Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with cooling

Help me undestand this Cacti graph re: cooling & thermal sensors

xmutex — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:28:16 -0800

Trying to figure out if I'm cool with my computer's cooling. What does this Cacti graph mean? OK here's the graph of the thermal sensors on my standard ATX machine on a weekly readout. It has four hard drives in it. Prior to week five, it had a rear outtake fan and where the side grate is, a cone/funnel (like this dude).

Between weeks 5 and 7, the computer had a rear outtake fan plus a side intake fan in place of the funnel. However, the side fan was pretty loud and annoying so last night I took that out, and what you see past week 7 is just the rear outtake fan and an unplugged side fan on the side grate.

How do the numbers look? What's the best way to interpret this Cacti graph? Thanks!

Installing geo thermal in an old house with boiler?

idyllhands — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:07:09 -0800

Installing geo thermal in an old house with boiler? I am considering buying an old (1910s) house with a boiler and radiators installed. I was thinking it would be great to convert it to run off of geothermal. How difficult/expensive would this be? I live in Kansas, so we need good heating as well as cooling for summer. I was hoping to accomplish both with a geothermal system.

Would hanging a wet sheet somewhere in the room help?

halogen — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:01:26 -0800

Another West Coast heat wave question. Beside eating ice cream and drinking ouzo straight from the freezer, what are some good ways to cool down? I'm in Seattle, and temperatures this week are likely to reach 102°F/39°C. This is the first time I've lived in a home without A/C, and since I don't have a place of work yet to go chill or a lot of money to spend on outside activities, I'm mostly stuck in a hot apartment. Even the building pool is unpleasantly warm to swim in, and the ice cream machine is failing me because it's so hot and humid! The library is nice and cool, but it closes at 6pm, and since the outside of our apartment is mostly made of windows and faces the north and the west, late afternoons and evenings are almost unbearable despite the blinds. Showers are nice, but the "cold" tap water is tepid at best these days.

So, hive mind, what are your secret yet brilliant ways to cool down?

How can I find the best rebates for home heating/cooling?

amanda — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:50:06 -0800

Replacing the AC and furnace -- is now the time to buy? Tell me what you know about rebates! So, our beloved and quaint and possible original (1950s) AC unit passed away quietly in the night. We knew when we bought this place that that thing was existing on a whisper and a prayer but for the Northwest we hoped it would last another couple years. We only need AC about two weeks per year... this week would be VERY nice to have it. So, now we're thinking about replacing it -- minimum quote is $4000.

While we're doing that, we are talking about our furnace. It is very old but works fine. However, we are on an oil tank and the cost of that is staggering and doesn't seem like it's likely to come down much. Last winter it cost us about $2500 for the season. This took us from October to March, so about $400/month for our 900 sf house. And, we kept it off most of the time.

So, we're thinking of switching to gas and replacing the furnace at the same time. Minimum cost, about $12,000.

The guy who came out and gave an estimate (we've worked with them before and like them but we'll be getting another bid) is all hopped up about their current rebates and how they will expire at the end of august and "who knows what'll be coming down the pipe" after that. So, how can I fact-check the current rebates -- is there a single source for this?

Will closing all but one vent in an apartment with central air cause leaks in the duct work?

weakcore — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:38:35 -0800

Will closing all but one vent in an apartment with central air cause leaks in the duct work (I mean, there are flaps on the vents for a reason, right?)? I rent a four room apartment with central air (South Eastern United States about 40 minutes South of the Appalachians). I really only care about keeping my computer room cold, which is the smallest of all four rooms (the others being the bedroom, living room, and kitchen) and also is where the thermostat is located.

I'm thinking about sealing all the vents in my apartment with the exception of the one vent in my computer room to save on cooling costs, because I can tolerate the other rooms being 85 deg. Fahrenheit, but not my poor computer (and seal of the computer room itself with some thick blankets suspended from curtain rods). It has occurred to me, however, that doing so could increase the pressure in the ducts and perhaps cause a leak, since the conditioned air from the central unit now only has one vent to escape from.

I have considered buying a single room air conditioner (and have also read the other ask mefi threads about single room air conditioning options). It seems to me that window units are much more efficient than portable units, but they pose somewhat of a security risk (my apartment being at ground level), and I don't know that my landlord would be so happy about my doing so.

Is there a way I can figure out what my the rating of my ducts is? Can anybody suggest other low cost solutions to bring the ambient temperature of my computer room down (Googling doesn't really present many solutions, although my Google-fu may also be a bit inadequate)?
Is my only recourse a window-mounted unit? Are there ways to address the security risk this presents?

How can I cool my laptop?

Chionophilia — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:55:09 -0800

How can I get a 12v fan to run off of a USB port? Alternately, how can I make my laptop not overheat and die? Hello, Metafilter,

I've got a laptop that's really prone to overheating; if you do anything intense for longer than ~20m, it heats up to about 100C and shuts down. I picked up a USB-based cooler that's basically a piece of aluminum with two weak fans screwed into the back; it helps a bit, but not very much.

What I wanted to do was to find a way to replace the cooler's fans with more powerful ones; I have an old and quite dead PC lying about that I've scavenged the CPU fan from, and thought that might do the trick. Tragically, though, the USB port doesn't have enough power to start the fan.

Do any of you know how or what I could do to get this fan to work? Alternately, are there other (cheap/free) ways to cool a laptop?

Does attic ventilation = more efficient air conditioning?

JFitzpatrick — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 08:50:15 -0800

Is leaving the windows in my attic cracked beneficial for keeping my air conditioning bill low? I'm curious if my present strategy has any benefit at all or if I'm misguided in my approach:

My home was built in the 1930s. The attic is half finished, half storage with windows on both ends of the space. There are no heating and cooling vents in the attic.

The door to the attic has weather stripping and a sturdy draft guard at the bottom.

During the summer the attic gets roastingly hot. It's better now that I installed a ridge vent instead of the cruddy little can vents, but it's still quite hot up there.

I've been opening the windows on each end to get a cross breeze which lowers the attic temp. easily 10-15 degrees. For what it's worth I live in a very windy area and there is a steady cross breeze almost 24/7.

Assuming that my floors and walls are properly insulated (the floor between the attic and the living space and the walls under the attic), which I believe they are based on my inspection... is leaving the windows open to provide natural ventilation (no powered fans that would create a negative pressure space) benefiting or hurting my energy efficiency with the air conditioner on?

It seems that lowering the attic temperature can only benefit me, but I'm not heating and cooling specialist and may be overlooking something outside my scope of knowledge.

Thanks!

Help keep me hot and cold!

griffey — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:52:01 -0800

Can someone recommend a programmable thermostat that will save me from insane energy bills? My house is a Cape Cod style with an open loft area in the front, and two thermostats and heating/cooling units, one for upstairs and one for the down. Should I replace both thermostats, or will replacing the one be effective enough in helping with energy costs?

Also, I can't find recommendations I trust anywhere on these things...Amazon is useless. In an ideal world, the new thermostats would be the first step to a home automation system, so it's a bonus if they speak some common automation language that I can control with a Mac, or over the web. I'm tempted by the shiny fancy of something like the ecobee, but if I can get similar functionality without the crazy cost, all the better. Which programmable can you recommend?

I'm also a bit concerned about the installation. I'm handy to the point of something like installing a dimmer switch, but the installation of the ecobee made me doubt that I could do it. Are other programmables less complicated?

In conclusion: Which programmable do I want, will it really help me, do I need two of them, and can I install it without killing myself or the house?

Thanks, AskMeFi!

What are some good books on the history of Earth's climate?

AdamCSnider — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:14:51 -0800

I'm looking into global climate history. Is there a particularly good overview for this? I'm a layman interested in climate change in the Earth's history - not just within a human timeframe, but reaching back as far as the term "climate" can reasonably be applied.
I'm looking for books - although if you know documentaries or websites that deal with this I'd be glad for that info as well - including both those which give a good overview of Earth's climatic history and those which specialize in specific eras. Accessibility to someone without a Ph.D. in the field would also be a plus.

What's the oily discharge coming from our central air and heat?!

GilloD — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 08:20:09 -0800

Our central AC/Heating system leaked some kind of, uh, oil (!?) last night. I have no idea what it is, the super is baffled. More inside. My wife and I have been living in our current apartment for about 6 months now. It has central air and heat, ducts upstairs and downstairs, and those ducts are covered with sheet rock or drywall- Something to obscure them and make them mesh with the walls.

We've had no problems with the AC and while the heat is INCREDIBLY HOT and dry, we've had no problems using it for the last 6 weeks or so.

Last night my wife noticed what looked like water damage spreading in a maybe 6x6 inch circle. I was concerned, so I got up on a ladder and wiped it up. To my surprise it was NOT water. It was slightly oily and had a faint odor. It reminds me of mechanical lubricant. It's a clear liquid and it had collected in a couple of fat drops within the circle, but none had dripped on the table below.

I wiped it up and aside from a very hard to see oil stain underneath the duct, there hasn't been any other leakage.

As far as I know, our heat is gas, not oil. We are on the first floor, but no one above us has had any issues.

We're flummoxed, the super is flummoxed, I was hoping MeFi might have some suggestions. As of this morning no more of the, uh, discharge had collected in that spot despite our running the heat on and off all night.

Thoughts?

Help cool my MBP so I might have children one day.

Silvertree — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 08:40:58 -0800

Suggestions for cooling a MacBook Pro? Mrs. Silvertree and I both have MacBook Pros which we love. However neither one of us care for the crispy skin that is developing on the top of our legs from the heat. We have tried the Targus laptop cooling pad, and they work great for about a week before dieing. Anyone have a suggestion? I would prefer something active, we have tried a few of the passive cooling, like the podium that keeps the MBP in the air with little success.

Keeping my hot side hot and my cool side crisp

Shepherd — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 06:19:17 -0800

When is a heat pump worth it? [warning: a bit long] Due to circumstances that are really too long to explain, I need to totally remove my oil heating system and replace it with an electric system. Quotes to tear out the old furnace, upgrade my ductwork and put in an electric furnace come in at about $4K. That's pretty much a given. Adding a heat pump, however, would cost about $5K to $6K. I currently have no air conditioning in my very old house with very old windows, and while I don't mind suffering a bit to save a few bucks, my fiancée is very much of the opposite opinion... but she currently lives in the southern States, and isn't really familiar with Canadian summers (it only gets stinkin' hot from about mid-July to mid-August where I live).
The pluses of getting the heat pump are essentially that I'm getting everything torn up to put the new furnace in and wired up right now, and installing something like a heat pump later would be much less convenient than getting it done now. It's also a "fire and forget" kind of solution for the next era of home ownership: get it done and it'll never have to be done again.
It's a two-story house built into a hill, so the upper floor is at street level and is entirely aboveground; the lower floor is below street level but is 90% aboveground thanks to the slope of the hill. About 80% of my time is spent on the upper floor -- the lower floor is my workshop, workout room, guest room, furnace room, storage space and a second bathroom. Total square footage is about 1800 sq.ft. divided evenly between the floors.
Since I've never had electric heat OR air conditioning, I'm in no position to compare expenditures vs. projected savings to cost out whether it's worthwhile. I'm tempted to put the $6K towards new windows, but that'd just be a drop in the bucket as far as window-replacement costs. The windows I have now are entirely unsuitable for window-mount air conditioners, and I'm not convinced those are a good idea at the best of times.
Most of the resources I've found re. heat pumps need you to figure out what you've been spending on heating/cooling for the past X years, but I don't have any such data. Previous threads like the one for Atlanta thread is interesting but not especially relevant for my situation. The Arkansas AskMe was a bit more helpful, but I'm more interested in its cooling properties than the heating ones.
I can't think of any other relevant information, but feel free to post more questions if that'll help me puzzle out whether or not this is a good move.
The environment is also a concern: while I know a standard air conditioner would be cheaper, is there one option that is much more green than the other? I'm already happy to be switching from oil to electric, as Quebec power is relatively green (mostly hydroelectric from northern dams).

endothermic or exothermic?

phritosan — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:19:35 -0800

Apartment filter: I need my apartment to be cool inside! We moved into a very nice 3rd (top) floor, west facing apartment... in March... came home in June and no exaggeration, it was 94 degrees in my living room. The AC has a 20 degree difference and runs nonstop from 4pm to 11pm and its 84 degrees in the bed room till 11pm. We’ve had the maintenance people out three times. There’s a 20 degree difference between intake and output. The filters are new. Everything on the roof looks fine. But more than 2 feet from the vent and you can’t feel it anymore.

All the ceiling fans are going 24/7. The floor fan is on whenever we're home and not asleep. The sliding glass door is covered by UV/light blocking tinting designed for RVs, venetian blinds, and a blanket. The office window has venetian blinds and a blanket. The bedroom window has venetian blinds and very thick light blocking curtains. The AC is always set on 78. We cannot make any modifications that are visible from the outside.

Do you think it’s worth another $100 to tint the other two windows? The heat has to be coming through the walls, right?

I live in the Phoenix area, opening the windows after dark will not help. Moving is not an option till March and we still like everything else about the apartment.

What else can we do?! I’m not looking for stop-gap solutions like a bucket of ice water in front of a fan. I want my apartment enjoyable. There is no reason I should have a $230 electric bill for a 980 sq ft apartment when my parents have a $380 bill for a 5 bedroom house! Our electric bill in April was $76!

Help us mefi, you're our only hope!

In or out? This sucks, that blows

Spyder's Game — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 11:11:30 -0800

Regular Floor Fan Filter: My wife swears that it's best to use a fan to "suck the hot air out of the room" first before turning the fan around to draw in the cooler evening air. I say the only hot air in the room is...well, help us figure this out! We have a very hot second story loft that never cools off from the air conditioning that cools the first floor so nicely. We keep the shades and windows closed during the day, and at night (as the outside world starts to cool off) I've been putting a fan in front of the screen door to our roof patio, hoping to draw in the cooler evening air into that hot room.

On more than one occasion, I've gone up there to see the fan facing TOWARDS the door blowing air (supposedly) out of the screen door. My wife's logic is that she's blowing the hot air out of the room, then will reverse the fan later, and draw the cooler night air into the room. This seems silly to me, and I promised I'd poll the hive mind to see if one or the other of us is "more right."

My logic is that if the floor fan faces OUT (blowing the air inside the room OUTSIDE), then you are taking the coolest air in the room (the air from the floor - which, let's be honest, isn't very cool, but at least cooler than the air eight feet above it) and blowing it out the door.

The fan is not huge, but it should be able to pull (or push) a little air around. Any thoughts? Who has it right?

How can we use our ACs most efficiently?

LolaGeek — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:28:19 -0800

We have two (okay, four) window air conditioners. How can we best use them to cool our house? We live in a two-story, 1400 square foot house. It was built in 1895, and obviously they didn't have central air back then, so we use window air conditioner units. We have four of them, but two are kind of old/junky/possibly broken, so we're really only using two.

We've already taken other steps to keep the house cool such as adding extra insulation and vents in the attic, keeping the windows covered during the day, using ceiling fans, and running appliances like the washer/dryer and dishwasher early in the morning or at night.

The first couple years we lived here, we set up one AC upstairs and one downstairs (at opposite ends of the house), and only turned them on when we were in the room. Those were terrible summers.

Last year and this year, we've been setting up both ACs upstairs (at opposite ends of the house), and leaving them on at a low setting all the time. The cool air sinks to the downstairs, and its generally tolerable in the house, as long as you're not doing anything too active (like, say, vacuuming).

Are we using our ACs as efficiently as possible? Is there a different arrangement that could keep our house cooler and/or use less energy?

(For reference, here is a general floorplan - the ACs are currently in the front and back bedrooms upstairs.)

PS: We have three cats, so they need to be comfy all day, too.

Central air conditioner issues on a rental house in Texas.

Ufez Jones — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:45:38 -0800

Air conditioner puts out more water than cool air. Ideas on what two renters can do? The Texas summer is obviously too much for our new rent house to handle. With the thermostat at 78 degrees, it puts out at least 28 quarts of water per day (14 gallon bucket emptied twice, sometimes three times each day). While that's good for the herbs in the front, it's not so good for the internal temp of the house - the cooling cycles are long and do little to bring down our 80+ degree house to the thermostat setting. It also makes a loud noise when starting, almost like someone is kicking the housing unit. This is a central air-unit, not a window-based.

Being renters, there's not much else for us to do other than replace the filter (done when we moved in) and call the landlord to send someone out to inspect it, which we have already. The technicians said the Freon level was fine and cleaned debris out of the unit and while that helped somewhat, it obviously wasn't sufficient, as our most recent electricity bill was $lots.

To hone it down to something specific, we'd like to look for terms/questions to pinpoint to our (granted, a bit batty) landlord. The leakage is a major concern, as is the cost of the electric bill.

Getting the fuck out of Dallas isn't an immediate solution.

Please make my computer quieter

number9dream — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:48:39 -0800

How do I know what kind/size of fan/heatsink will fit in my computer? I'm trying to make my computer run more quietly, and to that end I want to install a new cpu fan. However I am somewhat mystified by the vast range of choices available.

My processor is a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz, installed in an Asus P4P8X motherboard, the manual for which includes the phrase 'socket 478'. I don't really know what this means, although from looking at various fans on the internet it seems that this is important.

The fan/heatsink that I'm currently using is the one that came with the processor. The fan is 70mm, and due to the proximity of something that the motherboard manual is calling the 'north bridge' it doesn't seem like anything much larger will fit.

I don't use my computer for gaming or any other resource-intensive activity, mainly just web surfing, listening to music, watching dvds, and word processing. My current fan is keeping things cool enough (I think - at least I don't have any indication that it's not), I just want something that doesn't sound like a small jet engine next to my desk.

My questions are:
1. How do I know if a given fan/heatsink combo will fit on my motherboard?
2. Any specific recommendations?

My outside air conditioning unit needs a Karen Silkwood shower

Unicorn on the cob — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 08:56:31 -0800

Help me de-gunk my outside air conditioner. Last year, I had a great guy replace my air conditioning unit in my five-year-old house. Being not the best homeowner in the world, I had no idea there was a vast series of weekly and monthly steps to be done to keep things nice (with the house in general), which led to me spending three grand putting in a whole new unit.

The guy told me that my outside air unit needs to be cleaned regularly to keep debris (leaves, bug bodies, crap in general) out of the blades surrounding the fan. He said the occasional high-pressure spray down with an outside garden hose would do, and that's what I've been doing. But he also mentioned that every 5 years or so, the blades in the vents would get so clogged I should do an "enzyme clean." He specifically said it was for the blades on the outside unit, NOT a duct cleaning or coil cleaning. Well, I tried calling the guy this summer and his number is disconnected, and googled "enzyme clean" and all I get is services for cleaning air ducts.

Does anyone have any experience with this? I looked at my unit yesterday and it looks pretty gunked up and I would love for it to be running as efficiently, cleanly and coolly as possible now that the 100+ degree days have started. Ideally, I would love to just do it myself, if that were possible, and he mentioned you could buy the product yourself and do it without professional help or hire an HVAC person to come and do the cleaning for you... but now I don't know who to call or what to ask for. If it helps, I'm in Dallas.

How should I cool my three year old processor?

a robot made out of meat — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:33:53 -0800

Can someone recommend a good mid level heat sink (I'm overclocking but not crazy case modding or spending more than $50) for my Socket A processor? It's an Athlon 2500XP on a K7N2 Delta2 MSI motherboard. The key is that I have to be able to still buy it, and it needs to be better than the stock one that came with the processor. Three (and a half) years ago I put together the pc that I'm typing this on. It's got an MSI socket A (aka 462) with an Athlon 2500XP. At the time, I decided not to bother thinking about overclocking since it was adequate to my needs underclocked with the stock heat sink/fan on it.

There's a saying that as Intel giveth Redmond taketh away; though I don't use either of those, the software compensation to Moore's law is getting to me. I'm aware that the 2500XP easily (like, two clicks) clocks to a 3200+, gaining me quite a bit of snap. That requires a more aggressive heat solution (as is, pushing it too hard clocked to a 2800+ creates instability). Looking around, I see lots of reviews of heat sinks, but mostly from 2-3 years ago and products that I can't find on google shopping. Can anyone
a) make an appropriate recommendation?
b) tell me where I can still find it?

Does a shallow air conditioner exist?

logovisual — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:49:00 -0800

Can anybody suggest an extremely shallow in-window air conditioner, that I could possibly install in a window that has bars across it just a couple inches outside the screen? And don't waste your time suggesting a portable unit, as I'll describe inside. I'm DQing a portable unit because I just got one this weekend, and frankly, whatever gets suggested here would replace it because it just plain doesn't work. My room is only 140 sq ft and it barely drops the temperature by more than four degrees. Plus it fills up with water every three hours and has to be emptied. It's completely untenable.

In any event, I'm not sure the perfect unit exists, since only about three inches of the bulk could stick out the window, and in my experience most A/Cs need much more projection than that to vent properly. But maybe somebody knows of something I don't? I've seen past AskMeFi questions in which people claim to be running their A/C units almost completely inside the window; does anybody have any specific tips on how to make that work?

Looking for ways to cool down a hot baby's room.

theNonsuch — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:41:13 -0800

It's getting warm out, and the top floor of the house we live in is heating up a lot. My infant son sleeps upstairs and the heat from the day is moving up to the top floor and lingering for hours and hours. The catch is he sleeps best in complete darkness, so opening windows means screwing up his sleep for the night. Anyone have any suggestions on how to cool down the top floor while creating a minimal disturbance for my kid? The house we live in is very old (probably built in the early 1900's) and the top floor (where the bedrooms are) traps in heat amazingly well. After a warm, sunny day the temperature upstairs can be 4-5 degrees celsius higher than on the main floor.

My 10 & 1/2 month old kid sleeps in his own room, and sleeps best when the room is completely dark. So through the winter I put up blankets and such to block out any light coming in from the window.

Now that it's getting hot, we need to figure out a way to cool down his room while avoiding too much light leakage. The problem is the windows in our place are ancient -- it's just a screen on the outside and a heavy wood frame with some glass in it that opens inward like a door -- so opening up the window even a little bit allows a ton of light into the room.

The room has a ceiling fan and I've been running that as well as floor fans to help keep air moving, but it's still pretty warm in there and will only get worse as the temperatures continue to rise.

I've considered a portable air conditioner but those need to be vented, and the design of the window prevents these from venting properly.

Any suggestions, besides moving him down to the main floor (not really an option)?

Help my laptop chill out!

Happydaz — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:43:33 -0800

My widescreen HP laptop has a cooling problem. But most commercial USB cooling pads don't seem to be the right size to fit my machine, and I'm wondering if they'll still work OK if my laptop hangs over the edge. I have a DV 9000, which I purchased a year and a half ago, and the cooling fan started to get cranky after I had the machine on my lap or a cookie tray one too many times. The laptop measures 15 1/2 by 11 1/4. This cooling pad from Vizo looks pretty nifty, but I'd rather not pay $43 for it. Most the cooling pads for smaller laptops are in the $10 to $25 range. I am aware there are a lot of products out there and I've done a few hours worth of searching for them; I'd really like to hear which models are worth having and what the noise level is.

Is fiberglass duct board hazardous to my health?

wsg — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:31:03 -0800

Is fiberglass heating/cooling duct board safe? My carpenter says the fibers from the duct can get blown into the house and you wind up breathing fiberglass. Some of the reading I've done on the web says newer duct board is safer cuz of longer fibers that don't blow loose as easily and a coating that is applied by the manufacturer that helps. I couldn't find a definitive answer on the web.

The alternatives are substantially more expensive.

cool me off

thinkingwoman — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 16:22:50 -0800

recommend the most powerful fan you know! i need to move cool air from one room (with a/c) into another (without a/c). can't install a ceiling fan, and don't want to invest in a swamp cooler.

the space is small, so i think a good, strong fan in the doorway would do the trick--but not a box fan, which would block the doorway and is really loud.

i am thinking of one of those tower fans. are they any good? even a standup floor fan would be fine, as long as it's powerful and, preferably, quiet.

How can I keep a receiver cool?

Hogermite — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:33:26 -0800

We've got an Onkyo receiver for our new home theater that is running really hot....how can I best place a fan to maximize cooling? My father recently purchased a entertainment center to house all of his electrical components for an awesome new tv/surround sound/etc setup….the tv sits right in the center of the entertainment center and there are two cabinets below for the receiver, dvd player, ps3, etc….the cabinets have glass-paned fronts and he has cut holes in the back to allow for air-flow, however, the Onkyo receiver that he purchased seems to run really, really hot…to try and solve the problem, he purchased a large PC fan and rigged it to sit almost directly on top of the receiver (about a finger or two of space away from the top of the thing), blowing cool air down into the air vents…sorry for all the lead up, but here’s my question….is this the most effective use of the fan? Would the fan be more effective blowing warm air out than cool air in? What if he tilted the fan on its side instead to blow cool air in on top of the vents as opposed to inside of the machine itself it….basically, we’re just trying to figure out optimal fan placement for best cooling in a confined space….thank you!

Oh, and I read up on all of the previous questions regarding this topic and there was actually one that was really similar; however, the responses never really answered the question…so that’s why this is here…