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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.

4 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Are we going to get religious about the subject? by Z00L00K · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The idea of using a Stirling engine is actually not bad, but you may also be able to run peltier elements backwards, in which case you wouldn't get any mechanical problems related to moving parts.

    But even better would be if the energy loss could be decreased in the first place. Heat produced by a computer is actually only annoying.

    The Stirling engine was invented by Reverend Dr. Robert Stirling.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  2. Re:Why? by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You got it totally wrong. If I have to be specific, then here it is: If you paid attention to anything in the article, you would know that this is a northbridge cooler. I have yet to own a computer with a fan just for the northbridge. As far as I'm concerned, it's unnecessary in any properly designed system.

  3. Re:Pff by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Aye on the steampunk. The engine could power a small hand-wound dynamo that heats up the boiler for the steam effect you need for those "special" web sites. Don't forget the three colour LED's you need to light the steam.

    Efficient? Sorry, what's that? Yes, I know we're just re-using heat that would otherwise be wasted, but we'd be getting multidimensional cool...

    --
    Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
  4. Re:They need a rechargeable battery. by cnettel · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The main reason for this is wear and tear on fans. Bringing a DC motor to a total stop and starting it again is expensive. Heck, too many systems are delivered in a preconfigured case with no fan-speed adjustment at all. If the temperature is too low to drive the fan, it should not be needed. If that's not true, it's just as much of a problem at full speed as at idle.