# Cooling a "Media Closet"



## Rich Purdum (Mar 23, 2012)

I have poked around and could not spot a post that matches my issue so here goes (apologies if I missed it).

I have a closet that was part of the original construction and which contains:

1. The cabinet for the security system
2. All voice and data connections (and there are a ton)
3. A Netgear wifi router with ethernet conected 3TB disk drive
4. DirecTV DVR, Pioneer VSX-1131, Older Sony Blueray player
5. Two small UPS to keep data network gear up for brief power outages
6. An older Monster power strip/surge protector

The closet has always run on the warm side. After losing a fairly new Pioneer AVR, I decided to address ventilation/cooling.

I installed a Airplate T3 from AC Infinity as the venting options were limited. It was clearly too small so I opened the ceiling of the closet to vent into the attic and installed one of their S7 units and hooked it up to the T3 controller. Clearly some improvement but with the closet door cracked the sensor was soon reading in the low 90's with the sensor in the top 1/3 of the closet.

So I got out my laser thermometer and found the Pioneer vent area was running in the low to mid 90's and the Monster strip was reading in the high 90's. These were the only two "hot spots" I could find.

So, several questions:

1. What max ambient temp should I be trying to achieve?
2. Should I look at one of the cooling units to sit on top of the pioneer?
3. Why does the Monster device run so warm? It is old and maybe needs to be replaced?
4. I can probably add another S7 which would give me a total of 5 fans in the ceiling/top of the closet.
5. Where should the temperature sensor be located?

It's summer here in the California foothills and we keep out thermostats dialed in at 78. Once things cool down in the fall we normally run them at 65 which should help the closet cool down a lot. Meantime I'm keeping the door open when in use. It is out of sight of the great room and so that's not a visual problem.


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