Okay, so computers generate a lot of heat with all their processes and we attach heatsinks and fans to combat the effects of this heat.

Well heat is energy so instead of displacing it, why isn't it harnessed instead? I'm assuming of course it isn't. Are fans run by the heat that they are used to cool the components? The little power cords attached suggest to me, no.

Too hard? Complex? Cost involved? Not worth it?

What's the dealio?

I've presented this idea, here and now. If any of you do anything with this and make money (or save it on your bills) I deserve a cut!

The energy that it takes to run a fan is minimal, but there are fans that run on the heat powered by the chips the are cooling. I can't tell you the name, but they do exist. They are expensive, fragile, complex and far less efficient that an equally sized electric fan though.

RDP

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Read this:

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?f...sc&news_no=591

Watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG36EIFNI-Y

The excess heat from my computer is used efficiently to heat my room so I don't need to use the heating and saving me money.

Yes this can be done, but if you have any type of high end parts it will not sufficiently cool anything. Especially considering that you can buy 80mm fans off newegg for like 1.99

This is what I do. Sucks balls during the summer though! It gets to be what feels like 100º in my room with the computer heat!

Get more effective cooling, you two. If your case is giving off hot air instead of cool air I'd be worried.

i personally dont use a heatsink or fan, that way it gets warm enough to cook eggs on my processor.

breakfast ftw??

I've often wondered if you could use a Stirling engine to power the fan, so that the hotter the chip gets, the faster the engine will run, and the more air will be drawn in, like a self-mediating cooling system. It would be good for a laptop because it'd use less power, extending battery life, but it would also be bad for laptops because it would take up a fair chunk of space that could be used for other things.

WTF are you talking about? A Q6600 eats 95W of power, two high-end Nvidia GFX cards probably eat 3 or 4 times as much between them, thats a lot of power (over 400W) and it all ends up as heat. If I _couldn't_ feel it blowing out of my case as hot air I'd be worried.

And there is nothing wrong with my cooling, my Q6600 is usually only about 5 degrees above room temp when idle, 55-60C on load (OCed).

Imagine turning a 400W hairdryer on your hand. If your computer is eating 600W and yet its exhaust air still feels cold then something is going wrong.