Losses in cooling potential with fans connected through tubing

I have (what I believe to be) a fairly novel idea for cooling a PC, and I'm wondering if there's anyone out there with any thermo/fluid dynamics knowledge which I certainly don't have.

Would it be possible or feesable to move ALL case fans to a position say, 1 meter away, using strong SP fans connected through tubing to a microATX case?

I'm guessing that there will be significant drop off in performance proportional to the distance, the question is how much. Eg. 2x 200mm fans 1m away channeling air through 'tubing' to the front of the case vs 2x 120mm fans directly attached to the front intake?

The idea behind this being you could build a PC with hefty CPU & GPU heatsinks, and have a 'fan farm' in another room with equal if not higher cooling potential. I'd be interested to know if anyone's tried something similar or if there's a significant drop off in cooling performance.

Nick Booth

Posted 2018-05-21T17:24:59.693

Reputation: 3

1Any clue how this would transfer to a desktop-sized set-up? without any actual AC, how much air flow is really needed in a case? – Nick Booth – 2018-05-21T17:42:18.523

Your followup question is not possible to calculate with the information you provided. You would need to know the amount of volume of the case to determine how much airflow you needed. You won't get this with a couple fans, you would a significant amount of airflow, to keep a CPU cool enough to prevent it from overheating with 30 seconds of being turned on. You would still need a heatsink, and even my example cabinets, has a heatsink and their own fans to control the airflow. – Ramhound – 2018-05-21T17:45:02.227

Answers

Would it be possible or feasible to move ALL case fans to a position say, 1 meter away, using strong SP fans connected through tubing to a microATX case?

They have used your "novel idea" for 3 decades. I have about 20 server cabinets being cooled connected to an external blower located on another floor running through an air conduit across multiple floors of a building.

I'd be interested to know if anyone's tried something similar or if there's a significant drop off in cooling performance.

You can supply air to a server cabinet that is being supplied by an external blower. How efficient an external cooling solution would be entirely dependent on the airflow you provide it.

However, you will NOT achieve the airflow you need, to keep your system running, with SP fans.

Ramhound

Posted 2018-05-21T17:24:59.693

Reputation: 28 517

This is common. Check out Fig 3

mike65535

Posted 2018-05-21T17:24:59.693

Reputation: 109