fans for my home theater

with all the stuff I have in my entertainment center it gets pretty hot

any suggestions on fans to cool everything down?

currently have in the center

dvd
360 plus hd dvd
ps3
wii
saturn
ps2
receiver
pvr

plus looking at moving a computer in there as well

Why do you have a DVD player if you have a 360/HD-DVD player?

[quotef0c724c311="guelah75"]with all the stuff I have in my entertainment center it gets pretty hot

any suggestions on fans to cool everything down?

currently have in the center

dvd
360 plus hd dvd
ps3
wii
saturn
ps2
receiver
pvr

plus looking at moving a computer in there as well[/quotef0c724c311]

A tip...don't run them all at once...then you won't need fans.

Depends on the layout of your entertainment center. Whether you run them one at a time or not, if there is inadequate airflow around the device, it can and will overheat. This is without a doubt the single most common cause of 360 failures. Besides, if you run your 360 or other consoles through your receiver like a lot of folks do, you're always going to require at least two devices powered up, in addition to the TV.

If your entertainment center is not built-in, make sure it is open in the back. Even if you have to remove some or all of the back panel. Having fans won't do you much good if there isn't room for the air to circulate through the area. Do not shut devices behind doors either. If it IS built in, I think you'd want to consider tearing it down or reconfiguring it.

Since you have so much gear, and if you can't "open up" the entertainment center you have, I would suggest a new one. Perhaps instead of a single piece of furniture, get a glass & metal TV stand that has metal supports and wide open glass shelves for a few components underneath, such as the receiver and pvr, then a hi-fi equipment rack to stand off to the side for the rest. Such racks are typically open on all sides and have one component per shelf, to allow plenty of airflow. That way you aren't cramming everything together. That would do far better than trying to force air through an enclosed entertainment center.

For my family room HT, I have the Sony stand that matches my 60" SXRD. It has two wide glass shelves underneath and is open on all sides. I have a massive Yamaha receiver, a PVR, DVD player, XBOX360, and a Wii in there, with plenty of space around them. Nothing overheats. With a smaller and narrower TV than mine, you won't be able to fit all your gear in something like that, so the rack is a nice option. That's what I have in our bedroom -- we have the 42" plasma on the wall, then centered underneath TV is a 4-shelf metal & glass hi-fi rack, one component per shelf, open on all sides. It's a nice look and everything runs very cool.

well the PVR is on all the time, the receiver is on any time the TV is on, So to do anything 3 things have to be "ON" add the fact of watching a DVD, HD-DVD, or playing a game and it goes up one or two more

the center is wood with 9 shelves, 6 with glass doors(3 on each side) 3 open in the front

I have replaced the back of the center with peg board to organize the mounds of wires.

So my thinking was get a couple of fans - my thought was something similar to a internal computer fan - and have them pull the hot air to the rear of the center


cool air ---> components ---> fan --->warm air

if you will

so any suggestions about what kind of fan or if I can mod a computer fan to work in my situation

as for the dvd player, it was around before the 360+HD-DVD so it stayed in the setup

thanks for the help

Honestly I don't think fans will help very much. Not with that much heat generating equipment in such an enclosed space. To be effective you'd have to pull a LOT of air through there, and small computer fans aren't going to do it unless you use a LOT of them. You also have to be careful with fan noise, otherwise you'll ruin a good HT experience.

You can buy large (like 8 or 12 inch) fans that are identical to PC fans just supersized, that run on 110v, so you could wire several up in parallel and plug 'em into an outlet. However you'll still have to open up the back panel (peg board won't allow enough airflow) and leave enough spacing between the back of the center and the wall.

I would certainly consider removing the doors as well.

the doors stay open anytime the components behind them are in use, also I was thinking of cutting out the holes for the fans in the peg board and mounting them that way....

but if you dont think they will make much difference I'll look for another solution

as always dmorris - thank you for your help and the time you put into the tech thread, i've learned alot through your posts

Well if you can really MOVE the air through there, it won't hurt and will probably help some. I'm just skeptical that for the amount of effort there will be little reward, especially if it isn't done right. It's actually possible to screw up airflow so badly with misplaces fans in confined spaces to actually cause temps to rise rather than fall. This is common in PC cooling too.

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