The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Keeping your Computer Cool

As longtime readers may vaguely remember, I built a number of systems about two years ago, as well as purchasing an ASUS system about the same time for comparison. One advantage of how I did both is that they are still both considered high-end units due to their Core i7 processors and 9+ Gigs of RAM, etc.

The problem is that as your computer gets older, the main enemies of your system change from cutting edge drivers and shaky OS support to system degradation due to power surges and heat. For the power surge issue, putting at least a small, continuous UPS system between your computer and the wall socket buys a lot of protection and peace of mind. I say continuous because there are some glorified surge protectors that have a battery backup that might keep your computer running for a few minutes after an outage, but still lets the spikes and drops through to do their damage first.

Cooling, on the other hand, is much like doing backups in that you have to do some things regularly, and some folks don't want to be bothered. Taking just 5 minutes on a monthly basis to turn your computer off, open it up, and blow it out with some compressed air can make a difference of 5 degrees Celsius for your CPU and GPU quite easily. I have seen some folks try to "cheat" and just blow the compressed air through the fan vents, sometimes without even turning the machine off first. That may keep stuff from clogging up, but for the most part you aren't actually doing yourself any good as you are just redistributing the gunk.

On the other hand, there is something you CAN do on most Windows systems that will often add another 5 degrees Celsius cooling just through software. If your system comes with a discrete video card (IOW a separate card, not just a chip-set on the motherboard) you may be surprised to learn that both ATi/AMD and nVidia both practice the old adage "it is better to look good than to feel good". What happens is that the cards are setup in the default drivers to never let the fans on the card exceed 40%. The reason is that the cards then run very quietly even when they are under heavy load. The downside is that when you are playing games or HD video, you are cooking your card. From the manufacturers standpoint you are helping to ensure that you need a new card after a couple of years, and they get good ratings for noise. Kind of a win-win for them.

Since you, like myself, probably are more concerned with longevity, you will want to "fix" that. For ATi/AMD cards the trick is to open up the Catalyst Control Center, Click on Performance, go into AMD Overdrive (the only option for most cards), and set the Fan Speed to the "Manual" option. I personally recommend a setting of around 70% here. That will be a little noisier, but both your GPU and your CPU will get cooled since the card will run cooler, and the GPU fan will help move more air in your computer case by running a bit harder. You can get maximum cooling by setting it to 100%, but the noise is substantially greater, and you are then more likely to wear out the GPU fan which is somewhat self defeating. While ATi/AMD cards usually come with Catalyst, on nVidia cards you will usually have to go to their website to get the tool you need for performance tuning. You will be looking for the "NVIDIA System Tools with ESA Support". Once you have that installed, the nVidia Control Panel will get a new "Performance" option. You will first have to accept their EULA, and then it will unlock a similar option for setting up a profile where you will again want to select the "Manual" option for Fan Speed and again want to probably set it around 70%. You will then want to save that profile as the User Default, or else on the next reboot you will have to set it by hand again. Catalyst automatically saves to the default for you.

Using these tips, I find that even under load my CPU rarely exceeds 50 degrees Celsius, and my GPU rarely exceeds 55 degrees Celsius. Most folks seem to think you need to liquid cool to get those kinds of results, but unless you really want to minimize fan noise (you will find it hard to completely eliminate it since most Power Supplies have built in fans, and you have to have some air movement to cool your memory and HDs unless you go the mineral oil route) it is not really necessary.