For a few years now, I've had this problem: the computers under my desk emit hot air, which builds up under the desk and in the office generally. This keeps my knees toasty in winter, but, in summer, it's most unwelcome.
So, something over a year ago, I embarked on the construction of a thermal defenestrator: an arrangement whereby the hot air from the computers would be conveyed to the window, and thence dumped overboard. The various bits and pieces have been taking up space in my garage for a long time now.
This month, I finally got serious about it. With a few design changes, and working in the available bits of time when (a) I wasn't busy, (b) it wasn't too hot, and (c) it wasn't too dark, I constructed a cabinet sized to fit under the side table and accommodate three full-tower PCs and the two big UPSes, with an exhaust fan at the corner nearest the window.
This afternoon, I cut a last few holes in the cabinet, cleared out the space under the end table, put the cabinet there, pulled out several years' accumulation of cables and dust from behind the desk, moved the UPSes into the new cabinet, ran the various necessary cables hither and yon, put two of the three PCs in their places, booted them....
It looks a lot tidier in here now. The thermal situation isn't improved yet, as I haven't yet run the dryer vent hose from the exhaust port to the window. Also, I need to pick up a couple of long-tailed outlet strips (to bring server-UPS and workstation-UPS power out to things that need them outside the box), and a 15-foot DVI cable (using the analog cable via the KVM switch gives a blurry display on my nice high-res monitor). While I'm at it, I need to hook up the speakers to the workstation (the speakers' cable wouldn't reach, and I didn't find a suitable extension cable until after I'd tucked things together, so I'm leaving that for tomorrow). Then there's plugging in the third PC (the Windows box), and it'll all be nice and tidy.
I was leaving open the possibility of hanging a slitted plastic sheet over the front and grafting on a filtered intake fan, but that's not looking especially plausible now. 'Twould be nice to cut down on the dust the computers inhale, though.
Oh, and while I had the power off earlier, I turned off the UPS in the lab. When I turned it back on, it started beeping about a sick battery. Just a couple of weeks ago, I replaced the batteries in the workstation UPS. A month or so before that, I swapped UPSes around because both the lab UPS and its neighbor needed new batteries. This must be the year for all the UPS batteries to go bad. (Trying to remember how long ago it was that I replaced the server UPS batteries.)
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