A question about cooling my computer

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iamaphoenix

Posts: 52   +1
ok hello everybody,

im back from college and my desktop is in my room 90 feet from the hardline, so i bought a router and a usb adapter to pick up the signal. the signal speed is only at 54mbps MAX when good conditions align. max if i was next to it is 300, point being, its summer and temps this last week have been 95-100 and my adapter is overheating and making my connection go 18mbps max, with about 1.4k ms on a standard ping -t. since this was fine up until this week im contributing this lack of function to heat so what can i do? the bosy of the adapter is warm at most to the touch, yet if i pull it out and touch the usb plug it almost burns my skin. so im thinking i need to cool the core of my computer to prevent it from getting so hot. i could move it to the basment some 30 degrees cooler than my room, but ya know, room is nice. so without spending money is there any other option i have? would opening the case and putting a fan next to it liable to help drastically (enough to make the cleaning worth it?)

thanks, sorry for the wall
 
the bosy of the adapter is warm at most to the touch, yet if i pull it out and touch the usb plug it almost burns my skin. so im thinking i need to cool the core of my computer to prevent it from getting so hot
I'll assume you meant body.
My kitchen is on fire, better spray down my bathroom.

This isn't a rare problem with USB dongles, my only suggestion is to use a PCI card, sorry.
Also, there aren't really specific USB dongle coolers, so you'll just have to improvise.
 
there aren't really a whole lot of USB devices with good cooling, if any, so HK is correct in recommending a different style adapter. PCI is good but they may also get hot without proper case cooling. these type of adapters are designed to handle heat a little better, but like any electronic device can be temperature sensitive. as long as something is moving air inside the case it should be fine, and most PCI cards are plenty fast.
 
If you're handy enough, you can always open it and stick some small heatsinks on whatever thats overheating. Heatsinks designed for video RAM or normal RAM (not just those heatspreaders) would be fine.

Of course, opening the dongle up will void any warranty, and if done improperly will damage the dongle. I doubt you'd be able to find any instructions on how to do what I suggest online (feel free to google), and figuring what needs cooling would require some very scientific touch-and-see-if-its-hot techniques.
 
You probably don't have a cooling problem...
What specific reasons do you have for believing your system is over heating? What temps have you measured?
Those devices can run pretty hot without failure... but if failing intermittently, that is a serious issue...
 
You probably don't have a cooling problem...
What specific reasons do you have for believing your system is over heating? What temps have you measured?
Yeah i'll bet he's mistaken and his computer is really fine.
But those USB dongles, not so great imo.
 
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