i'm having problems with tuners dropping in my Ceton. my next troubleshooting spot is the temperature. I'm constantly over 60C, and often at 70C. Any quiet PCI cooling solutions out there?

I solved that problem with a additonal 3 inch fan I mounted on a rail in my Dell XPS 9100. It dropped the temps from high 60s low 70s to high 40s and peaks at 60. Below 65 degrees C I think is within spec. My problem was having to fabricate a connector since the Dell is a BTX case and had no old style molex connectors at all. I used this 120mm fan www.frys.com/.../5598200 and it's quiet. (really don't care about the lights but they're there).

I'm in the same boat.  My case has two 80mm and one 92mm fans.  The CPU and video card are both fanless.  The fans are all running at the lowest speed (Noctua) and I am unwilling to run them faster due to noise.

I added a PCI (not PCI-E) slot fan next to the Ceton and was able to reduce the temperature by ~ 5+ degrees running at low speed (medium and high are too noisy).  I guess because of the way the air hits the Ceton, tuners 1/2 are running 4 -5 degrees hotter than tuners 3/4.

It of course depends on ambient room air temperature, but maximum temperatures are ~ 60 degrees on tuners 3/4 and ~ 65 degrees on tuners 1/2.

www.xoxide.com/zalman-zm-sc100-vgaslotcooler.html

Steve

John, How exactly did you attach the fan? Did you have to make a cutout in the case?

has anyone heard of tuners being dropped because of heat? i'm running out of ideas as to why i'm briefly losing my tuners about once per week.

There was an internal rail running across the box from the back to the drive bays and the cover had some existing ventilation holes in it. I just hung the fan with two screws on that rail. It really didn't seem to take much other than to get some air circulating inside the box and the already existing fans for intake and exhaust took care of the rest. It was a remarkable 10-15 degree C drop. My top temp is now very low 60s at peak. Current Temp Readings:

Ceton InfiniTV Temperatures

Tuner #1: 49.3 C

Tuner #2: 49.3 C

Tuner #3: 45.3 C

Tuner #4: 45.3 C

I ended up getting this fan that sits in the PCI slot next to the Ceton tuner.

www.newegg.com/.../Product.aspx

For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible

i guess i forgot an important detail...i need a low profile piece of equipment. i can't find a single PCI fan for a half height case anywhere. bleh

radams

i guess i forgot an important detail...i need a low profile piece of equipment. i can't find a single PCI fan for a half height case anywhere. bleh

Have you seen these?

cgi.ebay.com/.../110425811146

Steve

I wish I took a picture of my setup before I put the case cover on but I will try to describe.  I simply used "sticky" velcro to attach a 60mm fan at the back of the card.  My card is one of the first-gen cards where the end of the card is two separate cards about 1/2" apart.  There is enough surface area at the back edge to attach velcro, which I then attached the fan to.

Crude drawing:

-----   <= standard PCIe exit point (ie. where the cablecard sticks out of)

 |

 |      <= front part of ceton card

 |

 |

 |  |

 |  |

 |  |  <= rear part of ceton card

 |  |

------    <= where I attached first part [loop] of velcro (attached just to the back edge)

====  <= second half [fuzzy] of velcro

++++  <= 60mm silenx fan

I may be opening the system later in the week, and if so, I'll take a photo for you...

srb_tucson

radams

i guess i forgot an important detail...i need a low profile piece of equipment. i can't find a single PCI fan for a half height case anywhere. bleh

Have you seen these?

cgi.ebay.com/.../110425811146

Steve

i pulled the trigger on this. hopefully it's quiet.

i did a test last night to try to break my tuners. i recorded 4 channels at once for 5 straight hours. when i woke up this morning, i saw that the tuners dropped somewhere along the way. they almost never drop when i'm watching just one thing. i'm thinking temperature really is my problem here.

Why not try a test? Take the side off the case and put a small external cooling fan blowing into the case and see what happens. That's how I spec'd what I did to the Dell and I'm doing a test now on the HP which didn't get as high. The additional cooling makes a good 15 degree C difference in my tests.

Good idea. Cheap and easy test :)

Thought I'd share some of my setup:  my system is in the basement of my house with HDMI cable and a USB hub (for BlueRay/DVD drive, Bluetooth keyboard/mouse dongle, Media Center remote and iPhone/iPod connectivity) coming up through the floor to my media room.  Since the computer is in the basement, I don't really care about the noise of a fan, and I haven't encountered any overheating issues anyway since my basement is a good 10-15 degrees cooler than the media room anyway.

This will obviously not work for all (and apologies for being off-topic), but I gave up a long time ago trying to get an HTPC to conform to a certain noise-level/form-factor/temperature by simply getting the entire box out of sight (and out of mind).  Might be a 'solution' for someone else, too.