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Power Your AMD Via Tesla Coils

Posted by chrisd on from the can't-imagine-that-passing-spec dept.

Propane writes "Here's a fine gentleman that decided to power his AthlonXP via a Tesla Coil right here at arstechnia. Looks like he has some cooling issues, he is currently looking for suggestions on cooling, maybe he can get some tips from Misson: Submersible."

11 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe I'm wrong.... by Sokie · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...but those first 2 shots of the "arcs" from his "Tesla coils" look a hell of a lot like the lightning effect from Photoshop.

    Maybe not, but with no actual details on the page...I'm skeptical. :)

    -Sokie

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    Where are the slash-groupies? I distinctly remember being promised slash-groupies!
    1. Re:Maybe I'm wrong.... by Joystickit · · Score: 3, Informative

      I think in the second one you can see the reflection of the arc in the coil on the left. If it is photoshopped, he did a damn good job.

    2. Re:Maybe I'm wrong.... by Anonymous+DWord · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's a hoax. That third shot (the giant fan) is wayyyy old. Still funny though.

      --
      "If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
    3. Re:Maybe I'm wrong.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I know about tesla coils - i play with them as a hobby. The tesla coils in the pic look very real. Actually it looks to me like there is only one tesla coil in the picture. The other coil is a recieving coil tuned to the exact same frequency as the real coil so as to act as an attractor for the lightning strikes.

      I don't think the lightning effects are photoshop - thats exactly what a tesla coil looks like if u photograph it in the day time.

      This is without a doubt a joke - if u really did this you would fry the motherboard without a doubt. Tesla coils produce 100,000's of v's at frequencies of around 150Khz and very little average current (though peak current in a strike to ground can momentarily become very high).

      Look at http://www.hot-streamer.com for more pics and stuff and http://hot-streamer.com/christophertelford/teslaco ils/tesla3.html
      if you want some nice pictures / divX 5 videos of a real coil operating.

  2. wow, that's fake. by dirgotronix · · Score: 5, Informative

    Wow, that has got to be the worst arrangement of misc. pictures I have ever seen. None of the pictures there are even closely related. In no way does the person show how it would be possible to link a tesla coil of that size to his pc, and in the next picture, of the pc in front of the industrial fan, it has a power supply (oh wait, didn't he say he needed to remove that?)

    Amusing for the overclocking crowd, but even more amusing if you believe it.

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    America - Home of the scapegoat, land of the Corporation
  3. HUH..... by SevenTowers · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is supposed to be a joke. is this the 1st of april? Dudes, it's a joke! but then again, this IS /. :P

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    1. Re:HUH..... by SevenTowers · · Score: 3, Informative

      the picture with the fatass fan has been online for ages. the one of the video card too. and the rest is photoshopped. Did the poster actually believe this? what about checking out the link before posting a story, it's so damn obvious its a fake. "Hey look im running 5k Volts through my ahtlon and its at 250C.... shit, I mean come on

      --
      Imperium et libertas
      Autocracy and freedom
  4. Mysterious. by Renraku · · Score: 5, Informative

    First of all, the poster of the pictures doesn't speak very good English. Second, all he shows is a few Tesla coils in action, a computer, and some cooling devices. I do believe this is what we like to call a 'hoax'. And if he did get it to work, he should post details on how that Athlon XP could survive at the voltages required to power a Tesla coil. Give some designs or something, not just badly narrated pictures of random objects.

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    Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
  5. Very funny. by re-Verse · · Score: 3, Informative

    A very cool/funny hoax. The post says "Now it crunch a workunit within 50 minutes!!!" and "my new farm will end the seti.germany-threat forever!" I completely dig this, terribly funny... but shouldn't /. put this under the "Its funny. Laugh." category? You don't have to know too much about the way computers work to know that replacing your power suppy with a bigger beefier one will in no noticable way effect your processing power.

    The only way i could see this as a serious Slashdot headline would be to post it on April first.

  6. Hoax - Look at the image URLs by abimelech · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.datenburg.de/download/sparks3.jpg
    http ://www.datenburg.de/download/sparks1.jpg
    http://o dense.kollegienet.dk/~madsj/images/cooling .jpg
    http://www.moloch.org/pn4pics/images/laser-c ooling .jpg
    http://www.xpcshop.idv.tw/img/raymond/46007. jpg

    Looks like none of those photos are his. That giant fan looked suspiciously familiar as well.

    It's still funny :)

  7. Bogus by Colonel+Panic · · Score: 3, Informative

    OK, so exactly how is a Tesla coil supposed to make your Athlon run faster?

    Tesla coils produce high voltage (1000s of volts) but not much amperage. This kind of voltage would probably zap your Athlon into oblivion...
    And as someone else pointed out, there's no mention of clock speeds - a processor won't run faster just because you feed it high voltage.