[SOLVED] Need advice for a 24/7 running PC in a dusty environment. Fans, fanless, liquid cooling?

Jan 7, 2020
1
0
10
I'm looking to build the best setup I can for our company. We are installing robots in very dusty environment including flies entering into the pc case.
Before I was hired the IT guy was installing regular desktop PCs such as HP Prodesk 400 or 600. In the last months we had multiple motherboard issues.

We are now installing the PCs in a Tripp-Lite rack (SRW6U). I added some mesh screen to prevent dust and flies entry. I also added 2 exhaust fans on top connected to one of the USB port of the PC.

This is definitively not a long term solution and I'm considering doing in-house build instead of buying HP PCs.

Choosing the way we are cooling the PC will help to choose other components. Most industrial embedded PCs are sold with i3-i5 CPU which is not enough. Fanless seems a good option but we are limited in case size. It can be a rackmount pc case since we have 4U left in the rack (need short depth case) or we can put the case on a shelf in the rack but ATX cases won't fit.

I can consider mid and full tower for old customers which don't have the Tripp-Lite rack installed but not for new installation.

Below are the PC requirements
  • CPU (Intel) Benchmark over 10 000
  • 8GB RAM minimum
  • M.2 SSD as primary drive
  • 2nd HD for backups (can be SSD or IDE)
  • 2 x LAN ports for Internal and External networks (2nd port can be using a PCIe slot)
  • Will use onboard graphic
  • OS Win10 Pro
  • Running SQL 24/7 to collect data from the robots.
I never used fanless or liquid cooling PCs but if it can reduce our number of emergency calls I would go for it if price is reasonable which mean we won't spend 2k per build. Just a good, stable and reliable setup at good price will do the job.

Thanks for you help guys!