(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tower computer system, and more particularly to a tower computer system having a chassis provided for installing a motherboard vertically at a middle section of a widthwise surface of the chassis to form separate chambers and separate wind fields.
(b) Description of the Related Art
The effect of Moore's Law shows that the performance of products manufactured by chip manufacturing technologies is directly proportional to the power consumption and inversely proportional to the rise of temperature. As a result, products of the same stage have a power consumption equivalent to the performance capability. Main systems of computers, servers or game players composed of chip products generally come with a design of a heat sink. In addition to the requirement of blowing air from the front at a heat source (the inventor of the present invention has filed several patent applications for the structure of heat sinks that collect air and blow air from the front), an air inlet of the fan is designed at a position closest to the edge of the case to constitute the priority of the heat dissipation of the system.
Secondly, the efficiency of the fan for dissipating heat of the case is determined by indoor ventilation and air exchange, and air is a fluid dispersed and filled into a space, and thus the method of installing the fans one by one on each heat sink for sucking air directly from the outside of the case is set for the following simple calculation, that is, the air supply quantity of each fan per unit time (q/t) is summed and then the sum is divided by the volume (Q) of the box to obtain the number of times (N) of air exchange. In other words, [(q1/t+q2/t+. . . )/Q]=N/t, which can be used for calculating a larger number of times which indicates the quantity of air flowing in the case within the time unit for a higher frequency of heat dissipations and exchanges to dissipating the heat from the box. If the assembly can avoid the range of wind blown by each fan causing the reduction of the wind force, then a relatively faster flow speed can be achieved by a small pressure difference even though there is not enough total area of the ventilation holes of the box. As a result, the total quantity of wind can be discharged successfully without requiring an additional exhaustion fan or reducing the overall efficiency of the heat dissipation operation.
With reference to FIGS. 1A and 1B for a desktop computer in a tower square framed case structure which is the most representative type of structure now, and the conventional structure of a main system generally installs all components into a case 11 from a single lateral side, such that a motherboard 12 with a chip heat sink and a display expansion component 13 are installed on a internal lateral layer of the case 11, such that a fan 15 on a heat sink 14 has no chance to have a heat exchange with the external cooler air, and the fan can only whirl the interior of the case 11. Even if there is a change to the structure of the case and the installation of components, the fan of the power supply device 16 and an additionally installed fan 17 are used for blowing air indirectly to dissipate the heat gradually, and the sequence of the heat dissipation of the system is reverse and thus resulting in a poor heat dissipation effect. Furthermore, the internal lateral layer of the case is aligned outward, and components such as a hard disk, an optical disk drive and a support frame for installing the aforementioned components constitute many obstacles and dead corners for the ventilation. Therefore, the temperature continuously circulates inside the case and gets higher and higher. Even with the installation of additional fans, and the use of good chip heat sinks, the heat dissipation effect cannot be improved.
As shown in FIG. 2, Intel, a major chip manufacturing focuses on the overall system heat dissipation to provide a solution, and the measure taken is to rearrange the component modules on the motherboard, and then proposes a BTX specification, wherein the left and right sides of the assembly of the case 11 are switched, and a heat sink with a wind guide cover for blowing air sideway is invented and applied. More specifically, the fan 15 on the heat sink 14 is moved to a position close to a front end of a front panel of the case, and the wind guide cover is used for guiding external cooler air sucked by the fan into the case in a sideway direction, while blowing the external air at the heat sink 14 and the backside of the motherboard to achieve an expected performance by forming a linear airflow in the case 11.
However, this technical measure has taken the heat dissipation of the system into consideration, that is, it is necessary to suck external cooler air directly from outside of the case by the fan installed on the chip heat sink and blow the air at the backside of the motherboard, but all component modules are still required to be installed into the case 11 from a lateral side as specified in the ATX specification. This specification switches the original left and right directions for installing the system without many changes in other aspects. Therefore, the fan installed on the power supply device 16 and additional fans 17 are still used for the system heat dissipation. In such indirect transmission, the heat is dissipated gradually. In general, two fans can be connected for the use of a same wind field, and the maximum air exchange quantity is only slightly greater than one of the fan with the largest wind capacity. In other words, despite many fans installed, most of the quantity of the wind are offset with each other and cannot be accumulated. Furthermore, internal components and support frames for installing these components constitute many dead corners to produce a reverse pressure, and such reverse pressure will block the airflow from being spread out, exchanged and delivered. As a result, a linear airflow cannot be achieved, and the amount of airflow corresponding to the number of fans cannot be made. Furthermore, the airflow blowing from lateral sides and used for exchange heat with a heat sink has less effect than the airflow blowing from the front side. These drawbacks give rise to the short life cycle of products of the related specification and exclusively specified component modules such as the heat sinks and cases, and these products are not available in the retailed market anymore since 2006. Nevertheless, the detailed factors and statements of the BTX specification is still listed and provided for comparison and reference on Information part of Intel website. Thus, no more descriptions are given here.
With reference to FIG. 3 for a patented technology disclosed by Taiwan Pat. No. M255449, a wind guide cover 18 is used for guiding external cooler air sucked by a fan into the case 11, and the cool air blows from the front side of the fan at a heat sink. Although the motherboard is still situated on the internal lateral layer of the case to improve the heat dissipation effect of a chip, yet dead corners stopping airflow still exist in the case and the assembling process is inconvenient. All these drawbacks have not been overcome. With reference to FIG. 4 for a patented technology disclosed by M343188, the volume of the case is increased for installing more fans 17 along a side of the motherboard, such that a large quantity of air is sent from the outside into the case for an exchange of heat whirled by the fans as if there were no case enclosing the system. However, without changing the position of the motherboard installed at the internal lateral layer of the case, this technology involving a large case and many fans incurs not only a high manufacturing cost but also an excessive occupied space, causing inconvenience to its use, and creating a constriction to users.
With reference to FIG. 5 for a patented technology disclosed by Taiwan Pat. No. M363771, a quick installing and removing device is added, and the position of installing the power supply device 16 is changed to a position under the motherboard to increase the distance between the expansion slot and the bottom of the case, such that the space for installing the expansion card and sucking air is increased to provide a sufficient air sucking distance, and a very large multi-vane turbofan 17a is used for sucking air. Obviously, the result is the same as that of the patented technology disclosed in Taiwan. Pat. No. M343188. Besides the drawback of having a too-large case, the additional installed multi-vane turbofan causes tremendous noise, and a computer user may feel like staying in the environment of a factory.
In the aforementioned methods, fans are added or increased, but the improvement or remediation is not cost-effective.
With reference to FIG. 6 for an embodiment of a Pico-BTX system as disclosed in Taiwan. Pat. No. M261746, although this patented technology can provide a solution to improve the heat dissipation by sucking air from the outside into the case and is without the restriction of a single installation direction, it is a pity that the motherboard 12 having chips and needing heat dissipation most is installed at the bottom of the case, and the structure of the horizontal motherboard 12 usually accumulates dust. The conventional system having the drawbacks of a single wind field and a single chamber assembly has not been improved much, and the indirect heat exchange as specified in the BTX specification is still adopted, and a heat sink with sideway airflow and a lower heat dissipation effect is adopted so that a higher-performance product with larger power consumption is not allowed for collaboration. Moreover, as the component modules are positioned in a way of being stacked one and another, the miniaturized case is restricted by fixed frames necessarily on both sides and hardly retards the operation of assembling the system. Furthermore, the components of the case and the material of the heat sink in accordance with the Pico-BTX specification no longer have the usefulness of exchanging the component modules of the tower system.
With reference to FIG. 7 for a patented technology disclosed in Taiwan Pat. No. M361201, the case 11 is a multi-layer structure provided for connecting an expansion card 121 to the bottom of the motherboard 12. Although a flat cable 122 can be used for installing the expansion card 121 more flexibly, it wastes too much space in a small system, and the horizontal motherboard 12 and support frame have the same drawbacks of the aforementioned Taiwan Pat. No. M261746.
There are other related patents such as a support frame that can be turned over and disassembled easily, but same as the aforementioned patents, these patents still have not considered the factors of the sequence of heat dissipating airflow, and the components are installed from the inside to the outside. Even though the chip products with fans are mounted, the outwardly aligned bottom surface of the support frame results in blocking the air inlet and failing to suck cooler air into the case from the outside.
With reference to FIG. 8 for a patented technology as disclosed in Taiwan Pat. No. 1274980, the overall structure comprises of a pair of circular or polygonal support modules 19 suspended in the air and connected with each other into a board support frame 191 used for the assembly, and form two non-vertical separated containing spaces. As disclosed in this patent, “the computer system structure” aims to break through the conventional design of a square framed tower case structure, and provide a function similar to a portable stereo. Moreover, it states that the previous computer is used as a computer only without add-on functions and thus such computer system has low economic benefit and fails to comply with the cost-effective requirements of modern people. In the meantime, damages caused by the loss or missing of private and confidential data stored in the computer system must be reduced, and thus the add-on function and expandability of the existing product are sacrificed. The horizontal computer system is used for carrying a single Pico-BTX motherboard specification, not only losing the diversified using value of the expandability of the computer product, but also inheriting the poor convection effect of the air in the conventional computer system.
In summation of the description above, regardless of installing all component modules from a single lateral side into the chassis, the prior art installs the motherboard that most requires the heat dissipation at a internal lateral layer of the case. As a result, the issues of ventilation, heat dissipation, installation of expanded devices and spatial volume cannot be taken care at the same time, regardless of the change, thought or innovation for the internal structure.
As chip manufacturing technology advances, many low-power components including the communication, network, video and display expansion cards are integrated onto the motherboard to produce a simplified computer, and thus the performance of these expansion cards has the performance similar to a thin client computer only, and such products disappear from the market in no time. Particularly, products like display and graphic cards consume power not less than a computing processor on the motherboard, so that they are not replaced by the thin client computer. Therefore, products such as display and graphic cards require a heat sink similar to that for the computing processor. However, the expansion slots of the motherboard still adopts an interval of 2 cm apart from each other, and the present existing expansion cards generally have pins aligned in a direction towards the air sucking inlet of the fan, and the motherboard 13 as shown in FIG. 1A is installed at the internal lateral layer of the case, such that if the expansion cards are inserted one by one, there will be a problem of installing a thin fan. A normal heat dissipation operation cannot be performed, and thus the conditions of using an expanded component module which is very different from the thin client computer cannot be used. Obviously, the prior art requires further improvements.