Tiny Water Cooled System

Xev writes "Most people water cool a full PC, over at Hexus they have water cooled a MINI PC (SFF - small form factor). Creating the smallest water cooled system." Takes all kinds to make the world go round. I'm amused that the radiator is almost as large as the computer itself.

Comments

Only if need to be on the "Edge"

[Gerry Gleason]

The fastest processors of any generation will generate heat, becuase the faster you want to switch, the more power it will take. Theoretically, there is no minimum amount of energy to transmit or transform a bit or bits of information, so as your technology gets smaller and faster (from smaller geometry supported by each new generation of technology), the power required for a given speed goes down. So you can have the same speed at a lower power, or faster at the same or maybe even more power.

That said, there is a difference related to efficiency of the architecture. Some people think the RISC/CISC debate was ended when CISC (read x86 family processors) started using all the same internal architectural features as the top RISC processors, but they did it by pushing the technology, not getting rid of the complexity. It has been costing Intel more to produce the same performance as competing RISCs for a long time, but their market is so huge that they make up the difference in up-front engineering cost by having a bigger market. This also shows up in power consumption.

I find the Transmeta innovation interesting because they solve the instruction set complexity problem a different way. Translate on the fly to an efficient micro-architecture. Can't be quite as good as a simple ISA, but it does much better on the Power/Computation measure.

Bottom line is the architecture matters.

Re:filtration

[GigsVT]

You've got to get that black open cell foam stuff that is used for air filtration. The only place I have found to buy this in bulk is the Grainger catalog, it's about $25 for a lifetime supply. It's a pretty big roll, I think it is 25 feet by 5 feet when you unroll it. Anyway, get quarter inch.

The airflow loss is minimal, but you have to clean them every couple months, or you will start to lose a lot of airflow. The stuff is washable. If you smoke around your computers, figure on cleaning them a lot more often. Running a normal room air filter in the same room helps with the dust and smoke.

Carpet is a big dust trap, carpeted rooms seem to be a lot more dusty on average, especially if your computer is on the floor.

Anyway, here is an example of that black stuff mounted in front of fans.

http://www.bedford.smythco.com/storage/5.jpg

Evercase from newegg comes with a processor overhead fan that has the stuff. I've also found some hobby shops selling small pieces of the stuff for high prices, but as I said, grainger is the best place to buy it in bulk.

Re:Going the wrong direction

[SmallFurryCreature]

About using laptop's harddrives in normal PC's unless size is the reason they are not really an option. They are slower, and less reliable with a far higher price. If you don't mind the slowness just use a low rpm regular disk. It will be silent as well but perform a lot better and cost less.

How do I know? I salvaged the new HD from my old laptop when it gave up the ghost,(note to self do not keep laptop running 24/7 in a closed desk). While the 20gig was nothing to be sneezed at it was dreadfully slow. On a laptop you accept this. On a desktop. No way. I now use it to transport my music between machines.

As for using powerpc, most people who have a file server or something like that use their old machines for home setups. So until iMac's start showing up on the rubbish heap I don't think we will see them being used as the router for the average home user geek. of course if like you you already use them for the main machine it is the logical solution.

Re:What about condensation?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Condensation happens when the temperatures differ. So when warm air moist air touches a cold surface. The water in this setup is WARMER then the air around it. Why? Cause airflow itself, or at least the relativly low airflow created by small fans like this can not cool below ambient temperature. And since the water itself will be warmed up by the cpu it will typically be a few degrees higher then the air, so no condensation.

There are setups where they cool the water and then of course condensation is a real problem. Same if you use peltiers.

The only way you could with watercooling create temps lower then ambient is if you use evaperation. This is not the case here and I am not sure that anyone has ever tried it. Try it by wetting you hand and holding it in front of a fan, this will be a lot cooler then youre dry hand.

If you don't believe me on the condensation put something like a mirror in front of a fan and put it at max. No way condensation should form. (presuming reasonable normal conditions there are always exceptions).

Please note that you can achieve lower then ambient with just airflow without evaporation, I believe it is called vortex cooling or something. But this requires the kinda flow you get out of an airpump.

Re:filtration

[GigsVT]

Crap man, you know how big the Grainger catalog is? :)

OK, here

Grainger Item#:
5W913

In stock, at least until I post this message :)