computer.howstuffworks.com — Whether you're using a desktop or laptop computer, there's a good chance that if you stop what you're doing and listen carefully, you'll hear the whirring of a small fan. If your computer has a high-end video card and lots of processing power and generates too much heat, liquid cooling could be a better solution.
Aug 24, 2006 View in Crawl 4
jessfactorAug 25, 2006
This edit thing sucks ass. I meant to say placing your computer in front of an air conditioner may not be a good idea because of dew point issues. As far a mini fridge like computer case: Liebert makes something like that in rack form, so it would work, but be expensive to operate. They make a server rack that is pretty much a powerful refrigerator for people who really don't need a dedicated server room.
Closed AccountAug 25, 2006
People still take the A+ exam?
kitsune818Aug 25, 2006
Yes, perfect if you enjoy destorying expensive hardware from condensation. Really, there is no reason to need to chill below room temperature for most people, and your solution would just be overkill.There is a happy medium for people who want a bit better cooling than air will provide but who aren't trying to melt down their CPU via insane OCs that the price point of a good water system meets.If phase change cooling was all it was cracked up to be, the Cray's wouldn't have been liquid cooled.. it's not like they didn't have a very large budget to work with.
blkmgkAug 25, 2006
Okay this is creepy - that case and setup is almost *exactly* like the one sitting on my desk (lol). My office gets pretty warm and while this setup doesn't cool it much lower than air alone the temp swings are MUCH less pronounced. I run an FX AMD at 2.6Gig w/100% CPU usage 24X7 and temps seldom get about 51C even when the room heats up. Come to think of it - I knocked a SOLID 15 degrees off of my vid card though, it used to run hotter than my CPU! I chose a pretty big radiator aka heater core and a couple of silent 12CM fans to cool it. I hear the one case fan cooling my HD but that's it. I did have some leakage thanks to the crappy build job on my plexi reservoir but overall it's been trouble free for months. the case was a cheapie plexi off like Geeks.com on sale so I had no issues drilling where needed.This solution was NOT cheap compared to the monster heatsink I had but overall it's more stable and the vid card is much cooler. No complaints here at all about it - WaterWetter keeps the crud down in the water too :-)
blkmgkAug 25, 2006
How about running a Distributed.net client 24X7 on a heavily overclc**ked machine in an office with about 5 other machines all doing the same and with little in the way of ventilation? Water cooling allows the primary machine, the fastest one, to run balls out without major temp swings. Hot or cool in here my machine's temp doesn't vary significantly and the machine remains stable. The thermal mass of all that water keeps temps in check pretty well. When I build out my next office I'm actually contemplating a water manifold, jacks for each computer, and a radiatorpump in my crawlspace to chill the water. All of my computers would be near dead silent done this way but maintenance and cost may prove too much to overcome. It could easily be done though :-)
Closed AccountAug 26, 2006
Don't forget "AMAZING" with several exclamation marks added to the end as well.