Cooling Choices for Mid-Scale ASIC Deployments
Fan wall vs ducted exhaust vs hydro — what we see survive August in Gangwon co-location rooms.
August humidity in Gangwon co-location rooms pushes ASIC families differently. Antminer units with aggressive stock fan curves tolerate heat but dump noise into shared halls. AvalonMiner rows in the same building ran warmer surfaces but steadier PWM when intake filters were changed on schedule.
Fan wall intake — Cheapest retrofit. Works when the wall faces shaded north air. Fails when parking lot heat recirculates — we measured 6 °C higher intake on a Sokcho site before louvers moved.
Ducted exhaust — Higher install cost, better for noise contracts. Requires sealed room discipline; a propped door negates the duct.
Hydro variants — Rare on sites we visit. Pump maintenance and glycol handling scare operators who already juggle pool failover. Where installed, hash stability was excellent but ops talent requirement was real.
Mid-scale here means roughly 0.08–0.25 PH/s in one room — enough heat for thermography to matter. We bring a camera on layout reviews; streaks on the ceiling predict future hash dips before pool logs show it.
Pick cooling to match who maintains it nightly, not whichever brochure shows the lowest delta-T in a lab.