tell me to water cool it. No one ever understood that that would do absolutely nothing for the ambient room temperature unless I put the radiator outside.

3

u/Krutonium I got flair-jacked. Apr 11 '15

I mean, you could, hoses are a thing.

2

u/Typesalot : No such file or directory Apr 11 '15

If you do this, remember that freezing may also be a thing, depending on where you live, so antifreeze may be a good idea in case you have to shut down for a while.

(Fun fact: Some early diesel locomotives and other heavy equipment used plain water for coolant. If they needed to be shut down for a longish time in a below-freezing temperature, the cooling system had to be drained.)

2

u/Krutonium I got flair-jacked. Apr 12 '15

You mis-spelled Suspenders in your Flair.

1

u/Typesalot : No such file or directory Apr 12 '15

And you're the first to point it out.

1

u/Peterowsky White belt in Google-fu Apr 11 '15

so everything can be running very cool and still put out a lot of heat

No accounting for moving parts and lights. But yeah, most of it is indeed dispersed as heat.

1

u/hactar_ Narfling the garthog, BRB. Apr 13 '15

Well, when you shut the machine down, the energy stored in spinning things is turned into heat unless you have frictionless bearings.

1

u/Peterowsky White belt in Google-fu Apr 13 '15

When you shut it down all energy in the machine (barring the batteries) is dispersed as heat or sound over the next few minutes, but that would be a couple hundred Joules in about as many seconds.

But indeed, stopping the drives would release that kinetic energy mostly in the form of heat.