Is a cooling fan for an enclosed HD DVR necessary?

Question

I have a Direct TV HD DVR and I will be putting it inside a wooden hutch to get it out of sight. I have a IR repeater ordered to make this possible. My question is, how necessary is it to have a cooling fan for the hutch compartment? The cabinet I will be using is about 2" wider than the HD DVR (an inch or so on either side) and it has about 10" of clearance above the HD DVR. I realize the receiver gets pretty warm and that's my concern. I went to Radio Shack and for $20 bought small AC powered cooling fan but the noise it makes is pretty noticeable. I need to know if I could get away with not installing a cooling fan and just using vents (1 at the bottom of the cabinet & 1 at the top)... Any knowledgeable advice would be great. Thanx. P.S. I realize the HD DVR's remote also has a UHF function and I don't need the IR repeater for it. I will be putting a compact upscale DVD player/home theater system on the other side of the hutch in a separate compartment. That's why I need it...

Answer 1

Clearance on the sides and top and bottom are one thing.  What about openings in the front and back of the hutch?

Is the back of the hutch open?  Are you going to leave the door in front of the DVR closed all the time?

The reason I ask is that it's more important for the DVR to be able to pull in cool air from the front/sides and vent the warm air out the back.  If you're literally going to put the DVR into a mostly sealed box, then it's just going to recycle that warm air back through the DVR - which isn't going to work for cooling purposes.  The air inside the cubicle will just warmer and warmer as it cycles over the hot components inside the DVR over and over again.  This could cause the DVR to eventually overheat possibly damaging it.  Even putting a fan inside such an enclosure isn't going to do any good since all it's going to do is push around the warm air inside.

I have my HD DVR in a hutch as well.  In addition to having space around the sides and on top, the front and back of the hutch are open, so that cooler air from the room is pulled into the hutch, while the warmer air pushed out the rear.

You really want to have airflow going from front to back in the hutch.  The DVR's fan should provide enough movement by itself.

If you really don't want to see the DVR at all, consider a door that's an open frame with a piece of mostly sheer cloth pulled over it.  This way, the cloth blocks the DVR from view, but still allows air flow into the enclosure.  Again, make sure the back of the enclosure is completely open, and that there's some space between the back of the hutch and the wall to allow the hot air to escape.