So I was at Costco the other day when I noticed a nice little mini-fridge on sale for $100. I thought to my-self “heh, that thing is big enough to easily fit a mobo in” This is the point that the light bulb appeared.
So would it work to use a minifridge for a case?
I can see a few obvious problems
getting cables in and out:
this could be easily remedied with a little creativity.
2 Possible static electricity from the plastic in the fridge:
Again, placement of foil and cloth around the plastic should help kill the static electricity.
Condensation:
Here, well, I don’t know… Would it even be a problem?
Blow out the fridge motor:
A possibility, but I think that the fridge would be able to handle it if I kept the power supply and various drives out of there.
So, does this sound like a good idea? Has anyone done it before? Are there any other problems that I have not thought of?
While this is a great board you are likely to get more and better responses to this cool idea in this forum on the Ars Technica board from like minded seekers of frigidity.
Case and Cooling Fetish
Cool that burning love here, where users discuss all that is casedom. Be sure to check out the C&CF FAQ.
To address the necessary questions in the order asked:
I doubt condensation would occur. Condensation happens when you have a surface at below ambient temperature in a humid environment. I can’t really see any parts of the computer dropping below ambient, so not really an issue.
Big issue. That mini-fridge cooling system that was linked was used to cool a computer that puts out maybe 1/4 the heat load of a modern PC. We’re talking 68W unoverclocked for an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (26W for the Celeron 500 in that article), and skyrocketing quickly if overclocking is involved. Add to this the heat from the motherboard and videocard, and you have the fridge working 24/7 with a heat load far exceeding what it was designed to handle.
I’d say your best bet is a homebuilt watercooling system. You can build it to your specs, put it in a normal case (with some mods), and it should be fairly reliable. You could also buy a Koolance pre-built watercooling case for $200 from http://www.plycon.com, plus the price of two chipset waterblocks (one for vidcard (chipset waterblock is better than vidcard waterblock), one for motherboard) and the Power Supply. You can read a review of the koolance unit at http://www.hardocp.com
If you want extreme overclocking, add a high output peltier to the mix, with its own dedicated power supply. THAT’s when you start worrying about condensation:)
I disagree with FDISK. Unless you provide positive pressure, ionized, dry air, you probably will get condensation. The reason is that some of the components will always be hotter than the ambient cooling air. And yes, condensation would be a problem. Best case it would cause leakage (not fluid, but electrical current) that would impact system performance - worst case, it could cause a direct short and damage components.
There’s a much bigger problem with your plan, though. Air, even cooled air, is a very poor thermal conductor (that’s why coolers and thermos’ are made with air cavities). There would be a huge temperature gradient between the hot chips and the cool air around them - net effect: not a significant impact on the operating temperature of the hot chips. The best cooling techniques use direct physical contact (i.e. heat sinks) to ‘suck’ the heat away much more efficiently.
Incorrect. For every 1C drop in ambient temp, the CPU or other device being cooled will also drop 1C. The thermal efficiency of a heatsink is measured in c/w, Degrees C of temperature rise over ambient for every watt of heat. If ambient temp drops 10C, CPU temp also drops 10C.
You HAVE TO use watercooling or another method of extreme cooling to use a peltier. It’s simply impossible to combine a high wattage peltier with a modern CPU and aircool it. the combined heat load will be WELL above 100W, possibly exceeding 200W of heat output (100W min peltier (more like 150W), plus 100W native CPU output when overclocked). Air cooling CANNOT deal with that level of heat. We ain’t overclocking Celerons anymore, Toto:) BTW, Peltiers run at 14V.
The best and easiest to maintain system would be watercooling combined with a peltier. The peltier can get the CPU EXTREMELY cold (read: insulate EVERYTHING) and the watercooling can dissipate the huge amount of heat produced.
If you’re simply looking for cheap and decent cooling, an Alpha PAL8045 heatsink combined with a fairly high output fan, like the Delta 68CFM, will provide enough cooling for significant overclocking, albeit at high noise levels.
Don’t use it to cool the processor directly. Combine it with a liquid based cooing system and use it to cool the liquid not the entire system. There are plans all over the over clocker sites using a simple aquarium pump, an old transmission/oil cooler, and some comercially available waterjackets. Once youve done that place the trans cooler in the fridge next to you favorite caffine, alcohol, and ice cream.
EnigmaOne: OK, after re-reading the specs, it turns out most peltiers are designed for 15V. Ok, I should have checked my memory. My point, however, was that if you run them at 12V you need to overbuy to compensate for the lost efficiency. For example, if you go to some overclocking shop and see someone offering a 100W Peltier, that peltier is rated at 100W@15V. Unless you procure a high voltage power supply, you need to take into account the efficiency loss that the drop from 15V to 12V will cause.
I was assuming that Muad’Dib was talking about a closed system. I don’t think a mini-refrigerator could keep up with the heat generated by the micro. Inside the fridge, the air nearest the cooling coils would be cooler than the air nearest the micro. In fact, the air nearest the micro would probably be hotter than if you were simply blowing ambient temperature air over the heatsink.
If you could keep the air space in the immediate vacinity of the micro at a constant lower temperature and you could keep your micro’s heat dissipation constant, your assertion would be mostly correct.