[SunRescue] Heat question regarding SS20...

[Dave McGuire]

On Wed, 18 Aug 1999, Gregory Leblanc wrote:
>I have a new (to me) SS20 with a pair of SM41 CPUs, a pair of 1 gig SCSI
>drives and a few other parts.  There is a little approx 3cm fan between the
>two scsi drives, and the cdrom/floppy.  There are also the two power supply
>fans which are about the same size.  I'd had this running for a while while
>I was figuing out pkgadd and downloading gzip and netscape.  I turned if off
>and opened it up to check out the board lay out again (I just like to look
>at these things, what can I say) and I touched one of the CPU/cache
>controllers.  I didn't get burned, but only because I moved quickly.  The
>drives are also very hot.  I understand why their hot, but has anybody done
>anything about it?  Should I re-fit it and put it in my 4/330 case <grin> or
>what?  Thanks a bundle.

  The SS20 is somewhat notorious for having insufficient cooling.  Your machine
is fairly well stuffed, with two drives and two mbus modules...I'd say that
much heat is normal for that kind of system, though it's definitely not good. 
I'd suggest getting some canned air and blow through the power supply from the
inside out to remove any dust bunnies that might impede air flow.  Then, make
sure to run the machine with the top cover on...the power supply fans have a
better chance of sucking air through all the hot-running components that way. 
Also make sure that the side vents aren't blocked by anything sitting next to
the machine.

  Later on, if finances permit, replacing the two 1gb drives with one 2gb (or
other) drive would help quite a bit.

                 -Dave McGuire