CPU Convective Water Cooling

biso writes "The possibility of cooling a CPU with gravitational convective flow of water is here analyzed and experimented with positive results. Many liquid cooling systems have been experimented by overclockers to better dissipate the heat from CPUs. The major part of these coolers is characterized by a relatively complex system requiring pumps or other active devices. Sometimes even liquid nitrogen is used. I built a simpler cooler, able to dissipate the same heat flux of a normal heatsink."

Comments

odd

[The Other White Boy]

ok, i can see the extra bit of silence from not having a pump would be nice. but ... isnt a bowl of water on top of your computer just asking for trouble? something tells me this guy doesnt have cats.

not that complex...

[AmigaAvenger]

I've built numerous different water cooled systems, and the $20 pump from the aquarium supply place is NOT the most complex piece. A good waterjacket for the cpu is by far the most complex and generally most expensive single piece, and also the one that is most critical for good performance. Still need the waterjacket in this design, so it isn't really saving anything...

Re:not that complex...

[havardi]

More importantly; it's a moving part. When computers have absolutely no moving parts... well, that will be nice.

too hot

[Anonymous Coward]

I really think that phase change cooling systems are the future of the PC. Only with phase change cooling systems do you get high quality cooling able to remove the utmost heat away from a CPU and cool it to below freezing.

I saw a presentation by Intel last year in which it pointed out that modern CPU's emit more heat per area than molten lava, and they expect that within a few years they will emit more heat per area than the sun.

With these considerations passive water cooling is only a good first step and bound to be insufficient, even over the short term.

Re:too hot

[PsychoKiller]

I saw a presentation by Intel last year in which it pointed out that modern CPU's emit more heat per area than molten lava, and they expect that within a few years they will emit more heat per area than the sun.

Not quite true. I saw the same graph, and it was an extrapolation of current trends.

Obviously we aren't going to emit more heat/area than a nuclear reaction, something is going to have to change in the design of Intel CPUs.

Newer processor would be more interesting

[eamber]

Alright - dude did this on a K6-2 450. They're about HOW many years old now?

I'd be much more interested to see him cooling an overclocked Athlon XP 2100+ with 1.9 vcore running at 2400 MHz - or something of the like - with the method in the article.

Ah well, I'm happy with my good 'ol pumps and radiator, myself.

Re:Transformer Oil - Electrical & Thermal Prop

[gl4ss]

simple multimeter tests don't just cut it, unless it can measure the 'hit through'(sorry, my english sucks and i don't know the proper word) capabilities of the substance.

water would make a fine insulator unless the 'hit through'(amount of voltage differential needed for the electricity to jump/hit like lighting through something) was small(and no, i'm not an electricity-engineer).

anyways, this kind of cooling has been done(submerging the whole mobo in something), couple of times. one guy used some biograde mineral oil succesfully.

theres at least one no-pump commercial solution too for liquid cooling, but it has a fan on the radiator.

though, in my opinion, getting rid of the pump doesn't bring you anything 'extra' since the pump makes next to zero noise, and noise damping the pump from environment is easy too. the real problem lies in how to get the water to keep cool without having extra fans(heatload on it gets quite big if you have cpu, gfx-card, chipset, psu, hd's and etc watercooled for silence). the bowl of that size that's in the article won't cut it.

and really, k6-2 could be cooled enough with just about any lump of metal compared to the 76w+ modern cpu's.