The room is hot. Any thoughts on which is better, running with the PC covers on or off? Top of case is warm to the touch.

The room is hot. Any thoughts on which is better, running with the PC covers on or off? Top of case is warm to the touch.

Generally speaking, case manufacturers spend millions of dollars in research on how to best move air through the system, and this design takes the assumption that the case will never be left open. Opening your case can have the immediate affect of reducing the temperature at the expense of less efficiency from the case fans.

If you're concerned about the heat, consider reducing the number of cores you crunch with (if you have a multi-core machine) or perhaps shutting down BOINC until a more comfortable room temperature can be acheived.

---

I have only had one case where taking the case off helped cooling - in that case the person set an attic fan pointed into the case from a range of 6 inches (15 centimeters or so).

[edited for math]

---

BOINC WIKI

The room is hot. Any thoughts on which is better, running with the PC covers on or off? Top of case is warm to the touch.

With an ambient temperature that high, the best thing to do, is to cool the air around the PC, but, as has been suggested, leave the covers on. With a 1.8 MHz P4, you don't have the option of reducing the number of WUs you are crunching simultaneously, so cooling the surrounding air is your best bet. Other things to consider are the obligatory removal of dust/fur/etc from all Heat Sinks and fans and maybe upgrading any fans used in your PC, to ones that offer a higher air-flow. All in all, a 12" 'desk fan' pointed in the direction of your PC is probably the cheapest and easiest option.

---

Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive!