My wife hates the way my computer system looks. Wires all over the place, equipment on shelves, books, papers, etc. Of course, I don't mind, but I guess this is one of those Venus/Mars things.
As a result, she is always looking at or thinking about some kind of computer enclosure or armoire to contain the stuff. We have actually seen some nice enclosures recently, but while looking I noticed that they all seem to suffer from one major drawback: lack of ventilation.
It looks like most of the computer furniture available today does not take into account a very critical change that has occurred in PCs in the past few years - heat. Today's PCs run HOT! This is directly due to the much higher speed processors in use today.
As usual, I don't want to get off into the technical weeds, but a little bit of background might be in order. Computer circuits use binary logic - ones and zeros. The circuits have to switch between these two states. Switching requires power and generates heat. The faster you switch, the more power is required. The more power required, the more heat is generated.
If you ever looked inside a PC, you will easily notice the difference. The first PCs had processor chips that had no heat sink (a set of metal fins that dissipate the heat) or fan. They ran a little warm to the touch, but that is all. The computer case usually had one fan, in the power supply.
Modern computers have very large and elaborate heat sinks, and almost always one or two fans directly on the heat sink (and thus on the processor). The cases now have two and sometimes even three fans in them. Mine has two that blow out the back and one that blows out the side.
There are also other processors within the computer - for example, the one on your video card. You will notice that these also have heat sinks and even fans on them.
So, it's obvious that a lot of heat is being generated. And, it has to go somewhere. The computer manufacturer's job is done if they can get the heat outside of the computer case. But what happens then? If you put the computer case inside a closed piece of furniture, the heat has no place to go. And most of the enclosures I see have no airflow at all, much less a fan to move the hot air.
The result is a toaster PC. A friend of mine put her new PC inside a piece of furniture and it was so hot inside after a while that I thought it was going to melt!
So, the bottom line here is that you shouldn't put a computer inside a piece of furniture unless it has adequate ventilation. If you do and you feel it hot in there, take the computer out. Taking it from a person who services PCs, it's also a LOT easier to service them if they aren't hidden inside some cabinet where I can't get to them.
Keep your PC cool!
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport / Oak Island area. You can visit his website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail him at bsc@bobseidel.com).