Pro/Forums - View Single Post - World exclusive: Zalman TNN500A noiseless cooling case

TerraMex · 11-24-2003, 01:56 PM

Your sub is 188W RMS (checked the PDF, it looked too much for that type of woofer). The combined power with the sats and the woofer does 505W RMS. Very respectable pc sound. I want one

.
5 cents on the subject:

Anyway. Take a memory module. It can consume up to 30W (usually <25W). It does however do it over all the smaller modules (usually 8x2) and with a large area by comparison to the consumption. It doesnt need extra cooling. The heatspreaders seen are just bling bling. You dont have the same on the zalman case. Your heat is concentrated on the lateral side, which doest have that much surface area , and even less airflow.

( I've had a very interesting problem when , back when i used sdram, the thermaltake heatspreaders on my 256mb module actually heated the module with the hot air from the heatsink. nasty stuff. Without them, it remained a bit cooler. )

In a subwoofer not all the wattage is directly converted to heat due to joule effect , and it's not continuous use. You are cooling mainly the power supply power diodes and/or regulators. Individually they can work happily at 120ºC without interfering too much with the stability of the rails (which matters). And each are spreaded though all the area of those sinks (which is not that small). They dont have to cool that much to maintain operation. They only have to cool enough. And the sinks are outside, in the open.

(http://www.bit-tech.net/review/266/2 , pikie)

In the pc, and referring to the zalman case, you can't have proper operation at 120ºC on any component... The MOSFET's can go to those temps, but the rail starts to go to crap. Same as hot air in the PSU . And inside the case there convection currents will stop at the top of the case (which i would suggest to be open , or at least heavily perfurated). You dont have this problem with the heatsinks on the Sub.

Assuming a very low airflow in a room , the zalman case would just overheat.

JoeK is right about the HDD thou. I had the displeasure of getting one for testing and it's just bad. It removes heat from the sides of the HDD ... to the sides of the HDD. If no air flow, no heat is properly removed, and it can work on reverse. The only thing that helped was when i removed the side panel. Interesting enough, it get the same results with no Heatpipe, and the HDD bolted to the case. Even if i should have larger area for dissipation. Then I tore it apart.

I can confirm the reviews that state that the heatpipes are poorly fitted, and no thermal paste exists between them and the HDD encasing. Just some crap glue. The contact is not very good.
Even with thermal paste (i had some Alumina leftovers) , without airflow, it's a mediocre cooler. Only with a fan it works properly. And with a fan and with and without heatpipes the difference isnt much, i got 2ºC due to larger surface area.

11-24-2003, 01:56 PM	#85
TerraMex Cooling Savant Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Portugal, Europe Posts: 870	Your sub is 188W RMS (checked the PDF, it looked too much for that type of woofer). The combined power with the sats and the woofer does 505W RMS. Very respectable pc sound. I want one . 5 cents on the subject: Anyway. Take a memory module. It can consume up to 30W (usually <25W). It does however do it over all the smaller modules (usually 8x2) and with a large area by comparison to the consumption. It doesnt need extra cooling. The heatspreaders seen are just bling bling. You dont have the same on the zalman case. Your heat is concentrated on the lateral side, which doest have that much surface area , and even less airflow. ( I've had a very interesting problem when , back when i used sdram, the thermaltake heatspreaders on my 256mb module actually heated the module with the hot air from the heatsink. nasty stuff. Without them, it remained a bit cooler. ) In a subwoofer not all the wattage is directly converted to heat due to joule effect , and it's not continuous use. You are cooling mainly the power supply power diodes and/or regulators. Individually they can work happily at 120ºC without interfering too much with the stability of the rails (which matters). And each are spreaded though all the area of those sinks (which is not that small). They dont have to cool that much to maintain operation. They only have to cool enough. And the sinks are outside, in the open. (http://www.bit-tech.net/review/266/2 , pikie) In the pc, and referring to the zalman case, you can't have proper operation at 120ºC on any component... The MOSFET's can go to those temps, but the rail starts to go to crap. Same as hot air in the PSU . And inside the case there convection currents will stop at the top of the case (which i would suggest to be open , or at least heavily perfurated). You dont have this problem with the heatsinks on the Sub. Assuming a very low airflow in a room , the zalman case would just overheat. JoeK is right about the HDD thou. I had the displeasure of getting one for testing and it's just bad. It removes heat from the sides of the HDD ... to the sides of the HDD. If no air flow, no heat is properly removed, and it can work on reverse. The only thing that helped was when i removed the side panel. Interesting enough, it get the same results with no Heatpipe, and the HDD bolted to the case. Even if i should have larger area for dissipation. Then I tore it apart. I can confirm the reviews that state that the heatpipes are poorly fitted, and no thermal paste exists between them and the HDD encasing. Just some crap glue. The contact is not very good. Even with thermal paste (i had some Alumina leftovers) , without airflow, it's a mediocre cooler. Only with a fan it works properly. And with a fan and with and without heatpipes the difference isnt much, i got 2ºC due to larger surface area. __________________ "we need more cowbell."