How hot is too hot? Cabinet question

[swamprat96]

I'm starting to wonder if I have enough cooling. I've searched with no real answer. I have a cab that I've added Mame to. It's an upright with an existing step down transformer for the screen (I'm in Australia 240v- most older cabs had this here) and still has the existing amp etc. I've added a decased PC- HDD only- no cd or ancillaries, and an Ipac.

The cab has plenty of natural ventilation plus an inetrnal fan to keep the air moving. But its getting pretty warm - about 45-50 centigrade by my reckoning after its been on for a while.

It does seem to run hotter when I'm running the jukebox- wincab- and I've had some wincab crashes. But no game issues to date

So is 50 too hot? If I add a fan- suck cold air in or blow hot out?

[RayB]

That's normal CPU temperature... but I don't know if it's normal for "air" inside to reach that temp.

[Haterot]

50C is ok for a CPU I would think with all the other components and proper venting 50C (122F) for AMBIENT air is a little high. I don't think you have any worries about your cpu as most modern cpus (read:several years old) will shut down before they hit critical temps. Your other hardware, however won't. So if it's just your cpu that's running hot but the cab is venting and the ambient is lower than 50C I would say you were ok, but hell another quiet intake fan never hurt.

[Franco B]

You say you have a fan pulling air in (near the bottom of the cab I hope). Do you have an adequate exhaust grill etc for the air to be pushed out of?

What is the general room temperature that the cab is in?

[FrizzleFried]

The way I read his post was that he has an internal fan blowing the hot air around.   You need AT LEAST to add an intake fan at the bottom of your cab somewhere.  Ideally,  you'd add an intake at the bottom and an exhaust at the top of the cab...however,  I think if you stick a 120mm fan at the bottom blowing in (across the PC ideally) you'd be in fine shape.  The positive air pressure created by the fan would exhaust the warm air from the top of the cab naturally.

That would keep the internals just a bit above outside ambient temperatures...

[RayB]

Still, vent the top. Your monitor is up there and hot air rises.

[swamprat96]

Yes I do have a vent at the top and vents at the bottom. I'll place an intake fan over the CPU as suggested- thanks to all

[payment_due]

I'm having a similar problem. I got a regular JAMMA cab that was an Atomiswave and I turned it into a MAMEcab using a JPAC.  Now the room it's in gets very warm when I leave it running.  The way I have it set up is I can turn off the cab and not turn off the PC. The PC isn't even all that powerful so I'm not sure why it gets so warm in there.

PC Spex:

20gb IDE hdd (5400rpm)
JPAC
very small power supply (maybe a 250 watt)
1gb of RAM
P4 3.0 cpu with hyper threading
No CDROM

And I can feel the heat radiating from the cab when I'm standing in front of it.  I don't have any fans for intake or out take at the moment because it was a pre-built cab.  But it had an Atomiswave in there before and it never got this hot.