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How to Cool Your PC with Dry Ice
Ant writes "This Madshrimps article is a complete guide to working with dry ice so you can reach sub-zero temperatures with your CPU and graphics card. Details on building containers, where to buy dry ice and important tips and tricks. (Seen on Blue's News.)"
That device looks unweildy and is undoubtedly exceeding the max weight limit intel or amd would want you to use for a heat sink. Quite frankly i don't see the point of a computer that requires you to fill it daily in order to run it. Overclocking should only go so far, they have some nice professional compressor based solutions that should be able to achieve similar performance without the hassle of purchasing dry ice on a regular basis. One I know is called vapochill. Dry ice with no load is around -75 C whereas the vapochill should be around -45 C
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http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articl
And if you were to go the dry ice route, since AFAIK dry ice isnt conductive, why don't they just build the entire computer into an icebox (not the hard drive), and put a regular passive heat sink on the processor rather than construct that monstrosity of plumbing. I would think the overclocked memory and chipset would benefit equally as well. Oh and of course throw in some sacks of silica gel in there, don't want to have condensation now.:]
Nuclear war would really set back cable. - Ted Turner
...what would happen if these class of people would be better off putting this kind of effort into getting laid
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
I don't want to buy dry ice. Isn't there a good way to make it at home?
WOW....I just increased my processor from 2.2ghz to 2.3ghz.
After liquid metal and liquid nitrogen, here comes dry ice! What's next?
A computer makes it possible to do, in half an hour, tasks which were completely unnecessary to do before.
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Unless you've a tale to tell about the time you tried to overclock your cat with dry ice, this thread isn't the place for your post.
BTW, the thing about cats is that they have dignity. Dogs do not. You can tell from this simnple thought experiment:
Kick a dog, and kick a cat. The dog will come back for more; the cat will rip your curtains to shreds, then leave, never to return. Now tell me, which is the superior animal?
"Knowledge, sir, should be free to all!"
~Harcourt Fenton Mudd
Grab it off mirrordot.
You can achieve a temperature of less than -100 F just using a big stack of (LARGE) thermoelectric coolers. With TECs, you can keep your CPU that cool 24/7 without using up dry ice!! The hot end of the stack generates an incredible amount of heat though -- A large fan is needed to dissipate the heat from the monsterous heat sink. Your computer could be used as a space heater in the winter!
Dry ice isn't made from water! That's why it's dry ;)
Why not just refrigerate the case instead? You can overclock your 3 ghz machine to 3.04 ghz and keep your brewskis cold at the same time!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Sure. If your freezer goes to 11.
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"Increase Your Horsepower and Get Chicks by Installing Giant Aluminum Wing, Fart Can Muffler, and Car Stereo Manufacturer Emblem on your Four Door Front Wheel Drive Honda Civic".
At least you don't have to get the stuff from Lybian terrorists. Great Scott!
Why am I on Slashdot? I'm bored. Why am I bored? I'm on Slashdot.
Obviously the one that didn't ruin your shit.
According to some dude mentioned in some bestseller (the bible I believe it was called), the dog would be the superior animal, because it turns the other cheek.
http://jcsnippets.atspace.com/ - a collection of Java & C# snippets
Sure, more dangerous. But probably more handy to build and could last longer. Valve set to slow dripping, pipe outlets (possibly with some spraying tips) over the radiators, possibly even electric valve with some temperature feedback loop - temperature rising, pour more, temperature dropping too much, cut off. 1 liter is something like 6 cents in bulk, so it should last quite long. Sure pouring a bucket of liquid nitrogen over a PC won't do much good, but you should be able to release it as slowly as you only desire, so...?
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
I have been puzzled by x86 users' preoccupation with heat for quite some time.
Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper and easier to just use a processor that doesn't get so friggin' hot? Like a PowerPC or Crusoe...
On the plus side, this device hardly seems like something that could be mass-produced profitably. On the minus side, the dangers of dry ice, the border-line exorbitant cost of maintenance, and what appears to be a customized fit to the PC at hand (i.e.: it doesn't look like they could take that monster out and put it into another PC) makes me wonder what the point of this is. And I think I know exactly ;)
No. I've seen the FP complaining that it can't access the site
"Success is based on knowing how far to go in going too far"
It would get rather expensive using dry ice over time, somehow I think its more a "proof-of-concept" rather than useful in the real world.
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Placing granular dry-ice into a copper container next to your CPU/GPU isn't going to result in very efficient heat transfer. If you're really going to try this, I recommend floating the dry ice in some sort of organic solvent (don't try water, as it'll freeze) and setting up some sort of agitator system.
An even better setup would be to setup a water-cooling-like system, with dry ice in a container filled with solvent above the system. The solvent would be fed into a heat exchanger on top of the CPU/GPU. No pump would be necessary, because, as the solvent in the heat exchanger heats up, it'll float up to the top, where it'll be cooled down again by the dry ice.
In any case, the costs of such a system would probably outweigh any benefit of using it.
I'm Trappped at Berkeley.
I needed dry ice for a demo at work and in searching around I found out that the Kroger grocery store chain (at least in the Richmond, Va area) sells dry ice! They have a super-insulated freezer at the front of the store, and sell it by the pound.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Link
And how he did it...
Link
Pay girls to strip!
I'd certainally not use this in a confined space! A Cooling system that can make you feel crap and sleepy? No thanks!
LN2:s ubmersion/submersion.html
f reezercool/experience1.html
http://www.octools.com/index.cgi?caller=articles/
Fridge:
http://www.octools.com/index.cgi?caller=articles/
I gave up with the idea of an useful sig...
The best part is the fog that will come out of your computer... it'll look real cool with all your blue lights shining through it, and *yawn* why am I getting so sleepy?
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
In basement apartments all over the US and Canada, a rare breed of computer users called "overclockers" have been found dead in troublesome numbers. The cause of death appears to be lack of oxygen, although there are never signs of struggle.
The only thing the crime scenes have in common is each victim is found next to a burned-out computer and an empty styrofoam cooler.
Or more exactly, if your freezer goes down to -110 F.
(Actually, it's usually done by pressure liquification of CO2, followed by evaporative cooling. If you have a source of LCO2, you can buy a gizmo to make it at home; cheaper models from other companies exist. Commercial production machines are a lot more pricey.)
Now these "ladykillers" are going to have to pack their router and network cables in dry ice.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Good job Nikademus....if I had the time and money, I would try and do other such experiments. Now how do you get the fish smell out of the motherboard? :)
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I don't want to buy dry ice. Isn't there a good way to make it at home?
Yup, really amazingly simple.
Just take your anhydrous CO2 tank, connect it to a dry ice mold (almost like a rigid fine-meshed cheesecloth box, you could probably hack one together if you don't already have one), and let 'er rip until the mold fills.
You can even still use the waste CO2 (a lot) for something else, with a careful setup - Just make sure the pressure drop occurs in the mold rather than at some point down-stream.
You obviously don't know many dogs nor cats.
And obviously you're a cliché-loving person.
-- Would it be acceptable to just put my name on my sig?
force disorder pumps?
as featured in Greg Bear's "Heads"
From what I recall dry ice has a pretty low heat capacity. Even though it's cold it can't suck up that much heat per gram - not really too useful as a coolant.
Which is why I specified it as a thought experiment.
"Knowledge, sir, should be free to all!"
~Harcourt Fenton Mudd
The quote in your sig is fantastic. To it, I would respond, "I noticed."
... like How to Cool your PC with Bose-Einstein Condensate just so we finally get to the ultimate extreme end of things and never have to see another stupid cooling story again?
Can we just get a category for "cases and cooling"? Crust almighty...
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
I work with two scanning electron microscopes with WDS detectors which require liquid nitrogen for cooling of the detectors (for noise reducation). Being a liquid, it's much easier to work with than I imagine dry ice is. Just dispense and pour (while wearing gloves and goggles, of course). Of course LN2 is not nearly as easy to come by as dry ice, it's MUCH colder, at -320F vs -109F for dry ice. Of couse, I don't forsee a time when LN2 will EVER be easily available, but that shouldn't stop geeks that DO have access to it from experimenting a little...
The latest in driving simulation technology, now you can fire up your favorite driving game, park in a garage and suffacate to death from the comfort of your basement.
Rime from water and other substances is a major problem in cryo work. So is heat transfer. We normally use acetone or isopropyl alcohol in vacumm trap cold bath dewars to improve heat transfer.
"Another important concern with dry ice is ventilation. You want to make sure the area is well-ventilated. "
Have you considered the many possibilities that asphyxiation has to offer?
Belgium, man. Belguim!
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
Why don't you just make ten colder and make ten be the top... number... and make that a little colder?
Plus they're easier to overclock with dry ice.
Touché, Sir.
"Knowledge, sir, should be free to all!"
~Harcourt Fenton Mudd
403 FORBIDDEN! Did you post that link just to tease everyone? or are they blocking access already because of the Slashdotters?
Dry ice is used extensively by professional marijuana growers. They also use a lot of extra power for their lamps.
You will probably go onto the government's terrorist watch list if you are using dry ice to cool a computer that is sucking down too many watts of power.
What isn't dry ice good for? -Creating a skating rink in your dorm. -Cutting coins for the coffee machine. -Cooling a laser capable of popping a houseful of popcorn from miles away. Now you can add cooling your computer to that list!
Seems like it's been done.
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Cats don't make good Catholic, they are unable to fel guilt.
And when you get tired of overclocking, put a handful of magnesium turnings in the center of a big block of dry ice. Ignite.
Note that the resulting fire is not extinguished by either water or CO2. It can also blind you or permanently damage your retina and/or burn you to death.
But what the hey, it's fun!
Use one as the base.
Use two in the second layer.
Use 4 in the third layer.
On top of that place a large heatsink and massave fan or a watter cooling system hooked up to a large heatsink and fan.
As long as you use thermoelectric rated for the operating temperature each layer is going to sit at you can stack them like this and get to vary low operating temperatures.
PS: It would be more effecent to use the inner loop of an AC unit instead of a few layers of thermoelectric cell's.
They did this on The Screen Savers (that is, the GOOD Screen Savers) years ago.
HOW DO YOU EVER GO NEAR WATER?
:)
He did mention "deadly Dihydrogen Monoxide" (H2O), did he?
Haven't said that, this thread isn't funny.
Completely right: I expect dry ice to cause lots of trouble, including the ones you mentioned (though condensation may be overcome by covering everything with grease like in the article). Also the _large_ difference in temperature could be dangerous, as it may cause cracks in the die of your CPU. Besides: why do you need it to be _that_ cool? There is a difference between sinking a lot of heat (useful in PCs) and making stuff _really_ cold (useful in satellite receivers). I would welcome a robust and preferably cheap method for the _sustained_ removal of heat, rather than an expensive method of overcooling your CPU which requires a consumeable and is dangerous. (though it's a cool hack)
Capital for investment on new business venture. - DryIceSP.com
I have two different water based cooling systems which do a great job of cooling the CPU and Graphics chips. If I every want to go colder I could drill a couple of holes in my mini fridge and pump the coolant through either the freezer or the 'warmer' section. Problem is condensation on the lines and the cooling blocks. I have found the trying to cool my system that low is not worth the cost. Mine run at room temp + 10 degrees which is good enough for me.
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It isn't possible. It is a flat out fact that rapid expansion/contraction cycles will kill a chip.
That said, dry ice continually applied won't do it, as most commercial products are rated down to -25C, and the heat transfer should not be efficient enough to take your CPU down below that level, especially when its generating heat in operation.
---
Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
On another note, will a cpu really function properly in that cold of a temperature? I've got some other hardware sometime back in the dead of winter with labels "please allow to get to room temparature before operating". In other words, if the heat wont kill you, the cold will.....
Disclaimer: Wear protective gear and be careful. If you aren't prepared to take responsibility for your own acts though, don't do it.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
These stunts remind me of a valuable lesson learned many years ago (before I had a job to afford real toys) when I was 'overclocking' a portable radio. I wanted it loud - too poor to buy a real amp, I noticed the main amp IC got real hot, and then the sound sucked. So I cooled it by putting a plastic bag filled with ice in it on the chip - that worked! Could crank the volume to about 85% without annoying distortion.
Next step - from school science class I recalled that adding salt lowered the temp of the ice. Refilled the bag with salt and crushed ice and reapplied. Now I could crank the volume up to full and not have fuzzy music.
The lesson came an hour or so later when the system went silent due to the water from condensation shorting the circuit.
Cooling to below the dew point is stupid. Build the most powerfull cooler possible that keeps the CPU above the dew point and that will be cool. Hack together some cute trick to just make things cold is expensive in the long run.
Enjoy!
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
That's okay. You didn't. (Burst my bubble that is)
Carbon dioxide is a non-toxic gas
You'll note that high concentration can cause all sorts of things, including death. This is because it displaces oxygen. A vacuum will have the same effects, but a vacuum is non toxic. How could it be toxic.
To the parent, who said liquid nitrogen is non toxic, since it follows the same rules of physics that CO2 gas does, it to can displace just as much oxygen, and have the exact same effects. So either Liquid nitrogen is just as toxic, or neither is. In truth neither one is toxic. Lack of oxygen does not correlate to toxicity in the displacing gas.
The same holds true for Argon or any inert gas. As well as many "ert" or reactive gasses.
Actually, higher concentration for prolonged periods of time will increase its levels in blood (as HCO3) so much, that its pH will kill you. Why would astronauts on Apollo 13 need the carbon dioxide filters so badly? They had whole tanks of pure liquid oxygen, enough for years of breathing. If CO2 wasn't toxic, they could mix enough oxygen in, creating breathable CO2-O2 atmosphere instead of the standard N2-O2, just releasing some into space to maintain pressure. Unfortunately no matter how much oxygen is there in the air, carbon dioxide isn't "neutral enough". Sure "drowning" in pure CO2 (with oxygen displaced) is much faster, sure low levels of CO2 are completely harmless, but higher concentration of it IS lethal independently of the oxygen levels.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Has anyone ever pointed out to an obsessive overclocker that letting silicon get too cold is as bad as letting it get too hot? PHYSICS LESSON - if a silicon chip gets too hot, too many electrons occupy higher energy 'conductive' states, so semiconductivity becomes less efficient - HOWEVER - if the chip is too cold, it takes a bucket more energy to get them up there in the first place, so again, the chip operates less efficiently. Dunno what the optimum temperature is, but lets just say that using liquid nitrogen WILL MAKE YOUR COMPUTER GRIND TO A HALT. It'd be a good laugh though. Ok - I've finished now.
Cite reference please. I can find no reference to the dangers of HCO3, Death by PH level, or the fact that the Apollo 13 astronauts had plenty of Liquid oxygen to make breathable.
The only danger that I am aware of, or can find is displacing oxygen, or increasing the breathing trigger.
So please cite references
Maybe you should look at some of the replies to your posts?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Ummm which in particular? I saw the one about PH, I asked for references. So which reply are you speaking of.