Thread: Lexus IS300 - CarPC - WheelPC v0.8 pics inside

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

OMG, dont do water cooling. There are way to many things that can go wrong. Have you already checked for places inside the car, like under the seat? Also, not sure if this would work, but maybe you can cut holes on the piece behind the passenger seats, you know the top area were the speakers are? Maybe you can cut to or three 120 mm holes then put a 120 mm fan to blow the cabin air into the trunk. I would really try to stay with air cooling if you can. You can maybe even run ducks from the 3 holes down into the PC area.

it seems that i might have to, i have been thinking how the carPC will handle the crazy AZ heat in summer, and i read some numbers that really scare me, that is temps here in the cars can reach over 150F while surfaces reaching even 160F+! so hmm that will create a lot of issue, if the trunk is that hot the CPU and IGP will not like those temps plus adding there own heat, will just end up locking or frying the thing, water cooling and using peltier to aid the water temp is the only way i think for withstanding those temps...

Originally Posted by drutort

I have options of creating some spacers on the plastic to have more circulation and even putting a side mounted blower on the sides of the trunk as there is special vents that allow air to flow outside the car

Hey this might be your best alternative than to add two holes like i suggested. Take a picture of that vent, and post it so we can analyze the next move to keeping that beast cool.

I have a filtered vent coming from what may be the engine compartment to inside the dash right where my computer sits. I can't see the other end so i'm not positive on that. I hope it's not a heat vent lol! I'll investigate what it's for, it could be a cold air intake ported through the inner front fender well.

Since 60c or 140f is considered normal pc operating temperature, I think i am doing okay now that a new, bigger, vented cover was made. The GPU is very happy @ 38c, (as you already know it regulates the fan internally), and has been spinning slowly for three hours at 400 rpm.

The CPU is at an even lower temp of 34c! The vented cover is doing the trick without additional fans turned on.

Originally Posted by dMand

Hey this might be your best alternative than to add two holes like i suggested. Take a picture of that vent, and post it so we can analyze the next move to keeping that beast cool.

I have a filtered vent coming from what may be the engine compartment to inside the dash right where my computer sits. I can't see the other end so i'm not positive on that. I hope it's not a heat vent lol! I'll investigate what it's for, it could be a cold air intake ported through the inner front fender well.

Since 60c or 140f is considered normal pc operating temperature, I think i am doing okay now that a new, bigger, vented cover was made. The GPU is very happy @ 38c, (as you already know it regulates the fan internally), and has been spinning slowly for three hours at 400 rpm.

The CPU is at an even lower temp of 34c! The vented cover is doing the trick without additional fans turned on.

the vents are very small and are meant i think to let air out when you close the trunk and not so much when the air goes in, i think they maybe 2" by like 4 or 6" wide

i have read a lot of mixed comments on taking air from outside, the biggest concern is rain, and or condensation

i also read some people that have ran carPC in AZ just fine in some location inside the cabin, im trying to find out what kind of specs they were running but it seems that the computers that survive the best in heat are those that generate little of there own heat, those very low power systems

so i think the best thing to do is find ways to underclock the cpu and gpu's low enough that they do not emit too much of there own heat at idle, maybe even make special profile for summer and then you can ramp up the speed if you need it while the system is at a lower temp

seems that heatpipe and oversized heatsink should do ok if I can manage to make decent ports for air flow, but water cooling and peltier setup is something quite advanced to setup in such a small area and will cost as much as all the computer hardware alone :/ even if I can do it, I think I would be better off with a low power CPU and IGP instead that will just tank the heat, then spending 2x of 3x

Originally Posted by HiJackZX1

What about adding or extending vents. i know your car has to have vents for the rear passengers at the feet. Maybe extend of of them to the trunk using a thing abs plastic that can go under the carpet?

ya i thought of that, i looked and looked, the car has very little room :/ its rwd too so, there is little room in the center too, which sucks

right now i have faulted on this trunk idea as far as areas were heat is of issue, for other guys were heat is not an issue then this will work perfectly, and in the future maybe some new PC hardware will come out for the car and will be able to withstand over 150F easy then this will be still the easiest and best way to utilize space be it mini ITX or microATX

right now i switched over to going in glove box with a mini ITX, i purchased the hardware just have to make the modifications and what not, ill test the hardware soon, then start on some fabrication if needed be, im trying to keep it all as stock looking as possible

I will try to utilize the blower of the car, as a suction unit to suck the air if possible through the computer while having a fan that blows on the hardware and the blower box will suck the hot air and pass it through the heater or AC, reason to go with suction rather then blowing is it will go through either AC or heater, and heater is bad, AC might be ok but there is no way to control that, this design is going with mini ITX so it should have space, i had to buy new cpu mobo and so-dim ram, everything else ill be using pretty much the same