HTPC Cabinet – 5 Tips to Prevent Overheating
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We recently acquired a new HTPC cabinet to locate all of our AV gear in along with the TV. The criteria was that it needed to fit in with the style of the living room and protect the gear from small children. The TV bench has doors in front that are useful to block our small children reaching the devices. However, this nice compact design with doors has it downside and HTPC cabinet overheating started to be a big issue. I came across the following 5 tips for everyone having similar problems with the overheating.
1. Move hotter devices to top shelves
Keeping the hot devices on top reduces the temperature for other gear as the hot air tends to flow upwards. At the same time you might want to ensure you have not stored anything unnecessary inside the TV bench that might block the airflow. You should also make sure that you buy devices that generate less heat such as Mac Mini HTPC.
2. Leave it open in the back
Simple solution to improve airflow is to leave the HTPC cabinet open from the back. Especially, if you place the HTPC cabinet next to a wall and have doors in front, it is good to leave at least 5-10 cm open space in the back. If you decide to completely remove the back, just make sure that it will not affect to the rigidity of the cabinet. The back often plays a significant role in supporting the frame.
3. Replace wooden shelves with metal racks
Another idea to improve airflow is to replace solid shelves with metal racks. This is particularly effective if devices are designed to suck the air under the device.
4. Add cooling fan
An effective way to improve the airflow is to use either 1 or 2 120 mm fans to vent out the back (or perhaps one bringing air in and the other blowing out). For myself, I had an extra laptop cooling pad I did not use anymore so I took the cooling fan and attached to the backside of the cabinet behind my HTPC. It is powered by usb socket, so it gets nicely the power from the computer as well. You can get Coolerguys 120mm USB Fan with Cabinet Mounting Bracket at Amazon.com
5. Use liquid cooling system
These are designed for HTPCs to keep memory or CPU cool, but they could be used to add the cool air, rather than just add air flow. I have not used this trick myself and would be interested to hear in the comments if anyone has tried this.
In summary, you should consider leaving the back at least partially open and add couple of cooling fans inside the HTPC cabinet. This will not only prevent devices overheating and becoming a fire safety risk, but it will also extend the devices’ lifetime.
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