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Pushing a CPU to Heat Death, Intentionally

Posted by timothy on from the or-maybe-it-will-loaf-along dept.

sdougal writes "This site is showing a Pico-ITX board running Ubuntu with no cooling whatsoever. They even let the public guess how long it would last: 'Last week thousands of you placed bets on how long the new Pico-ITX board from VIA, the VIA EPIA PX5000EG, can last without any cooling whatsoever. An ARTiGO Builder Kit was offered as the grand prize. Yesterday afternoon the voting stopped and the Naked Pico Challenge started in earnest. We simply loaded up Ubuntu 8.04, set it to work playing an mpeg-4 video and then removed the heatsink, leaving the CPU and VX700 chipset bare to the world. We recorded the event here in this video and set up a live video stream so you punters can keep a watchful eye on the PX5000EG as it works away.'"

26 of 291 comments (clear)

  1. Ehh, it's been done before by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Anyone remember Patrick Norton frying that CPU on "The Screen Savers" back in the TechTV days? Patrick and Leo were building their annual "Ultimate Gaming Machine" (using all the best components available at the time) and his Nortoness forgets to put the heatsink on the CPU. They turn it on, and within minutes, they smell something burning. They had just fried one of the most expensive CPU's you could buy at the time, right there in front of God and the nation.

    It was an expensive lesson in the importance of the heatsink.

    Of course, many of us can remember back when CPU's didn't even need heatsinks. My first build was a 486SX with a zif chip slot and no CPU cooling--hard to believe now.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Ehh, it's been done before by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I was at one of the audience tapings for 'TSS' in san francisco, a few years ago. very sad to see the show leave, taking all that good geek (true geek) talent with it.

      I once sent an amd k8 system to a friend in the mail. I made the mistake of leaving the big heatsink (I think it was a barton chip and those were VERY hot back in the day) attached. the pc was sent ground, I think, and so it didn't get the best treatment. turns out that the heatsink came off the cpu socket and was doing some kind of 'round the world tour' inside the pc case! when he opened it up, there were ding marks from the sharp edges of the heatsink all over the mobo ;(

      that was bad. but it gets worse. my 'genius friend' decided to just try it as it was and not even bother to fix the heatsink back to the chip!

      I think in 5-10 secs, he -guaranteed- that that system will never run again. I would have liked to know if the mobo was still working - but now, the whole thing is toast.

      he didn't know? really? a BIG HUGE HONKING heatsink and he thinks he can turn on a system without it?

      sheesh.

      now, that was years ago. today with the core2 arch, you almost don't NEED a heatsink. its amazing. I have overclocked core2 chips (see 'BSEL mod' for changing 800fsb to 1066fsb via some conductive paint) and STILL the chip is cold to the touch when I run memtest86. my bsel mod photos are here, btw: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=bsel&w=47907743%40N00

      its now my usual procedure to install a fan speed control and set it to MIN for all my core2 systems that I build. I love the fact that even at slowest rpm, it still never gets hot enough to even pull your hand away from the hs/fan. amazing..

      I also do have a via epia that I use for my mythtv box:

      http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2010/1890660635_273662e3c9_o.jpg
      http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2299/2005750966_a1b8d242b3_o.jpg

      in that 2nd photo, you can see its drawing 24watts (with a kill-a-watt lcd meter). its 100% fanless, uses a 1ghz cpu but it DOES get quite hot to the touch so I leave the top case skin off; that way I can get by with no fan at all. its been doing my myth-tv recording (using hdhomerun HD tuner box, networked) for about half a year now; no reboots and very reliable.

      low power systems are cool ;)

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    2. Re:Ehh, it's been done before by frosty_tsm · · Score: 5, Funny

      I've had two CPUs die from heat death when their cooling fans became clogged with dust, cat hair and pot smoke. I'm not sure if this story should result in a LOL-cat or a computer-shaped bong...
    3. Re:Ehh, it's been done before by baggins2001 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I usually just put my tongue across the 26 connectors and turn the power on. If my penis doesn't tingle then the power supply is bad.

      --
      He who said 1,000,000 monkeys on 1,000,000 typewriters would eventually type the great novel, never saw an AOL chat room
  2. The rule of thumb is.... by Ancient_Hacker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The rule of thumb among engineers is: One square inch of flat aluminum surface will dissipate one watt at room temperature and rise about 20 degrees Farenheit.

    A CPU chip with 900+ pins run a bit cooler as it's a it more than one square inch if you an include the substrate, and a certain percentage of the heat will conduct itself down the pins.

    1. Re:The rule of thumb is.... by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Funny

      I predict a lot shorter now that the page with the video is linked on the Slashdot front page.! ;)

      --
      My blog
    2. Re:The rule of thumb is.... by IllForgetMyNickSoonA · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There are quite a few guys around here who moderate "insightfull" instead of "funny" because "funny" gets you no karma and "insightfull"... well, does. :-)

    3. Re:The rule of thumb is.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      the formula for convective heat transfer (transfering heat from the surface of the heatsink to the air) doesn't involve thickness. A very thinly-sliced 12"x12" sheet of aluminum, uniformly heated to 200F, will transfer just about as much heat/second to the air as a thick plate of 12"x12"aluminum @200F will (there will be some differences, because the plate has a *bit* more surface area, but I digress...)

      However, CONDUCTIVE heat transfer (getting the heat to go from the "hot" end of the heat sink to the tip of the fin) is directly proportional to surface area. This means that, were you to use a single sheet of aluminum foil as a "fin" on your heatsink, you would not be able to get the heat to actually travel effectively to the tip of the fin where it could be removed via convection. Thus you'd wind up with a very hot "hot" end of the heatsink (near the chip, which does you no good), and a cool "cold" end of the fin (which is worthless, as convective heat transfer is proportional to the difference between the surface temp and the air temp). If you were to instead use a thick sheet of aluminum as your "fin", that would allow the heat to easily travel from the "hot" end to the tip of the fin, where the air could take it away.

      However, you can get the best of both worlds by using multiple thinly-sliced sheets of aluminum. Same cross-sectional area as the thick slice (for good conduction), and maximum surface area (for convection). Which is exactly what most heatsinks look like.

    4. Re:The rule of thumb is.... by thefekete · · Score: 4, Funny

      Aluminum foil is great for heat dissipation. I have to agree, my head remains very cool during the summer months and I don't have to worry about the government stealing my thoughts either!
      --
      The cool things is to have windows that bounce up and down like a good tits.
  3. Re:What's the point? by Kamokazi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Destroying things is fun, especially done with unorthodox methods.

    --
    As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable Slashdot 2.0.
  4. The video by nawcom · · Score: 5, Funny

    They should make the mp4 hours of video of hardcore pornography, and we can all make bets on what the final frame that it shows before locking up and shutting down will be about. Blowjobs, anal, AtM, Bukkake, fem domination, tentacle sex, etc. It will bring more people to RTFA and WTFS (Watch The Fucking Stream).

  5. Must...resist...saying by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Insightful

    slashvertisement. There I said it.

    VIA showing off their board, offering a VIA-equipped toy to someone, disguising the entire thing as a geek event and plastering it on geeky sites. Gee, that sure is great news for nerds, stuff that (doesn't) matter...

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  6. Ummm, copying VW folks? by R2.0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They've been doing this with aircooled VW engines for probably 50 years at shows and races. Pull the fan belt, drain the oil, and put a brick on the accelerator. Everyone pays a buck to bet on the time, and with any luck the engine explodes spectacularly, much to the crowd's pleasure.

    Yet again, "on the internet" somehow makes it original...

    --
    "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
    1. Re:Ummm, copying VW folks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, well... everyone everywhere should stop doing interesting things, because someone, somewhere may have done something similar. You don't per chance work for the US Patent Office do you? Software Patent Division?

  7. Why should it even crash.. by SD-Arcadia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If a CPU is going to crash or go up in smoke after heatsink removal under load it will do so within 30 seconds. Since it hasn't done so yet and considering it's a 1W energy efficient CPU the only effect should be a reduction in its longterm lifespan (maybe it will only run 2 years rather than 8). I don't see the excitement here, until they take a hairdryer to it which they say they will do after two weeks. That should be interesting.

    --
    https://dalgamotor.wordpress.com/ - Elektronik beyinlere ozgurluk asisi (Turkish)
    1. Re:Why should it even crash.. by blind+biker · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not true at all. Have you heard of electromigration? Its rate increases with temperature, exponentially (actually, by the Arrhenius law). Accelerated electromigration failure tests are and have been extremely common both in the industry as in research institutions.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  8. AMDs don't need CPU fans, either by Anna+Merikin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Like the ole Timex watch that "took a licking and kept on ticking" my desktop box, an ancient AMD Sempron 2600+ with a VIA chipset, unknown to me, lost its power connector to the CPU fan, which I only discovered by accident when replacing a hard disk drive. The CPU was hot enough to scald my finger, but neither its performance nor its stability has suffered one bit.

    Of course, the heatsink was still connected. But the Sempron was IIRC most definitely NOT a low-power cpu.

    Yes, I reconnected the CPU fan. But at least I know my sh*t can take the heat.

    No video is available ;o{ .

    1. Re:AMDs don't need CPU fans, either by AdamWill · · Score: 5, Informative
      That's because of a rather famous incident with the *previous* generation of AMD chips.

      Intel had recently introduced an overheat sensor into their CPUs. They still have them, I think. There's basically a thermal probe included in the CPU packaging, and if the temperature goes over a certain critical level, the CPU starts throttling itself down, until the temperature goes down to a safer level.

      Tom's Hardware (probably being paid by Intel...) did a video experiment on this. They got an Intel (early P4, IIRC) and a then-current-gen Athlon, started them both playing Quake 3, then removed the HSF.

      The Intel chip promptly throttled itself down to 400MHz or so, and kept running the game (rather slowly). The Athlon crashed, hit something like 200-300 degrees C, and burned a little hole in the motherboard.

      After that little stunt, AMD started building overheat sensors into their CPUs quite fast.

      I saw this in action on one of my own machines, a Shuttle SN62K, a couple of years back. That machine has a known issue with the motherboard fan headers dying after about a year of use. It's also a very quiet system. I was using a 2.4GHz Celeron in it at the time. The fan header died and the fan (only fan in the machine, if you know Shuttles) stopped working. The CPU throttled itself down to 800MHz and kept right on going, for two weeks, before I actually noticed.

  9. I really doubt by LM741N · · Score: 4, Insightful

    that this is an experiment. They already know that the device will run indefinitely. No company would do a media event like this that would shed bad publicity on their product- except Microsoft, LOL.

  10. "Heat Death" by ObjetDart · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sorry to nitpick, but doesn't the term "heat death" usually mean death by maximum entropy (i.e. no heat), and not death by heat?

    --
    I read Usenet for the articles.
    1. Re:"Heat Death" by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Well, if they're talking about that kind of heat death, I predict it will last at least 10^37 years.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  11. FUD Ammo... by PinkyDead · · Score: 5, Funny

    How long before we see this up on www.microsoft.com/getthefacts/ with the headline:

    "Linux will set your computer on fire."

    You have been warned.

    --
    Genesis 1:32 And God typed :wq!
  12. I don't get what the big deal is... by ramon_omar · · Score: 4, Funny

    I mean, I can run for several hours without a heat sink or a fan.

  13. My experience with no heat sink by VAXcat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A few years back, I was troubleshooting a problem on my desktop. It had a Duron 800 in it. I got tired of putting the heat sink and CPU fan back on every time I made a change, so I figured, what the hell, how hot can it get in the time it takes to try and boot. It made it through the boot fine. I mused "Works great! I bet it doessn't even get that hot. Wonder how hot it is?" With that thought, I reached in and touched the top of the CPU. It was so hot that it instantaneously branded the text and logo etched in the top of the chip onto my thumbtip, before I could react and yank my hand back. For a few weeks, until it sloughed off, it was readable in reverse on my thumb...taught me new respect for the current consumption & heat generation capabilities of CPUs.

    --
    There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
  14. Re:What's the point? by somersault · · Score: 5, Funny

    How long will that be though? 2 years? 3 years?

    --
    which is totally what she said
  15. We did this at Transmeta by Dhar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Back in my Transmeta days, I set up a demo doing exactly this...one of our CPUs playing movies without a heatsink, head-to-head with a comparable Intel and it's (hot) heatsink. It lasted all day, and only got slightly warm. Still, I always expected to get burned every time I stuck my finger on the die top for the reporters. Poor, poor Transmeta. :)

    -g.