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Passive Air Cooling
Similar to the active air cooling method, passive air cooling uses a heat sink to create a larger cooling surface of a component. The difference lies in the size of the heat sink, though, since passive air cooling relies solely on the size of the fins to reduce the heat. These fins must be large enough and must also have enough space between them so that a natural flow of air can be achieved that will adequately remove the heat. These heat sinks can become quite heavy and require special parts to be fixed over the part to be cooled. Passive air cooling is the most efficient way of cooling in terms of power saving, since it uses no power to operate. The drawback to this method is weight, since heavy and large heat sinks must be fixed over small parts, increasing the total weight of a computer and reducing the usable area inside the case. Additionally, this method doesn’t work well when the ambient temperature is high, because high ambient temperature causes the passive air cooling to become ineffective.
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