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MSI Develops a Heat-Driven Cooler

Posted by Soulskill on from the it's-not-easy-being-green dept.

V!NCENT tips us to a write-up about an addition to MSI's Ecolution motherboard which harvests heat from the chipset to power a fan. The device is based on a Stirling engine. The heat from the chipset expands a trapped gas, which pushes against a piston to generate power. The article contains a YouTube video of how the device works. According to MSI, the device has 70% efficiency.

7 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Please define efficiency for me by Colin+Smith · · Score: 4, Informative

    Because I thought to get 70% efficiency there would have to be a couple of thousand degrees C difference between the hot and cold sides. Or have AMD decided laptops are not their core market for the next generation of chips?

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    Deleted
    1. Re:Please define efficiency for me by Naughty+Bob · · Score: 5, Informative

      That being said I'd be surprised if they were as high as 70%
      Prepare to keep those eyebrows exactly where they are- The 70% refers to the transfer of heat energy to air pressure 'power' within the piston. It's still impressive, but the +70% claim relates only to one step of the process.
      --
      "Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
  2. Re:Hmm... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, it works best when the temperature difference between the CPU and the surrounding ist highest. Which usually is the case due to the CPU getting hotter.

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    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  3. Re:They need a rechargeable battery. by Yetihehe · · Score: 3, Informative

    If it is idle, it is too cool to drive a fan. So fan does not cool it. If temperature raises too much, there is plenty energy for fan, so it cools the chip. What is so hard in understanding it?

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    Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
  4. Re:Are we going to get religious about the subject by iksbob · · Score: 3, Informative

    Peltier modules are nowhere near as efficient as sterling engines. Using a peltier module, you would be lucky to get enough power to light a small LED from the typical chipset to atmosphere temperature differential. They work fine as heat pumps since you've already got a big sink strapped to the hot side, but when you start trying to use them the other way around - to generate power from a temperature differential - their inefficiency shows through.

  5. Re:Why? by AncientPC · · Score: 3, Informative

    In the article they referred to nVidia chipsets, and AFAIK they have been unified chipsets since nForce2 (I could be wrong). Motherboards with these chipsets usually have those tiny chipset HSFs that rattle after 6+ months, and I always end up replacing them with passive heatsinks anyway.

    But honestly, even though the chipsets can get relatively hot (35C+) passive heatsinks has worked fine for me.

  6. Re:Why? by hakr89 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The problem with the fan isn't that it's electric, it's that it's a moving part, and moving parts wear out. Usually when a fan dies, it's not the electric motor that's wearing out, it's the bearings. The fans use brushless motors where the coil wrapped around the armature magnetically opposes the permanent magnet built into the rotor(the fan part) causing it to rotate.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushless_DC_electric_motor