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Water Cooling an Xbox 360
An anonymous reader writes "HardOCP has done it once again. They have an article running down the process of water cooling an Xbox 360, and with surprising effectiveness and remarkable styling." From the article: "We had plans to water cool an Xbox 360 for over a year now. Little did we know that not only will this water cooling project be more fun than the original, but it may even be practical. Imagine that. With reports of heat related issues and a heat sink that can get almost too hot to touch after marathon gaming sessions, the Xbox 360 water cooling project now had a sense of purpose. We bought a retail Xbox 360 specifically for this project. The minute we got it back to the [H] labs we tore into it and, with a little help from the fine folks at Koolance, we have put together a water cooling solution that will handle anything the Xbox 360 can throw at it and literally knock your socks off." Actual implimentation with hand-holding. Hexus.net was discussing a kit to do this a few days ago.
I don't understand why this project was undertaken to begin with. Ok, the Xbox 360 gets hot and the power supply can overhead we understand that. If the original Xbox power supply and unit are overheating it's the job of Microsoft to fix the problem.
I am not trying to troll, but my socks aren't going to be knocked off when someone has to modify their console to operate as originally intended...
They used all Koolance products throughout, with no discussion at all about why they used those particular parts when several other better ones are available. This really doesn't seem that useful anyway unless you pipe the water through the power supply. Even the most intrepid of the PC water cooling community are wary of doing that.
From the site:
If "it goes without saying," why say it at all?
They way I see it silicon chip technology is hitting a wall. The wall is heat.
Back in the day, chips like these processors today would be dreams. It's amazing how certain dreams never succeed and amazing things never dreamt become reality. The Internet was not dreamt, but it has come. The flying car does not exist in the practically and computer chips are doing nightmarish speeds. The same happens with large cities.
Most cities are not designed to become large. the result is extremely tight roads and impracticalities. The solution is all kinds of crazy technologies. Computer chips are following this path.
The silicon chip is largely inefficient in my opinion since it produces so much heat. Large cooling devices are needed now. Though a dream it may be, the basic technology that makes computer chips, specifically the CPUs, need to be changed out to more efficient technologies. I hope for optical computers in my day. If done properly, the optics could allow for extreme speeds and cooler temperatures. Optics don't cause cross-talk so wide busses that are really close to eachother could run at ultra-high frequencies (in data transmission, not in color) for near flawless function.
The XBox 360 may be designed with a poor implementation of cooling, but it is not the only device that produces a lot of heat. I don't like Microsoft myself, but I certainly don't blame Microsoft for producing a high heat device. Though they should have added a better cooling device.
Ultimately, we are hitting the wall, and Microsoft is taking some heat (sorry). AMD may produce a cooler chip, but I think a new technology is needed to advance the old fashioned silocon-transistor-metal based chips. Add optical technology (again, a dream) and free ourselves of this burden.
If what you're doing doesn't qualify as such, then I don't know what does.
I'm not saying that usage of the word "literally" is wrong because the dictionary says it is. I'm saying it's wrong because it's opposite of the common usage. Point is, the entire value of language is its commonality. Traditional prescriptivism is railing against uses of "ain't" not in place of "am not", or the splitting of infinitives. "Incorrect" usages like that do not cause ambiguity, they're simply nitpicks by absolutists.
Using the word "literally" to add emphasis is common usage,
Hogwash. It's a common error, but common usage is still primarily the correct way.
and given that you understood clearly the intent of the author, it seems that it was an adequate choice of words.
Just because an error is common doesn't make it not an error. My recognition of the error doesn't make it not an error. There is a descriptive definition of the word as we, the english speaking public, use it, and it isn't for emphasis. See, "descriptivists" can be as bad as prescriptivists when they defend every illiterate dumbfuck's utter misuse of a word. "Literally knock your socks off" is an easy one to spot as wrong because there does not exist anything that literally knocks off socks. But what if they said "literally burning down the house", intending it as emphasis? Pretty fucking ambiguous. It's fucking wrong because "literally" has a specific common usage that doesn't just vanish because some crackhead with a web site doesn't know how the rest of us use it.
And if I'm not mistaken, we use the American punctuation rules on slashdot, so put those commas back behind those quotation marks.
I use "programming" punctuation rules, i.e. if the fragment quoted didn't have punctuation originally, then the period at the end of my sentence has no business weaseling its way into that character string as it's part of MY words, not THEIRS. It doesn't matter, though. The important thing is that no meaning is lost.
I probably haven't convinced you, but at least I hope you see that prescription is ultimately a waste of time.
Oh, indeed I accept that trying to stem the tide of illiteracy is pointless.
I just don't agree that I'm being prescriptive.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
If 'almost too hot to touch' is below the specs for the processor's operating temperature range...it doesn't matter how hot it feels to the user.
First, I have to mention the obvious. The heatsink is going to be COOLER than the processor itself. (That's the whole reason it works as a heat sink.) If the heatsink is below the maximum temp for the processor it doesn't actually mean you're safe. Without knowing the thermal resistances for everything, you simply cannot say whether you're safe or not. Especially thetaCS, the case to heatsink thermal resistance.
Second, even if you're within specs IT DOES MATTER for reliability reasons.
Even notice how many motherboards die because those big electrolytic caps sitting next to the CPU fail? The failure rate of components is quite signifcantly affected by temperature. For example, an electrolytic capacitor might be rated for 8,000 hrs at 75 C but that increases to 32,000 hours at 55 C. The same is true (but generally to a lesser degree) for virtually all components.
There are also other little niceities like a lower operating temperature meaning a lower leakage current.
It never ceases to amaze me how people with no training will second-guess the basic competency of others with degrees in their field.
It never ceases to amaze me how pompus us people with degrees can be.
I also love the egotistical "we drive 'em hard" implied in the "marathon gaming" bits- as if they're HARDCORE users who STRESS the xbox beyond its limits.
I find this obnoxious too.
I guarantee Microsoft had units running benchmarks/game demos for WEEKS at a time doing burn-in...
Me too, but I certainly DON'T guarantee what the results of that test were. Maybe the results projected that many xboxes would barely outlast their warranty coverage. We don't know. The only thing we can guess is that they were reasonably sure it wouldnt' fail in a manner where it had to be replaced within the warranty period.
On one hand, you would think people could do their job.
On the other hand look at the nice power cords microsoft sent out to 1st gen Xbox owners so their houses don't get burnt down. Could these be those same guys with degrees you're talking about?
People with degrees in their field make mistakes all the time. I'm not saying these guys found one, but acting as if it's crazy to question someone because they may have a degree is out of line.
Life is too short to proofread.