Nursing my hd300 with laptop coolers

[heffneil]

Given the fact that you can't get replacement HD300's unless you want to pay through the nose I decided to get some netbook coolers to place under them to keep them cool. The way I see it is heat kills computer components. I bought a couple netbook coolers and a griffin usb power supply and I am going to give it a shot. I will try to post pictures after I get all the parts. Anyone else doing this and have some insight?

Thanks!

Neil

[BobbyDing]

Love to see what you come up with.

Bobby

[paulbeers]

I once had a POS Belkin wireless router that would overheat. I "solved" the problem by taking a regular old 80mm case fan, and splicing a USB connector onto it and plugged it into the USB port on the router.

Edit: by "solved" it just meant that it wouldn't overheat every hour, instead it only had to be reset once a day.

[cwills75]

The way I see it is heat kills computer components.

In my experience:

#1 - Bad power, best fixed with a good UPS. Power bricks/power supplies need to be replaced eventually.

#2 - Power surge, also fixed with a good UPS.

#3 - Heat, components should be cleaned regularly (blown out, fan blades cleaned).

#4 - Capacitor aging, as capacitors get older, they draw more power and eventually fail. Keeping them cool will help prolong life. Solid state capacitors will last longer than electrolytic caps.

Running your extenders/clients/server on a UPS, keeping them clean & cool and buying mobos with solid state caps is good operating practice. Overclocking should be avoided to prolong system life, which now that there are no more program updates is a major deal. Who knows 5/10/20/50 years from now if 7.1.9 will even run on modern OS or hardware. Buy plenty of backup hardware now, download all software/drivers/java versions, etc. Get your system working perfectly and clone your hard drive to keep a working backup. I use Drive Snapshot, but there are others. It would be nice to get 10-15 years out of a motherboard as a minimum.

I have zero faith that a product better than sage will be out in any near future, especially without cloud and DRM.

[heffneil]

All of my HD300's are on UPS's. I just put the second laptop cooler on another HD300 and it is noticeably cooler. I bought a cheapo unit and a griffin power supply. It worked very well. I keep meaning to use the IR temp gun to see how much different the temp actually is but to my hand it is remarkably cooler.

Just thought i would offer my feedback since these little gems get hot and are no longer available.

[speck55]

Originally Posted by cwills75

In my experience:

#1 - Bad power, best fixed with a good UPS. Power bricks/power supplies need to be replaced eventually.

#2 - Power surge, also fixed with a good UPS.

#3 - Heat, components should be cleaned regularly (blown out, fan blades cleaned).

#4 - Capacitor aging, as capacitors get older, they draw more power and eventually fail. Keeping them cool will help prolong life. Solid state capacitors will last longer than electrolytic caps.

Running your extenders/clients/server on a UPS, keeping them clean & cool and buying mobos with solid state caps is good operating practice. Overclocking should be avoided to prolong system life, which now that there are no more program updates is a major deal. Who knows 5/10/20/50 years from now if 7.1.9 will even run on modern OS or hardware. Buy plenty of backup hardware now, download all software/drivers/java versions, etc. Get your system working perfectly and clone your hard drive to keep a working backup. I use Drive Snapshot, but there are others. It would be nice to get 10-15 years out of a motherboard as a minimum.

I have zero faith that a product better than sage will be out in any near future, especially without cloud and DRM.

All good points... It's really a shame that they never put out a pure x64 version before the end.

[BobbyDing]

Just left my local Radio Shack. They had just today put their Gigaware netbook cooling pads on clearance for $4.97. I bought 2. It's USB powered. I'm using an A/c USB adapter I bought at CVS (another clearance...$1.25). It doesn't move a whole lot of air, but it's better than nothing. Not sure if this clearance is nation wide or only local. The item# is 2601711. Thought I'd mention it.

Bobby

[heffneil]

You will notice a HUGE difference in case temperature. Mine was HOT to the touch and now it is cool as a cucumber!

Let us know!

[ybrew]

Should I assume it's bad to power the laptop coolers off of the HD300s USB ports?

I bought one laptop cooler today for $6. I've had my HD300 running for over 5 minutes and it hasn't powered off yet! (OK, yeah, not a great test so far.)

I've noticed if I even look at the HD300 the wrong way it reboots. (Ok, not 100% true, but if I touch it, it probably will.)

I'm running it now, but I think tomorrow I'll it apart and line the inside of the case with electrical tape. I'm sure it's shorting out a lot.

[heffneil]

What is funny is that the other day I was like man this usb cable that came with my cooler is too short. So I ended up looking at it and said man Im an idiot! There is USB on the HD300. I plugged two of my HD300's coolers in to the 300 and they are running just fine. Your unit shoudn't crap out because it is powering the cooler!

[ybrew]

Originally Posted by heffneil

What is funny is that the other day I was like man this usb cable that came with my cooler is too short. So I ended up looking at it and said man Im an idiot! There is USB on the HD300. I plugged two of my HD300's coolers in to the 300 and they are running just fine. Your unit shoudn't crap out because it is powering the cooler!

I didn't think so. Everyone was talking about buying AC USB adapters and I have no idea why!