Question:
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to go about cooling
a 7ft high 19" cabinet than contains 7 PC's and various other
equipment ? The rack overheats when the door is closed, but is
quite noisy with the door open. The rack already has 4 huge fans
on top which can draw the air through at quite a rate, but if
the office ambient temp is comfortable for humans then the
temperature in the cabinet can get quite high (36C plus - I've
never let it get higher than that for fear of frying the CPU's).
The rack backs on to a wall that has our garage on the other
side. The garage is freezing in winter but can get warm in
summer
Answer:
It sounds like the rack isn't suitable for the PC's installed
in it. If you are putting any even slightly power hungry devices
into a rack, you need to look at the cooling/air-flow specs of
the devices and buy a rack with a matching air-flow specification,
or preferably buy a rack from the same manufacturer designed for
those devices. Racks designed to look good in an office often
aren't suitable for anything other than wiring closet use and
a small switch/router, etc.
From what you've said, it doesn't sound like A/C is a requirement,
just that you get a rack which matches the cooling/air-flow specs
of the PCs. Certainly, A/C won't much help at all if the air-flow
through the rack is inadequate. If the rack (or other heat sources)
cause the room temperature to raise more than is comfortable, then
you need to consider A/C.
