Help, I'm having trouble keeping my HT cool! (1 Viewer)

Hi,
Lately I've been having a ton of trouble keeping my HT cool. It gets well over 80 degrees (I would bet it gets over 90 degrees sometimes)in my room when ever I watch a movie . My receiver (Harman/Kardon AVR 120) does run pretty hot because it has no fan. I'm really sick of this heat. I thought about getting a in window AC but my dad said no. The main problem is that I'm on the second level of my house in a 10' by 14' room. My monitor runs really hot and my receiver runs hot also. Heat builds up really fast. Is there any way to cool my HT down? I'm thinking about buying some 115 V 4" fans and have 4 of them pull air across my amp but I don't think it will help much. I just finished watching a movie and it got so hot that my DVD player started pausing because the motor overheated. It really sucked because I was sweating so much I did not even get to enjoy the movie. If anyone has any Ideas they would be greatly appreciated.
Ryan

Does your home use a forced air heating system? If it does you can add a heating & cooling thermostat that will allow you to run the fan in furnace continuously. This will bring cooler air into the room from the rest of the house.

or move into the cellar..... my receiver gets so cold it doesnt feel like its on.
oh forgot to mention that when the central AC is on it really gets cold in the cellar.

Is your room usually warmer than the rest of the house even without your equipment running?Do you have central heat & air?If so, your room maybe at the end of the duct run for the AC or just a poorly ducted room.Since a window unit isn't an option,a booster fan for the duct going to that room may help.A booster fan is a high velocity fan placed into the duct leading to the problem room.When the AC cuts on, the booster fan pulls more of the cooled/heated air into the room to help equalize the flow to that room.Any good AC/Heating service can install one.I hope this helps!

Maybe just try a small, quiet fan to circulate air in the room? I know, a fan is distratcting, but is it more distracting than the heat?

I have my equipment in a closet with 5 5" fans running at about 1/2 speed to vent the hot air and one more on top of my receiver. It stays about 2 degrees hotter it the top of the closet then it is in the room. The heat vents into my garage. There are 18 devices in this closet including 3 devices that have amps in them and a projector. With the fans at 1/2 speed you are hard pressed to hear anything when the door is closed.

I do have two heat registers (?) in my room. When my equipment is off my room is not any hotter than the rest of the rooms on the second level. I have a 15" fan blowing at full speed all the time and it does not help much. We have only had the AC on once this year. Last night it was around 73 in the first floor but in my room it was around 85. So even if the AC was on with would not start cooling the house because my room was the only hot one. I really doubt my parents would let me get a fan in the heat register. I think the only real option would be trying to move my room to the finished basement. Maybe I can talk my brother into switching rooms with me(He is in the basement now). It is always 10 degrees cooler or more in the basement. And since the basement is a ton bigger than my room it would take a lot longer to build up heat. Thanks for you help and I'm still open for suggestions.

Ryan

Ryan: Even still, this seems like excessive heat to me. I take it your home does not have central air. Are the components housed in very close quarters? JB

Jack,

I don't know what central air is. We have a thermostat on the 1st floor that sense the temperature and turns on the AC if it is to hot. There are heat registers all over the house. I try to keep my equipment open for airflow. There is about 7" of room above my receiver and 2" on each side and 1" on the bottom. My DVD player is staked on top of my CD player and cable box. It has a little less room 2" on top and 1" on the sides and bottom. My room does not get over 85 very often when the AC is on. But like I said the first floor was around 73 last night so the AC would not turn on.

Ryan

John has it right. It's not only about moving air across your equipment, it's about taking that heated air from your equipment and getting it out of your room/house. If you can find a way to enclose your equipment in a AV cabinet and then come up with a ventilation system for that cabinet, you'll be in business. The same concept as a bathroom fan, it exhausts the hot, wet or smelly air from the bathroom to the outside of the house.

Ryan,

Go down stairs and flip the fan switch from "Auto" To "On"

This will turn on the fan in the furnace and mix all of the air in the whole house. It will bring cooler air from the lower levels of your home to the upper levels. Btw it will work much better if you leave the doors on the upper level open.

Frank,
I would do that but my parents would get mad at me. Right now it is set to off. My mom does not want the AC on. It really is not hot anywhere else in the house just my room. I've now ruled out the basement as an option :frowning:. My brother does not want to swap rooms with me. But I did talk to my dad again about the window AC and he said he would think about it. He watched the movie with me last night so he knows how hot it gets in here. I also rearranged my equipment rack to allow for more cooling. I put my receiver on top of the rack so there is a lot more space around it. I also put my DVD player under the TV stand so it has a ton of free space now. I don't think I will be able to move the hot air to somewhere else. The only place I could move it to is the attic above my room. But I really doubt I will be allowed to cut a hole in the ceiling.
Ryan

boy your parents wont let you do anything eh ? Id atleast try and get them to let you run the fan on the system. If I were you I would just put the window ac in anyway, I dont see why they are giving you a hard time about that if your room is hot. strict parents id say. like I said id do it anyway, what are they gonna do kik you out ?

My parents aren't really strict. Just when it comes to doing construction on my bedroom . The reason my dad does not want me to buy a AC is because they use a ton on power and there noisy. That was before he watched a movie in my room. I think he changed his mind when he watched a moving in my room last night. Hopefully I will be able to find a better (less expensive) way to cool down my HT.
Ryan

5,000 btu units arent much on power and are so quiet now you can hardly call them noisey.

don't they make portable "swamp-type" coolers? i know my relatives used to have this thing.

it sort of looked like one of those square, floor-standing fans, but you added water to it. it blew really cool air. but i think it was kind of noisy.

sorry, don't remember the details anymore. maybe someone else will know what i'm talking about.

I think what Ted is talking about is a good idea. It is basically a portable heat exchanger (more or less an A/C unit) that doesn't need to be mounted. We had a problem with a server room, which was basically a phone junction room without decent ventilation and also a very small space that was not meant to have a bunch of servers, switches and drive arrays in it. It would get very hot, to the point where you could not stay in the room for more than a minute or two, so we brought one of those in. It worked quite well. It's a thought.

I saw a really nice window AC yesterday. It was 6000 btu's and it had remote control and every thing. It was only $120. I will try and talk my dad into letting me get it. Does anyone know how much power these ACs use? I'm not really worried about noise. I doubt it will be any louder than my fan on high. I can see it now. Me sitting in my theater that is 50 degrees watching Behind enemy lines . I listened to music for a couple of hours last night and it did not get as hot as before. I think moving my equipment around helped. It was still uncomfortable but at least my DVD player did not shut down.
Ryan

i can't be a hundred percent ryan, but i suspect if you run that wall-unit AC for any extended period of time, you'll definitely see an increase in your electric bill.

at least in the old days, those things drew a lot of amps...kind of like running your washer and/or dryer or dishwasher ALL the time.

if you get one, i suggest you "go easy" until you can gauge any effect it will have on your parent's utility bill.