A modded PC machine will be starved for power, and a good power supply will supply the proper electricity for all the upgraded components needs. By reducing the high voltage from the wall socket to something that will be more easily handled by all computer parts, your PC’s power supply unit pumps the needed juice to the computer’s parts through a number of colored power cables. Those cables end in special connectors that can only be inserted in only a single direction, so it’s certainly well-nigh impossible to accidentally make a mistake and ruin a DVD or hard drive because of a nasty electrical short caused by wrong connection.
An Advanced Technology Extended (ATX) motherboard has only a single power connector. Many cases are now available with the power supply firmly installed. A pre-installed power supply not only eliminates one step in building your computer but also ensures that you obtain a power supply of the right rating. Additionally, you can be certain that all those holes for the cables and switches match up.
The faster the CPU, the more electrical power it draws, and the stronger the processor fan and the case fan needed to cool it. Also, most power users tend to choke up their computers with all kinds of neat hardware, each of which hungrily draws its own power. For that reason, it is suggested that you invest in a special case that has at least a 450-watt power supply, particularly if you’re going to stuff a slew of internal extra hardware, such as a second DVD or terabytes of hard drives. (As a matter of fact, AMD urges at least a 450-watt power supply is installed for the latest Athlon 64 and Phenom series of processors.) For anything less, a 300-watt power supply will fit the bill.
Warning: Do not open a power supply unit up and try to fix it or mod it. Live household voltage isn’t a welcome visitor for your body.
PC Power Cooling
Because most components and devices in your PC produce lots of excess heat, your machine can actually return errors, lock up, or shut down if it gets very hot. Extended overheating lowers the operational life of most computer parts – especially the expensive CPU – and surely leads to early replacement. How does a computer keep its temperature through this blistering heat wave? The actual answer is nothing high-tech or elaborate. As a matter of fact, it’s just a simple fan in most cases.
Your machine’s power supply utilizes a fan to continually move air through the within a case. Pizza-box case and standard-size desktop case are mostly compact enough to use only one fan. However, if you are thinking of purchasing a tower case and the computer will have the latest QuadCore or Phenom processor, it is highly recommended that you get a case with at least a couple of exhaust fans.
If you visit a computer exhibition, you may see an uber-PCs with four exhaust fans onboard and they are absolutely required if the machine needs to stay on for long periods of time or if it’s chocked up full of devices and parts. Ball-bearing fans are preferable because they usually last longer.
Processor fans can be connected directly to one of those power cables leading straight to a power supply, or it can be connected to a specific fan plug on the motherboard. When overheat occurs; motherboard will automatically shuts down the computer using a CPU thermal-sensing mechanism that can be configured in your PC’s BIOS. The feature is already activated as default setting in most motherboard and you can set the activation temperature.
After your machine is running, put it where the fan exhausts aren’t blocked by a wall or appliances. An open location allows better airflow.
There are various utility programs available to help monitor your CPU temperature in real time. There are even a couple which run under Windows 7 already out.
Water Cooling
For situations where you need to drop the temperature in your PC even more, the ultimate is water cooling. Water cooling kits have come a long way in recent years, to the point where you can buy a ready to install kit for fairly low prices. A kit will typically consist of an external case which houses a fan that blows air across a radiator filled with water or coolant, a liquid reservoir, a control unit, and a pump which sends the cooled liquid through a set of lines to a cooling block which is designed to sit atop a CPU or graphics chip.
The picture at the top of this page shows a Thermatake water block after installation. Although a rig like this is capable of industrial strength cooling, it also puts out the fan noise to go with it, so shop around for the quietest one you can find. Water cooling is arguably overkill for even the most avid gaming overclocker; air cooling is almost always the safer and more efficient option unless you are building the latest supercomputer.
photo by highlander411- Creative Commons Attribution License
{ 1 comment }
please send this to my email and more information on water cooling and setup systems like this please.
kay
Comments on this entry are closed.