An Airport Extreme uses an original way of cooling as the cooling air is sucked in
at the bottom of the tower, passes the PSU going upward toward the top and
then goes down the other side, passing all the electronics and the
forest of cooling fins that you find there. Between the two you can install a
hard drive that doesn't seem to have any cooling at all.
Or maybe the air maybe goes the other way (I have not found any documentation
showing if my guess is right or not)?!
The fan (at the top) inside the little tower-like box died yesterday, squealing
like a pig and then silence. Sadly, I found I didn't have some of the essential tools for
getting the innards out, as getting access to the fan requires some fancy ones.
So what to do?!
After some thinking, I decided to ventilate the housing (the bottom was taken off already),
by drilling seven 1/2" holes in the rear side of the tower and five holes in the right side
of the tower, to improve the ventilation on the side with the electronics, and then
put it face down to improve the circulation further (the bottom was not re-mounted
to improve the passive airflow). There are no children or pets in the house,
and there iare no bare wires at that end.
Worked great!
Just 55 C on the cooling fins surface (approx 130 F) after the drilling, not perfect but OK.
A friend had a similar tower (not sure if it was an Airport) that one day had a similar failure,
almost burning down his fantastic bungalow. But smoke damage was extensive. For instance,
a lot of textiles in the house needed to be sent off to the cleaners or thrown away. The drive
stood on top of a hefty glass table so the fire didn't spread much but the house needed a lot of
repainting afterwards.
Weeks later the house still smelled of smoke!
