articles
FORUMS!
links
contact

PC Database

Folding Team

SETI@HOME Team
RC5 Team
Genome Team

OCAU chat

A couple of slot coolers arrived from www.pccables.com.au this week. One is the FC-100 by JustCooler. The second is referred to as either "SB-A", "System Exhaust Blower" or "PCSC-100", depending on whether you're looking at the unit, the box, or pccables's website. I'll call it the PCSC-100 in this review, going by the website's name for it. The idea behind these little gadgets is that they occupy a slot on the rear of your case and spend their lives sucking hot air from the inside and blasting it out the rear of the case. Sounds like a pretty good plan to me..

FC-100	PCSC-100

The 2 units are very similar in appearance. The only real difference is that the PCSC-100 uses a strange segmented fan, almost like a flattened venturi tube, whereas the FC-100 uses a more conventional blade-type fan. They both look very similar when installed, the FC-100 showing a straight grille and the PCSC-100 having a wavy grille. They're both designed so that the intake fan points upward inside the case, but on the FC-100 you can pop the faceplate off, spin it around and remount it so the fan points down. This is useful if you're trying to get heat off the upper surface of a particular device (such as a video card). On the PCSC-100 you can do the same, but the lugs don't quite line up with the slot properly. You could probably just bung it on there anyway with no ill effects if you wanted to.

PCSC-100 shown..

Using the highly scientific and internationally recognised "blowing a peice of paper" test, they both seem to be ejecting air with similar force - you can feel it nearly 2 feet from the back of the case. Given the area of the ejection holes are similar on both we can, with our high-school physics vaguely remembered, presume they are ejecting much the same volume of air. The FC-100 claims 32CFM (cubic feet per minute) while the PCSC-100 claims 42CFM. I have to say I think both these claims are bollocks, with the actual amounts for both being quite a bit lower. They're both powered by passthrough hdd-type Molex connectors. They both draw 1.8W and 150mA at 12V. They're both almost silent when running. They're even the same price, $25.00 from www.pccables.com.au.

PCSC-100 shown..

For the purposes of testing, I considered 2 basic types of machine. The first is a "professional workstation" type, a full-tower housing an Abit BP6 motherboard with 2 processors (C366's at 572MHz, 2.0v, with FEP-32's on them), a fairly boring video card (ATI Rage Pro 3D AGP) and 4 hard drives of varying speeds and heat production. This is the machine I use for most work, web-authoring, image editing, websurfing etc. I don't use it for games. I have already experimented with the cooling and worked out what seems to be the best solution, an 80mm case fan sucking in air at the low-front of the case and a 100mm Nidec BETA IV fan blowing out the top rear above the power supply. All these fans, along with the 486 fan on the BX chip, add up to an almost unpleasantly loud machine.

I tested the slot coolers by themselves in the machine, firstly right up against the bottom of the video card (the top PCI slot) and then in the lowest PCI slot, right at the bottom of the case. This made no difference to the performance of the slot coolers or the temperatures achieved. I tested them with and without the 100mm exhaust fan running. I did not test the machine with no fans at all running as I know from experience that when the processors report above about 44C I the machine will hang, and it hits that temp pretty quickly.

Here's the results, recorded using MBM by the on-board monitoring of the BP6 motherboard from beneath the 2 processors and the case sensor near the end of the AGP slot. Each was tested for about half an hour in the middle of the day. The room temperature remained constant at 27C according to the little (probably wildly inaccurate) film-type thermometer on my wall. I did some general web surfing and editing - I made sure the 2 processors were locked at 100% utilization by having 2 SETI sessions open, one assigned to each processor.

As you can see, in this instance the slot coolers make very little difference compared to the Nidec. They both managed to keep the machine below crashing temperature, though, so they are definitely better than nothing at all. Of the two, the PCSC seems marginally better, but by itself wasn't as good as the Nidec exhaust fan I normally use. Of course, both of these slot coolers are substantially quieter than the Nidec and don't require a socking great hole in the back of your case..

The second machine was a fairly deliberate attempt to make a games-oriented machine with a heat problem. A mid-tower case (Macase K10) containing a C400 overclocked to 600MHz at 2.3v with an FDP-32 on it, a fairly warm Maxtor 6.4GB hard drive and a Viper V770 Ultra video card (at standard clockspeed). The only fans in the machine were the power supply fan, the fan on the FDP and the slot cooler being tested. (The more observant reader will know from my review of the Macase K10 that it comes fitted with an 80mm case-front fan. For the purpose of this experiment I turned it off.). I think this is more likely to be the situation these units are going to be used in by people - a machine with a heat problem and a space problem - there is simply nowhere to mount a decent exhaust fan on many mid or mini-tower cases. If you've got a free ISA or PCI slot you can bung one of these in very easily. I put it 2 slots below the Viper, so as to exhaust the heat from the AGP Viper as soon as possible - I was worried that if I put it right next to the card it might starve the Viper's own fan of air.

PCSC-100 shown..

The temperature was again recorded using MBM - in this instance I used my Soyo SY-6VBA-133 motherboard which has the ability to read the internal temperature diode within the CPU. I have no easy way of testing the temperature of the video card itself, unfortunately, but I'll rely on it heating up the in-case air, and hence the processor, to reflect the performance of each cooler. I tested each configuration by playing Quake3 for 1/2 an hour.. it's torture, this testing, you've no idea..

Ah-ha! In this instance they make quite a bit of difference. The FC-100 shows itself to be fairly dismal regardless, but the PCSC-100 makes a definite improvement. If you're stuck with a heat problem and either don't want the noise or don't have the space for a full-size exhaust fan, the PCSC-100 could be your answer. Also, if you need to cool a specific card in your machine, this device is ideal. All you need is a free ISA or PCI slot.