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Extreme CPU Cooling
Darkfell writes "Check out todays HardOCP.
An article was posted by a guy who cooled a
dual PIII down to -59.7C. Very nice setup." This
is worth a read- quite detailed for you do-it-yourselfers
willing to risk destroying your computer.
I always felt that those people with water cooled systems were crazy, but below freezing??? That is awesome, if not frightening.
Hey how about sticking your cpu in the freezer and runnig the wires to tour pc?
"S%#t honey, that was my CPU not a Ice Cream Sandwich!"
I think it was in 1997 that Digital, in collaboration with a third party, produced an Alpha system that cooled the processor down to -40 C or something like that, boosting the clock speed from 600 MHz to 767 MHz. A small boost in performance for the added $5000 of the cooling system. Not to mention now, the Alpha 21264 runs 4 times as fast as that same cooled processor 2 years ago. For less $$.
Perhaps this will come into play as we reach the physical limits of etching chips, but it doesn't seem to have a whole lot of potential right now. As long as manufacturing can be made more precise, there isn't a whole lot of reason to refrigerate your x86...
Because Intel CPUs are not alive, and therefore do not contain water. That's why UltraSparc CPUs can't be cooled like this.
The volume of liquid present isn't that great. You'd suffer some pretty severe "burns," but (unless you inhaled it,) wouldn't be killed. Frozen lungs would suck, but that's not likely.
This guy in Japan used liquid nitrogen to drive Celeron at 700MHz. (Note: the page is in Japanese, but you can enjoy the pictures)
Then you could make it go even faster. Overclocking is not always about buying a cheaper chip and making go at the expensive speed.
What's the point though? There's not many reasons you would need to go to such drastic measures to get an increase in speed.. especially not in a home environment. And in a business environment you'd certainly never rely on such a hack to do anything *important*.
Too cold? In general, MOS and CMOS transistors speed up at low temperatures, unlike bipolar transistors. That means the chip will probably work better and may allow more overclocking, provided some internal race condition doesn't occur.
Of course, there are other potential problems: differences in the rates of themal expansion of the package and leads, thermal shock, condensation, etc.
But the point isn't really how well it will work; this is art! You have to accept it as art and not say things like "Er, wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to just buy a *second* computer?"
But pure h20 is non conductived, wouldnt it be ok for that?
As long as there is no salt on ur MB.
Moisture would have no effect, apart from rust
Have you read the material safety data sheet for CFC-12? I couldn't find a copy for #12, but here's one for #11. I imagine that the effects of one chlorofluorocarbon are pretty similar to the effects of another. Here's a summary:
The effects of Freon-11 haven't been well studied. Exposure to it can do all sorts of nasty things including killing you.
This is enough to make me want to research freon-12 before I'd be willing to play with it.
Info about stuff like this is available for free (you have to register, unfortunately) from the Aldrich Chemical Company. They sell just about every variety of organic nastiness under the sun, so they should have information on almost anything you'd ever want to know about.
be careful,
-Doug
(sorry about the all caps in this - blame Aldrich)
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IRRITANT
IRRITATING TO EYES, RESPIRATORY SYSTEM AND SKIN.
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COVER WITH DRY LIME OR SODA ASH, PICK UP, KEEP IN A CLOSED CONTAINER
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VENTILATE AREA AND WASH SPILL SITE AFTER MATERIAL PICKUP IS COMPLETE.
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IRRITANT.
KEEP TIGHTLY CLOSED.
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APPEARANCE AND ODOR
COLORLESS LIQUID
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
BOILING POINT: 23.7 C
MELTING POINT: -111 C TO -110 C
FLASHPOINT NONE
VAPOR PRESSURE: 12.85PSI 20 C 39.19PSI 55 C
SPECIFIC GRAVITY: 1.494
VAPOR DENSITY: 5.04
SECTION 10. - - - - - - - - -STABILITY AND REACTIVITY - - - - - - - - -
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STABLE.
INCOMPATIBILITIES
STRONG OXIDIZING AGENTS
REACTS WITH:
SODIUM
POTASSIUM
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STORE AWAY FROM HEAT AND DIRECT SUNLIGHT.
HAZARDOUS COMBUSTION OR DECOMPOSITION PRODUCTS
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PHOSGENE GAS
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SECTION 11. - - - - - - - - - TOXICOLOGICAL INFORMATION - - - - - - - -
ACUTE EFFECTS
MAY BE HARMFUL BY INHALATION, INGESTION, OR SKIN ABSORPTION.
VAPOR OR MIST IS IRRITATING TO THE EYES, MUCOUS MEMBRANES AND UPPER
RESPIRATORY TRACT.
CAUSES SKIN IRRITATION.
CAN CAUSE RAPID SUFFOCATION.
PROLONGED OR REPEATED EXPOSURE TO SKIN CAUSES DEFATTING AND
DERMATITIS.
EXPOSURE CAN CAUSE:
NAUSEA, DIZZINESS AND HEADACHE
STOMACH PAINS, VOMITING, DIARRHEA.
MAY CAUSE NERVOUS SYSTEM DISTURBANCES.
WEAKNESS
UNCONSCIOUSNESS
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BECAUSE OF SENSITIZATION OF MYOCARDIUM TO ENDOGENOUS EPINEPHRINE.
RTECS #: PB6125000
METHANE, TRICHLOROFLUORO-
TOXICITY DATA
IHL-RAT LC50:13 PPH/15M HUTODJ 1,239,1982
IHL-MUS LC50:10 PPH/30M EJTXAZ 9,385,1976
IPR-MUS LD50:1743 MG/KG TOIZAG 18,363,1971
IHL-RBT LC50:25 PPH/30M EJTXAZ 9,385,1976
IHL-GPG LC50:25 PPH/30M EJTXAZ 9,385,1976
TARGET ORGAN DATA
BEHAVIORAL (CONVULSIONS OR EFFECT ON SEIZURE THRESHOLD)
ONLY SELECTED REGISTRY OF TOXIC EFFECTS OF CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES
(RTECS) DATA IS PRESENTED HERE. SEE ACTUAL ENTRY IN RTECS FOR
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DATA NOT YET AVAILABLE.
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DISSOLVE OR MIX THE MATERIAL WITH A COMBUSTIBLE SOLVENT AND BURN IN A
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CONTACT ALDRICH CHEMICAL COMPANY FOR TRANSPORTATION INFORMATION.
SECTION 15. - - - - - - - - - REGULATORY INFORMATION - - - - - - - - - -
EUROPEAN INFORMATION
IRRITANT
R 36/37/38
IRRITATING TO EYES, RESPIRATORY SYSTEM AND SKIN.
S 26
IN CASE OF CONTACT WITH EYES, RINSE IMMEDIATELY WITH PLENTY OF
WATER AND SEEK MEDICAL ADVICE.
S 36
WEAR SUITABLE PROTECTIVE CLOTHING.
S 23
DO NOT BREATHE VAPOR.
REVIEWS, STANDARDS, AND REGULATIONS
OEL=MAK
ACGIH TLV-NOT CLASSIFIABLE AS A HUMAN CARCINOGEN DTLVS* TLV/BEI,1997
ACGIH TLV-CL 5620 MG/M3 (1000 PPM) DTLVS* TLV/BEI,1997
EPA FIFRA 1988 PESTICIDE SUBJECT TO REGISTRATION OR RE-REGISTRATION
FEREAC 54,7740,1989
MSHA STANDARD-AIR:TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3)
DTLVS* 3,118,1971
OSHA PEL (GEN INDU):8H TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3)
CFRGBR 29,1910.1000,1994
OSHA PEL (CONSTRUC):8H TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3)
CFRGBR 29,1926.55,1994
OSHA PEL (SHIPYARD):8H TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3)
CFRGBR 29,1915.1000,1993
OSHA PEL (FED CONT):8H TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3)
CFRGBR 41,50-204.50,1994
OEL-AUSTRALIA:TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3) JAN 1993
OEL-BELGIUM:STEL 1000 PPM (5620 MG/M3) JAN 1993
OEL-DENMARK:TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3) JAN 1993
OEL-FINLAND:TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3);STEL 1250 PPM (7000 MG/M3) JAN
1993
OEL-FRANCE:TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3) JAN 1993
OEL-GERMANY:TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3) JAN 1993
OEL-HUNGARY:STEL 40 MG/M3 JAN 1993
OEL-JAPAN:STEL 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3) JAN 1993
OEL-THE NETHERLANDS:TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3) JAN 1993
OEL-THE PHILIPPINES:TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3) JAN 1993
OEL-POLAND:TWA 500 MG/M3 JAN 1993
OEL-RUSSIA:STEL 1000 PPM (1000 MG/M3) JAN 1993
OEL-SWEDEN:TWA 500 PPM (3000 MG/M3);STEL 750 PPM (4500 MG/M3) JAN 1993
OEL-SWITZERLAND:TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3) JAN 1993
OEL-TURKEY:TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3) JAN 1993
OEL-UNITED KINGDOM:TWA 1000 PPM (5600 MG/M3);STEL 1250 PPM JAN 1993
OEL IN BULGARIA, COLOMBIA, JORDAN, KOREA CHECK ACGIH TLV
OEL IN NEW ZEALAND, SINGAPORE, VIETNAM CHECK ACGIH TLV
NIOSH REL TO FLUOROTRICHLOROMETHANE-AIR:CL 1000 PPM
NIOSH* DHHS #92-100,1992
NOHS 1974: HZD 33565; NIS 304; TNF 68187; NOS 173; TNE 785337
NOES 1983: HZD 33565; NIS 142; TNF 15107; NOS 119; TNE 267742; TFE
95886
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ON EPA IRIS DATABASE
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NIOSH ANALYTICAL METHOD, 1994: FLUOROTRICHLOROMETHANE, 1006
NIOSH ANALYTICAL METHOD, 1994: TRICHLOROFLUOROMETHANE, 1006
NCI CARCINOGENESIS BIOASSAY (GAVAGE);NO EVIDENCE:MOUSE
NCITR* NCI-TR-106,78
NCI CARCINOGENESIS BIOASSAY (GAVAGE);INADEQUATE STUDIES:RAT
NCITR* NCI-TR-106,78
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1) It's a hobby...
It's like fixing up a car to go faster, but with overclocking, the results are much better.
2) Its one of those mine's bigger and mine's faster type arguments..
3) It's geek bragging rights..
"I just bought a Pentium III 500 for 600 dollars. Its fast."
"Really? I bought a Celeron 300A and overclocked it to 600."
The superconductors at these temperatures, IIRC, are unreliable, costly, brittle, and very poisonous. Nay. There, I said it.
Still, it would be cool. You wouldn't be able to use it for any of the transistors, however, just the interconnects. The primary speed limitation in digital CMOS circuits is the low pass filter formed by the gate capacitance of the load and the resistance of the conducting transistor and the metal connections. This would eliminate (reduce) the resistance of the metal connections. I almost forgot, I think that the connections between these superconductors and have a LOT of resistance, so you could very well be worse off. Bummer.
Lead superconducts at 7K, liquid helium is at 4K. However, I would expect the lower limit of silicon's temperature range to be around 100K, so thes would not work. Nor would the 77K of liquid nitrogen.
Matt
Yeah, yeah, I know.
I think that when you get to liquid nitrogeb temperatures (77K) the semiconducting properties of silicon will change significanlty. I haven't done any real calculations to back this up, but from glancing at my old solid state electronics textbook, I would expect the lower limit to be around 100k (-173C).
-Matt
Maybe you're right, but I don't think we will see a lot of this. Mainly because it is a product aimed specifically at overclocking. And if your server is too slow, overclocking should not be the first thing that pops to mind in a production environment :) And I can imagine Intel wouldn't be too pleased with this either. So, as I see it, odds are against it.
Just wondering how you managed to get -100C with dry ice (Temperature -78C)?! It would be neat to achieve -100C with dry ice but unfortunately it's impossible. BTW: Handling liquid n2 (Temperature -196C) isn't that awkward. If you pour some over your skin, it immediately evaporates and forms a protective layer of gas around your skin (lower thermal conductivity than the liquid), so short time exposure doesn't result in Hollywood-like fragmentation.
On the subject of using fridges: Freon free fridges use Pentane nowadays, so they do tend to explode (like before freon), that's one thing that should be considered when tampering with them.
Yes Alphas can be overclocked. Kryotech did this way back in 1997 with an Alpha. They took a 600MHz 21164, cooled it and overclocked it to 767MHz!!! Now that's fast!
--
ALPHA LINUX POWERED and loving it!
Me? I just keep my computer in the freezer. Every once and I while I go in with a metal spatula and scrape the ice off the components. Hey, it works for me. #8^)
moving electrons create friction,
I guess you would have to leave that cooler on in some way as the expansion and contaction of the silicon and metals and glass cant be too qui9ck else a crack... A timer for cool down and heatup...
As both a surgeon and someone who's used liquid nitrogen a lot (for cryopreserving cells for tissue culture), I think you're overestimating the danger. Liquid nitrogen is something like -192 C, and I've gotten drops on my skin a lot of times - it stings a bit, but isn't any worse than getting spattered with grease drops while cooking.
Also, it takes quite a while for thermal damage to involve anything deeper than the skin. Even people trapped in burning cars or buildings essentially never have burn damage to underlying fat or muscle (unless they die and remain in a fire for an hour or so).
Getting splashed with -80 freon could probably damage your eyes pretty rapidly, but it wouldn't kill you unless you immersed your head in it for some time.
Posted by Mike@ABC:
Sure, speed is great. But this? You just gotta shake your head and ask "why?"
If they replace the current design locked on an external clock, what they probably will do eventually, I think overclocking is gonna take a completely new dimension. Of course it's not gonna be overclocking as such, it's gonna be more of a Mr deep freeze built from bits and bobs in the back of your garage...
much fun for the next (hopefully?) generation ;-)
---
"Hasta la victoria siempre!" El Comandante
>You just gotta shake your head and ask "why?"
What's that quote again? "Never ask a hacker why, just smile and slowly back away" or something very similar.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
That guy is obviously bored ! Then again, it is quite an impressive setup.
It's basically the same concepts with engines. The more heat created, the less efficient it is. Heat == inefficiency. Granted, engine heat comes from friction, and. um. stuff. but. um. yeah. *considers there aren't moving parts in chips* something like that.
Me.
Can semiconductors even operator correctly at that temperature?
"In true sound..." -Agents of Good Root
I can't help but remark on your sig. It is illogical - because, if the only humans are cannibals, then who are they eating? :)
An esoteric scratched itch:
Homeworld Map Maker Tool
I would suggest being very (very) careful with your pipefitting & pressure testing, and thinking about what kind of containment you have in place. There is clearly enough thermal energy (actually, lack of thermal energy) in that reservior to kill you in a few hundredths of a second if you get a faceful of it.
It appears that the author of the article either knew what he was doing, or took the time to figure out what he didn't know and learn it in great detail. Be sure to do the same if you try something like this yourself.
sPh
Not my business, really. But you might want to look a little more closely at the details. He used 1.2 q of water/glycol as the heat transfer medium. A drop of liquid nitrogen is one thing; a quart of glycol at -50C is another.
:-(.
Of couse, accidents always happen to the other guy, so there really is nothing to worry about
sPh
This news can be considered more hardware news...but /. needs to have more hardware news for the do-it-yourself-with-linux puppies.
Rob, do you get enuff material on h/w news?
CP
I read about laser cooling few year ago in a magazine. This cooling device have no moving parts and I think it is efficience too. I really like to have this wonderful device.
Sujal
politics, food, music, life: FatMixx
Check out Tom's Hardware he just put up an article on his work with a Kryotech case and a Celeron 400.
Had the beastie running looped Timedemo1 for a straight WEEK!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I've been thinking about doing this for a while, and I just may do it now.
:)
:)
... and missing.
All ya gotta do to cool your pc down (granted not to the -8billion that these guys do) would be to pick up an old auto-defrosting fridge that nobody wants anymore, cut or otherwise remove the barrier between the freezer and the refrigerator compartment (just to get it that much cooler), Take the door off (or leave it on and do what I'm going to say next if you want to get really fancy) and put a piece of insulating foamboard up where the door was.
Take the covers off of your case(s) and put them in the fridge. Cut holes where the floppy/cdrom/etc will be so you can still get to them. cut a corner out of the foam board to run power in/kbd etc out.
Done. A cooled system. (or an array of cooled systems
Just dont try and use the non-autodefrosting fridge unless you dont like your computer(s).
I think when I get back home I'll start looking for a used fridge
---------------------------------------
The art of flying is throwing yourself at the ground...
Thats why you would need to use the frost free/auto-defrost fridge.... to keep the humidity down.
:)
... and missing.
just dont open the door too long and let nice humid air hit a 32F case
---------------------------------------
The art of flying is throwing yourself at the ground...
Unfortunately not. We won't have one up for another week. We ran some testing with our cooling apparatus.. two tests failed (one with spectacular results!), but we did cool the system down, albeit with lots of hissing from evaporating dry ice. We later discovered we could make it more effective if we *didn't* have air running over the dry ice. :/ Stupid. I should have known that.
;^)
Anyway, I fried an AMD K6-350 (my fault) by not resetting the jumpers from 3.5 to 2.2v. The new one will arrive today. I'll have a webpage up within a week. Slashdot may post it. Or maybe not. We'll see. I'll e-mail you once I get everything back into shape.
--
We've done it using dry ice. The chip dropped temp to around -100C. It ran perfectly. We managed to take a P120/60MHz bus => P200/100Mhz bus. Stable.
It can be done. We've done it. Thermal contraction is only an issue if you cool it *too quickly* - we're looking into nitrogen for the next test. Passive submersion - the whole board. Should be interesting. But to answer your question again - thermal contraction until about -100C is a joke - don't worry about it. Much.
--
This could lead to a new product!!! Imagine it's marketing potencial!!!
The one and only, MULTIMEDIA FRIDGE!!!
Yes, you can work and have cold soda, sandwichs, yesterday's pizza and beer, at the reach of your hand!
I wonder how long it will be until we start seeing a mass trend towards cooling systems being incorporated into cases? It will probably be server cases at first of course but anything that starts off with a hobbyist in a garage saying 'Hey ! .. Look what a good thing this does!' is bound to increase awareness of it among the chip, m/b and case manufacturers.
A good comment on another page of www.hardocp.com talking about the 'SupaChilla' prototype saying
the SupaChillä gives you the option to beat the performance curve, you've got tomorrow's CPU power today
Maybe that's the way to go along with simply increasing the clock speed.. Either that or use more power efficient processors in the first place.. can you say StrongARM?
Delphis
The author of the article took care to insulate everything, including the pipes, to prevent this from happening. Look carefully at the pictures of the finished system and you'll see the insulation.
Full 64-bit would be nice, even. However, even 32-bit is a kludge with the way it's currently implemented.
The floating-point/MMX registers on an x86 are 64-bit. I'm not sure how wide the SSE registers are, but I'd guess 128 off-hand. The general-purpose registers have been 32-bit since the 386, and are accessed using a hack on top of the old 16-bit access method (put 0x66 before the opcode for your instruction to make it work on 32-bit operands instead of 16-bit).
There are many fixes that could be made to the x86 register set and instruction set, but the best fix of all would be a complete redesign to a new system. However, Intel can't do that without breaking compatibility with its established software base. Breaking compatibility would leave them at a disadvantage to people like Apple, who already have a more cleanly designed processor with an installed software base. What they're actually doing is hedging their bets and giving the Merced the ability to emulate x86 operating modes. However, this will be done at the cost of either more silicon on the Merced, a slower chip, or both.
I use x86 machines, and for the time being they're competative performance-wise, but it's just a matter of time before the architecture runs into the ground, because it's a mess of patches on top of patches that wasn't built to be extensible. Intel's best bet is to phase out x86 support once there's a significant amount of Merced-native software available. Whether it succeeds in competing with the G4 and whatever Sun, DEC^H^H^HCompaq, and others offer remains to be seen. HP seems less than enthusiastic about it, and they helped Intel design the thing.
He'll run into problems when he tries to reach -80, though. Sooner or later traces in the chips or on the chip modules will crack due to differing rates of thermal expansion in the materials used. An interesting read nonetheless, though.
Yes. In fact, they operate more efficiently, which is why he could boost the clock rate. This is also why processors fail at higher temperatures; they work _less_ well as the temperature increases. If I understand correctly the transistor threshold voltage and a few other parameters vary with temperature. I'd have to dig out my old electronics textbook to give you a detailed explanation, but the gist of it is that the transistors end up passing more current, which decreases switching time.
Limits to clocking with this kind of scheme are chip failure due to electromigration (the traces in the chip can only take so much current), and chip or module failure due to cracking caused by different rates of thermal expansion in the materials used.
This doesn't address the problems that I raised - thermal expansion/contraction difficulties and electromigration. While you do mention the limits imposed by the way the threshold voltage changes with temperature, the other two factors mentioned may be what limits your ability to cool and overclock chips.
An integrated circuit chip is a chunk of silicon with aluminum wires on top of it embedded in a thick layer of silicon dioxide. These three materials have different coefficients of thermal expansion. As you cool them, they will change sizes at different rates, causing stress in the chip. Cool them enough, and your chip will break. I'm told that the temperature at which this occurs is lower that I had originally assumed, but it *will* happen. Possibly with liquid nitrogen (though some successful liquid-nitrogen-cooled systems have been built), and almost certainly if you do something silly like cool a chip with liquid helium. Likewise, the card on which the chip sits is glass fibers in an organic resin with plates and traces of copper. These materials all expand at different rates. You also have a lead alloy connecting the pins of the chip to the copper traces on the board. Size changes due to temperature will put stress on these solder joints - and size changes in the plastic casing that holds the pins and integrated circuit chip will put a lot of shear stress on these weakened solder connections.
So, this is not something that can safely be ignored forever.
Likewise, electromigration will seriously reduce the lifetime of any chip being run significantly faster than its standard clock speed at room temperature. Electromigration is the tendency of metal atoms in wire traces on a chip to flow along with the direction of current. The higher the level of current, the greater this effect. If a chip is operated with too-high current levels for too long, enough metal atoms flow that the trace becomes brittle enough to snap under mechanical and thermal stresses, or develops a gap, or gets thin enough that resistive heating melts the trace or increases its resistance enough that it can't transmit signals properly. Electromigration effects were a common cause of failure in older chips. To compensate for this, chip designs nowadays specify maximum currents for given sizes of traces and are careful not to exceed them. However, overclocking _does_ exceed them. In order to clock a chip more quickly, you have to charge and discharge the parasitic capacitances within it more quickly - which is done by increasing the amount of current flowing through transistors in their "on" states. Conventionally, this is done by cranking up the core voltage. Cooling does this by lowering the threshold voltage and fiddling with a few other transistor behavior parameters. In both cases, for a chip clocked n times more quickly, you have n times the amount of current flowing through the same traces. Clock a chip at twice its normal speed, and you have twice the current through the traces - and a chip that will burn out far sooner due to electromigration. Copper is more resistant to electromigration than aluminum, but the metal traces in copper chips are correspondingly thinner than the metal traces in aluminum chips. This is why copper was adopted; the aluminum traces had to be made wide enough that bulk and parasitic capacitances were becoming real problems. Modern chips - copper or aluminum based - are designed to run just below the threshold for electromigration damage. Overclocking them to the degree being done with these cooled setups _will_ push them over the threshold.
OTOH, if you don't care if the chip burns out in a year or two, go for it. Just be aware of the limits and side effects.
would it be cheaper to just buy a faster processor and run it at room temperature?
Bah! Now where's the fun in that?
Yeah, I know, for some people it wouldn't be as much fun, but....
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
you can have hi-temp superconductors on-chip.
That will be quite interesting.
Legacy hardware/software addict. Midnight hacker, 1960. Codepage 819 in DOS: Total Latin-1 compatibility (no boxes/lines
open up a chip package, protect the bonding wires, and coat the chip with a protective layer, then spray chilled liquid refrigerant onto the chip. Idea would be evap. cooling. Got back a very nice message that said they're sticking to vapor-phase cooling for now, iirc. Popping open a CPU takes a lot of courage (and knowledge of how to keep it alive); I'd say you need to know more than you do to work on the head & disk assy. in a HD.
Legacy hardware/software addict. Midnight hacker, 1960. Codepage 819 in DOS: Total Latin-1 compatibility (no boxes/lines
The glycol mixture isn't at -50C, the dual peltiers are responsible for the temperature dropping that low. The Glycol mixture didn't get below -25C.
We really should read more carefully before throwing out comments.
If were to move the cpu say 5' from the mb, you would have major problems.. The signals would be out of sync and never get it to run.. But there would be ways around it..
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Hmm.. The possibilities of this in a beuwolf system. Double you clock speed!! K7's are going to kick ass by themselfs, with this, oh my!
I just cant wait till someone get's upto date w/ x86 structure.. Full 128 bit x86 would be nice..
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
http://www.ursaminr.demon.co.uk/rocket.htm
It's a bit old, but the possibilities of this machine.
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Hahahaha.. Yeah.. It would be quite interesting.. Wondering if there is a webpage about this.. Intead of using a water cooling system.. What about replacing it w/ liq. nitro?
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
a webpage on this?
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Cool, i'll be waiting.
"The pen is mighter than the sword... But what if you can't write?"
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
with a bare case inside a fridge, I think you would probably have short-circuits due to condensing moisture?
Kryotech sells these, they currently sell K63-500 systems and Tom of Tom's Hardware used one of their kits to make a Celery-618
Unfortunately, it comes with a built in heater
Make that: "Fortunately, it comes with a built in waffle iron"
I couldn't even read the article, got slashdotted in the 10 minutes I went out to have a cigarette, during which the page was posted.
How come slashdot doesn't get slashdotted???
"Software is like sex- the best is for free"
Keep in mind that this is a first order, mostly-classical (ie, not alot of quantum mechanics) approximation. One could take in the fact that electrons are fermions, and as such obey Fermi-Dirac statistics. But that doesn't come into effect until you are at MUCH cooler temperatures (Liquid helium, 4K and below)
-- A wealthy eccentric who marches to the beat of a different drum. But you may call me "Noodle Noggin."
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
Tom's Hardware also has a great OC blurb up right now.
Sweet Jesus is that fast.
Why don't ice crystals form on this and break it?
Temp cycling or chip-board differential is what'll kill your CPU
As long as you keep the board and CPU both at the same temperature and dont turn the coolers off more than once a day, you'll be OK.
Otherwise the thermal expansion difference between the chip and the board will build up stress in the solderballs that attach the chip to the board and eventually crack them. We did that as part of chip Package Qualification. 1000 cycles and no failures were necessary to pass Qual.
Your other problem is that commercial chips are not characterized to run below 0C, so you may work ok, maybe not, the usual overclocking problems apply. Not all parts of the chip may work correctly below 0C.
The other thing is, the package may be at -50C, but the die really is at the ThetaJC*PowerDissipation. A good package is about 1/2 Deg/Watt, a 600MHZ PIII is probably burning about 40 watts, so If the case is at -50C, the die is at -30C.
-55C is what Military parts are tested at. They are also constructed differently than commercial grade parts to deal with the Mil Temps -55/125C.
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
Yes, but even without damage to fat and muscle, you are still dealing with third degree burns which can easily be fatal if they are large enough or if you are old enough. If you don't die from septic complications, you may wish that you did after you have a look in the mirror.
Yup, the company is Kryotech (http://www.kryotech.com)
a sp
:). Or maybe Alphas can't be overclocked so easily as Intel's chips?
Also, see
http://www.kryotech.com/articles/chess_release.
for the details on how they cooled a 333MHz K6-2 to -40, clocked it to 450MHz and then ran a chess program called "Rebel" to beat World#2 Vishwanathan Anand 5-3.
Currently they provide a PC with a 600MHz K6-3 CPU. So, I wonder why they don't try this on
an Alpha
Yumpee
Wouldn't it be cool (no pun intended) if there were an all star wrestler of the name "Superconductor Cold"?
sup
I've been interested in this sort of thing for a long while and have been overclocking since the old 8088 days when it took a soldering iron and crystals from the local 'Shack.
Anyway, cooling with refrigerant has never really appealed to me much. There may be some danger in working with the Freon, I'm not terribly familiar with the technology involved, and the power drain could wind up being significant. Some of you have posted about simply placing a computer in a small refrigerator - this has already been done and it was found that the compressor in the 'frig couldn't keep up with the heavy heat load of an overclocked CPU - the compressor ran full time. The OCP article mentions this problem too, frankly I found the article very well written covering many bases most people forget.
Anyway, my focus has been to build a water cooled Peltier assembly. I currently use Peltiers to cool a PPGA 300A enough to go 504mhz (stable) but the heatsink become significantly warmer due to the Pelt's heat. Obviously such a setup isn't ever likely to go below ambient either.
Some have mentioned condensation and water as being really big issues. So long as the water is sealed out of your sink this isn't an issue. Condensation can be avoided by decent insulation - remember that condensation only forms when components cooler than the dew point meet humid air. Avoid this and you're fine.
One of the last hurdles to consider (IMO) FSB speeds. Currently there just aren't enough selections and Intel's damned multiplier locking is making life a bitch. The Turbo.PLL the Japanese are working on may fix this as it'll allow you to vary the FSB in increments while keeping things liek the AGP and PCI cards at a normal speed.
Way below are some URLs to check out. Note that some are in Kanji as the Japanese have really had a good time with this. Note too that Melcor sells components to water cool Peltiers for industrial applications and apparently not retail, someone needs to resell these parts! Lastly, the Socket 7 CPUs and the PPGA Celerons share a common size, the PPGA chips also appear to run cooler than their slot one brothers. My fastest systems all run the PPGA Celerons including one dual SMP system that's not actively cooled but still gets 2X464mhz. Note that I've not yet managed to get a successful water system running but am working on it. Car heater cores work well for heat exchanges, RedLine Water Wetter helps improve heat transfer, and small fountain pumps move massive amounts of water - these are designed to be constant duty too. All Electronics sells Pelts cheap BTW.
On with the URLs! Here are just a few of what I've got and I'd welcome correspondance on this subject if my HotMail 'box can handle it!
------------
http://www.melcor.com/ - Industrial hardware cooling supplier
http://www.agaweb.com/coolcpu/ English water cooling site w/plans
http://e-sdi.com/west/intro.htm English water cooling project, self contained
http://www.mune.com/mcp2.htm Japanese site, Kanji w/Multiple projects shown.
http://www.kumagaya.or.jp/~touma/index.html Japanese hardware site - Kanji
http://www.jah.ne.jp/~ken1/kenO.htm Japanese project - Kanji
I'd post more but after 5 Netscape crashes I've got to run. Explore the Japanese sites and check out the Turbo.PLL if you happen across it - that site is slowly being translated. If this is of real interest I'll try to post more URLs when I've more time!
Enjoy!
P.S. no time to preview, hope it comes across okay!
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Ice will only form in the presence of water (You are thinkin' "Duh!")
They seem to have taken care of the condensation problem by insulating/isolating the CPU.
I think what they are doing is awesome. I might get the balls and see what I can do with my old P200.
RB
Perhaps non-cost-prohibitive PCs with gig chips will now be available sooner than predicted?
Frankly, I'm having nice reminders of that part of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance" where he talks about useing part of a beer can as a shim.
--
well, you could use the eat pump idea
keep the cpu really cold (to refrigerate the beer)
and pump the heat somewhere else (to fry eggs, heat the house, start fusion reactions)
you know, keep the hot side hot, and the cold side cold
;)
(mother(you) -> hamster) and (smelt(father) = smelt(elderberries))
At the '98 CEBIT I (indeed) saw a cyrix processor being cooled to about -35 C. The basic principle was different though. They compressed air, removed the water etc and let it decompress via some sort of expansion path on top of the processor. The system was quite small: about the size of a large computer.
nosig today
CAREFUL THERE'S a CATCH
_
I tried this, using very small copper tubing. It is VERY IMPORTANT that you find out what the DEW POINT is and not cool below it! You'll condense water on your motherboard, as I did. If you live in a humid climate or a dry climate with a swamp cooler, you must be very careful!
Put a sensor on the chip and regulate the temperature, don't just go crazy!
-rMortyH
_______________________________________________
I have no use for hardware with a purpose.
When I got the PIII's, they were restricted to 500Mhz. They Cost $780.00ea. No overclocking. Then for 155.00ea I bought 2 SL2WY wk37 PII 333Mhz and with the cooling system I am able to run stable at 620Mhz. I would have saved over $1200.00 if I had bought the Pii's in the first place.
Supercoolin
The guy who built the system
Supercoolin@hotmail.com
Sub Zero means Overclocking
I have move up to Anhydrous Ammonia (R-717) in order to achieve sub -100C. Standard CMOS devices today can operate in -120C to -150C without problems but can be clock at twice the speed that is safe at 50C. Improvements in the "doping" process at a relatively cheap cost will allow further cooling to sub -150C and at -202C you are restricted by the quality of the PLC and not the processor. 1.6GHZ would be the theshold of the crystal today.
Supercoolin
The guy who built the system
Supercoolin@hotmail.com
Sub Zero means Overclocking
You can see by the pictures that everything is insulated and sealed. You only have condensation problems if you allow the cooled components to come in contact with ambient are. Thats why you insulate and seal. The Slot1 is actually ideal because by adding a High-speed decoupler between the slot1 and the SECC2 you not only get line noise isolation but a thermal break from the motherboard to prevent transient heat from getting to the supercooled processor. At -60C you can safely increase the speed of any CMOS device by 70%.
Supercoolin
The Guy yhat built the system
Supercoolin@hotmail.com
Sub Zero means Overclocking
This is the same thing you have in a small 2.5cuft freezer. R-134A freon. 9oz. at 144psi high side -11psi low side. They don't explode. they get a leak and slowly loose pressure. What you have to fear is our enviromently friendly R-134a. Health risks from R-12 CFC NONE
Health risks from R-134a Short term DEATH
Long Term-Tumors on Testicals - Loose balls
The greatest health risk of this system is direct contact with the thermal plates, sub -60C temp will burn you more serverely than boiling water.
Supercoolin
The Guy Who Built the system
Supercoolin@hotmail.com
Sub Zero means Overclocking
I suggest you do your research inot the effects of electro migration mitigation effects of supercooling CMOS devices. The thermal breakage occur when and only when you either cool each component at a different rate, cool it to quickly, or allow it to heat back up to quickly. Though your points have validity in the world of ambient. The physics of CMOS devices begin to change at -40C and below. Do your homework.
Sub Zero means Overclocking
Load 3D Studio Max and render 12000 frames @ 1024x768x32 and then tell me a great your Celeron 618 is. I'll expect your reponse in about a week if you have enough hard drives to hold the data.
Sub Zero means Overclocking
R-11 and R-12 are banned freons, you cannot purchase them "over the counter", R-11 requires that you have a halogen detector in the same room as the compressor - extremely hazardous. R-12 has zero heath risks associated with it, but was a CFC. Remember when then Senator Al Gore stood before the Senate Committee and feed than a line of crap so long that it make his boss Clinton a siant. R-12 and similar CFC's were banned. My point was that the "enviromentally freindly" replacement being shoved done our throats is very damgerous and should be handled with that in mind. It is not the system or it's design, its the freon choice your government has restricted you to. Hell im changing to Anhydrous Ammonia (R-717) (plant fertilizer) pull MSDS sheets on that one.
Sub Zero means Overclocking
Wasn't there some news about a company that specialized in this sorta thing?
They took a cyrix apart if I remember right, by cooling it to -40C. And used it against the world's second highest Chess GM.
A deep blue alright...
Mmmmmmm. Floor pie!