Why bother using spinning fans to cool your PC when you can just spin your whole rig?

spinning PC
(Image credit: Sodabaka / Bilibili)

These days, you can't really get away with having a desktop PC without fans. Sure it's possible if your CPU's TDP is low enough, but desktops generally still need some kind of airflow. So, how about this: Instead of using spinning fans to move air through your PC, you spin the PC itself? That's exactly what Sodabaka did over at their Bilibili channel (via Tom's Hardware), with some funny results.

Sodabaka began by testing an older Sandy Bridge era i5 2500K Mini-ITX system with an atypical tower heatsink. They placed it into a centrifuge that caused the entire PC to spin. I could not tell how fast exactly, but it looked to be around three revolutions per second.

A PC needs wires connected to provide power and a display output, but Sodabaka got around this by cleverly rigging up some wires so they don't get all twisted up after half a revolution.

This PC ended up being a bit too hot for comfort, reaching temperatures in the 100 degrees Celsius range, leading to throttling. So, it's not exactly a viable PC cooling solution. Not that I expected anything different! Not to be deterred, Sodabaka went on to equip a much larger Noctua NH-P1 passive cooler with and without a small fan attached to the top of the cooler. It performed better, but it still hit 100 degrees.

Your next upgrade

Nvidia RTX 4070 and RTX 3080 Founders Edition graphics cards

(Image credit: Future)

Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the rest.

Sodabaka then gets really creative, by 3D-printing some large fan blades that were attached to the motherboard tray. The system with the Noctua cooler was installed and the RPM was cranked up. However, the presence of a full face mask and protective riot shield gave us all the information we needed that isn't a cooling option that can be seriously considered.

In the end, centrifugal force wins out. The NH-P1 weighs over a kilogram and it eventually got flung off, effectively destroying the PC.

It's all in good fun,  and really shouldn't be taken as any kind of effective cooling advice. Sodabaka goes above and beyond in their video to prove that the humble fan is not going anywhere. And, they don't even need the user to hide behind riot shields to operate.

Chris Szewczyk
Hardware Writer

Chris' gaming experiences go back to the mid-nineties when he conned his parents into buying an 'educational PC' that was conveniently overpowered to play Doom and Tie Fighter. He developed a love of extreme overclocking that destroyed his savings despite the cheaper hardware on offer via his job at a PC store. To afford more LN2 he began moonlighting as a reviewer for VR-Zone before jumping the fence to work for MSI Australia. Since then, he's gone back to journalism, enthusiastically reviewing the latest and greatest components for PC & Tech Authority, PC Powerplay and currently Australian Personal Computer magazine and PC Gamer. Chris still puts far too many hours into Borderlands 3, always striving to become a more efficient killer.

Read more
A screenshot of a video on BiliBilli showing an air conditioning unit attached to a PC with Nvidia, AMD and Intel stickers.
The definition of overkill: Cooling an RTX 4090 to a claimed 20°C with a household air conditioning unit
A Be Quiet! cooler installed on a motherboard inside a gaming PC.
Air coolers are still cool
Two pictures of Billet Labs' copper gaming PCs
This 4090-equipped water-cooled copper PC 'looks like a steam engine' and I'm in love
An air cooler from Noctua and a liquid cooler from Arctic on a blue background with the PC Gamer Recommended badge in the upper right.
Best CPU coolers in 2025: I've loaded liquid and air coolers onto today's top processors and these are my favorites
MSI GeForce RTX 5090 32G Special Edition with five fans
The RTX 5090 might make triple-fan cards look light on cooling if these four-fan and five-fan versions from Gigabyte and MSI are anything to go by
Two of the best PC fans side by side on a blue background
Best PC fans in 2025: I've put these case fans through their paces to find the coolest and quietest
Latest in Cooling
Noctua's Thermosiphon cooler concept at its Computex booth in Taiwan.
Noctua's pumpless 'thermosiphon' liquid cooling unit is expected to be released in 2026 and has already given me a free lesson in basic thermodynamics
Endorfy Fortis 5 air cooler on a desk and loaded onto a motherboard.
Endorfy Fortis 5 Dual Fan review
MSI MAG CoreLiquid A15 360 AIO CPU cooler installed close-up of pump
MSI MAG CoreLiquid A15 360 review
Photo of Thermal Grizzly TG Putty
Thermal Grizzly TG Putty review
A screenshot of a video on BiliBilli showing an air conditioning unit attached to a PC with Nvidia, AMD and Intel stickers.
The definition of overkill: Cooling an RTX 4090 to a claimed 20°C with a household air conditioning unit
A Noctua NH-L12S cooler installed on a motherboard.
Noctua NH-L12S review
Latest in News
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event
A Viera looking confused in Final Fantasy 14.
Old armor continues to fall victim to Final Fantasy 14's bizarre two-channel dye system, unless you're super into changing the colour of teeny-tiny eyelets: 'Why even bother at this point?'
Starfield: Shattered Space
By the time Bethesda was on Starfield, you'd 'basically get in trouble' for breaking schedule, says former dev: 'A lot of the great stuff within Skyrim came from having the freedom to do what you want'