Building Your Own Air Chiller

Several people have taken the time from their busy day to submit the how-to make an air chiller story that's currently running on OCMod.com. Me, I think that if I open my case the magic pixie dust that runs my computer will fly out, and my bad hardware karma will ruin my machine, but hey, maybe you'll have better luck then I.

Comments

??!!YOU CLOSE YOUR MACHINE!!??

[emil]

No self-respecting geek would run a piece of computer equipment with all the cover components installed!

Cooling solutions are good

[jd]

But, as others have noted, condensation is bad.

IMHO, a heat exchanger and some non-conducting fluid is probably the "best" solution. (There was an article a while back on cooling via oil and an air conditioning unit, but the link was very dead, the last time I checked.)

Alternatively, find a material that semiconducts at extremely =HIGH= temperatures, and stick your computer into a vaccuum flask.

hmm...

[JoeLinux]

Condensation? I still think that would be a major problem in something like this. You'd get water in the case. But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

JoeLinux

Re:hmm...

[Life Blood]

I haven't looked at the design, but in general your going to get condensation where the air is cooled, not where the cool air is pumped. When the air temp drops in the chiller section it will cause any water above and beyond the new lower temps saturation level to condense out. Provided the system is designed well though, this condensation should remain in the chiller section and should be gone by the time the cold air exits the chiller unit. As the air warms up passing through the case it will actually get drier in relative humidity terms and so less likely to cause condensation. So the condensation should be at a minimum as you can keep the two separate. For a real world example, notice that the condensation in air conditioners comes out the back of the unit while the cold air exits the front.

Ideas?

[cr0sh]

Case Fans

Why do people always go with the 12 volt fans? There exist same size (as well as larger) "muffin"-style fans that run on 110-115VAC, many pump 100-200 cfm (I had one that came from a DEC mini computer powersupply - had to mount it on a board to keep it from blowing away when I was playing with it). Sure, they would be extremely loud, but think of it - you can easily get that computer center droning noise you know you've always secretly wanted...

Coolant

Instead of water, why not pump mineral oil through the system? People have immersed thier systems in circulated mineral oil, but that is messy. Use a gas tank pump to circulate the oil (the pumps are designed to resist the solvent power of harsh chemicals, like gasoline). You might not get better cooling than water (don't know whether you would or not), but you wouldn't have to worry about leaks shorting your machine out, since the mineral oil isn't conductive (else why would people immerse thier machines in it).

Worldcom - Generation Duh!

Coolant, yes, mineral oil no.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Instead of water, why not pump mineral oil through the system?

Three reasons:

Mineral oil has a much lower specific heat than water. You need to circulate a lot more of it to get a given degree of cooling.

Mineral oil is flammable.

Mineral oil is a very good solvent. Goodbye to any plastic parts. (And to your rug if you spill any. And imagine the effect on the building.)

The Cray II was cooled with a clear liquid - a fluorocarbon, I think. They also had a debubbling gadget in the room near the computer. Looked like an enclosed fountain made of plexiglass. Very artsy. The two Cray IIs I saw had very distinct fountains, which made me wonder if they were distinct artworks - at least at first.

I knew it.

[TheReverand]

Looks like the pentium article was all a scam to sell a bunch of DIY air coolers!

J'ACCUSE!

Why can't you people just use regular fans?

[atrowe]

There is no need for fancy coolers or super large heatsinks in personal computers as a properly clocked processor works fine with stock cooling solutions. Overclocking is a dangerous and immoral way to improve performance, and should be avoided at all costs. Overclocking processors wastes electricity, can damage components, and provides only a modest performance gain with a high risk factor. Both AMD and Intel have warned that overclocking will void your warranty and cause irreversible harm to a computer. However, the risks of overclocking don't stop at hardware damage. It is a well known fact that overclocking processors can cause unreliable and erratic performance. This can lead to corrupted data, and if the overclocked machine is connected to a network or the Internet, it can cause unexpected problems for innocent users who have properly clocked machines.

Some users overclock their computers so that they can run SETI@home or other distributed clients faster. This irresponsible behavior can not only damage that user's computer, but can provide flawed data that could possible ruin the entire distributed project. Please, I urge you, don't follow the herd, don't overclock your computer. If performance is that important to you, go with the reliable solution and buy a faster machine.

White trash solutions

[banuaba]

Caveat: The site is /.'ed, so I'm basing my comments on interpretation of what others said and on the signal free original story.

Now the guy who did this little thing has *got* to be white trash (I speak as one of the chosen myself) When I was growing up this thing was called a swamp cooler and was used to cool cars and homes in the deep south.

These things are suprisingly effective at cooling you down, and are still used in the poorest parts of the south (central Florida panhandle, f'rinstance)


Brant

My solution

[freeweed]

I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Look on a map for North Dakota, and keep going up. In the winter it averages -40 degrees at night (C or F). All I do is bundle myself up, and open the window - I've played Quake3 on my old XT a few times. Hard to hit all the buttons with those thick gloves on though...

Oh, and just to ensure a (0: Offtopic) mod, if you've never done it before, I highly recommend spending a day browsing /. at -1. My personal desire is to see 2 threads - everything at 4 and 5 for when I'm thinking, and all the 0 and under for when I want a good chuckle during a long and boring work day.