He said something about PC cases being designed to keep the computer cool
Quote from: Critter on November 15, 2010, 11:29:37 PMHe said something about PC cases being designed to keep the computer coolYupp,that's what I keep saying my customers too.It's just that it's not the full truth, there's a very big when:a) the components are not covered in dustb) the fans can freely transport the air and don't have to suck (or press) it through inches of dust firstc) the cables are mounted correctly and are kept out of the specified air-flowd) the fans are correctly dimensioned and placed according to the ATX specs and requirements for the mounted componentsThe main-reason for using cases is that the components are not lying around somewhere where your cats would play with them. But seriously: A PC case is not necessarily needed, they are to be preferred to unsuitable housings like shoe-cartons so.
I can't agree... Some years ago I was building hundreds of PCs for a particular contract and the customer required a customised boot image on otherwise pre-installed Windows. I took the sides off of an ATX cage to get at an IDE cable and sort-of hot swapped each hard drive onto the slave channel, ran the floppy disk that transferred the image and connected the next one. After about 20 minutes the PC overheated. Eventually I had a couple of desk fans pointing into the open case which helped.An ATX case pulls in cool air and pushes out hot between the fans. Left open, I really wouldn't trust it without water cooling.