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Ask Slashdot: What Would Happen If You Were To Put a Computer Inside a Fridge?
dryriver writes: This is not asking what would happen if you were to place your iMac inside your kitchen fridge. Rather, what if a computer casing for a high-powered graphics workstation with multiple CPUs and GPUs, lets say, worked just like a small fridge or freezer, cooling your hardware down without using any CPU fans or liquid cooling and similar. How much would such a fridge-casing cost to make and buy, how much electricity would it consume, how much bigger would it be than a normal PC casing, and would it be a practical solution to the problem of keeping high-powered computer hardware cool for extended periods of time? Bonus question: Is such a thing as a fridge-casing or "Fridgeputer" sold anywhere on the world market right now? Linus Tech Tips tackled this question in a video a couple of years ago, titled "PC Build in a Fridge - Does it Work?"
Absolutely correct... water is the enemy of a computer.
Actually, if the poster wanted to do something "unusual," one can do an aquarium-themed cooling with mineral oil.
I wish I could say that'd make you "cooler," but only if you're surrounded by engineers. ;)
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
If your PC is using 400W, your fridge would only have to have cooling capacity of 400W to get rid of that heat - but it diesn't have to use 800W to do that.
Moving heat, as is done in a fridge or air conditioner, takes about somewhere between 1/2 to 1/4 of the energy compared to producing it by resistive heating, depending on efficiency. Your PC is basically a big resistive heater. Your fridge would only have to use about 100 to 200 W to remove the PC waste heat, plus use a little extra power depending on how much cooler you wanted the whole setup to be compared to ambient.
All of that said, it's a bad idea because you could just sell the fridge and spend the money on a better CPU and still get better performance and reliability.