So you finally got the courage to buy yourself some brand-new PC parts and took the time to assemble it. Congratulations on completing your build! It was successful and it did not end up like a roadside disaster that would have you seek counsel from a motorcycle accident attorney. That could have easily gone that way had you missed the important details. The good thing is you are coasting along and the computer is humming along like a breeze in the wind. You might wonder how you could best take care of it so that you can use the machine for many years to come. One aspect that you have to understand more is how to keep things cool around its components. The processor is actually one tough cookie, as it is designed to withstand high temperatures. But that does not mean you should do that. It is better to keep it down, and here is a guide on how you can effectively do that.
Mind the Room Temperature
You might hear people tell you to place your computer in an air-conditioned room. It is a common piece of advice, but it is a sound one. The fans that you have installed in your computer case are designed to draw in the fresh air, and it is only going to source that from your room. You can put in the biggest and fastest spinning fans in there, but if the environment is scorching hot, it is only going to pull in hot air. Hardware components are not like people who can easily cool down when hit with a breeze. Humans have sweat glands that make the skin feel cool as the perspiration evaporates into the air. It is quite astounding how some can apply this thinking to computer parts, but now you know that it is incorrect.
Negative and Positive Air Pressure
Now that you know about the relationship between the temperature of the room and your computer’s insides, it is now time for you to learn about negative and positive air pressure. The former is having more fans exhausting the warm air out from within your PC. If there is no intake at all, it could draw in fresh air from the room passively if there are vents or openings around. This will not let you accumulate dust as much as having positive airflow, but it could give you higher temperatures since you are not taking in that much fresh air.
With that said, a positive air pressure setup will have you putting in more intake fans. This means that more air is rushing in than out of your case, but the downside is it can have your computer gather dust more quickly. You may have to go cleaning more often with this setup.
Set a Fan Curve
Your motherboard controls how fast your fans would spin, and it would depend on how hot things get inside the computer. When things get toasty, they would work harder and be noisier as a result. If this bothers you, you can set the fan curve yourself. For a setting that emphasizes less noise, you can set the RPM speed of the fans to a lower figure even if it reaches high temperatures. If you do not have any problems with noise, you can do the opposite and raise the fan speed even when the CPU is running cool.
Why do you need to think about effective cooling for your PC? Your processor’s performance will depend on it. It will cruise by and run at high frequencies as long as its temperature allows it. But when things get hot, it will have to tone down and throttle its speed, thereby sacrificing some of its performance. But now that you have an idea about how things work, you now have more control over how your machine will behave. It is going to benefit you in the long run, as it will let your investment do its job admirably without pushing itself too hard.
