Thermal design of a desktop computer system using CFD analysis

Abstract

This paper uses CFD (Icepak) to identify a cooling solution for a desktop computer, which uses an 80 W CPU. The design is based on a total chassis power dissipation of 313 W (40 W PCI cards). This represents significant power dissipation for the chassis components (memory, chipset, AGP and PCI cards, and peripherals). The analysis is also extended to 100 W PCI power. Of key interest is minimization of the chassis air flow requirements. The design is able to cool the chassis with one case fan and the power supply fan. A ducted 80/spl times/60 mm CPU heat sink is able to meet the CPU temperature specification. System level design improvements were made to provide better cooling for AGP and PCI cards.