• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

an alternative cooling solution im thinking about. thoughts?

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

poseyjmac

New Member
Joined
Sep 26, 2003
well i am poor, and i have decided i'm not going the way of watercooling. but i came up with an idea thats very cheap and may not work, thats why i wanted to ask you guys what you thought about it as a way to bring down my temps a few C. here goes

what if i had an ice chest with ice in it, and i cut a hole in the side near the top or top of the chest the size of a 90mm or 120mm fan, then i got tubing at the same diamter and attached it(and sealed it) from the ice chest opening to a hole in the side of my case. and then i put a fan inside the tubing inside the icechest. so its sucking air out of the ice chest and into my case. and then i would make another hole on the side near the bottom, and put tubing through there and seal it so no water comes out when it melts. so then the fan near the top would sucking air from outside via the bottom tube, it would go through the ice(or melted water eventually) and go toward the case.

and maybe i could put another fan at the point where the tube connects to the case? but i dont know much about condenstation and all that, would i get condensation in the case? if so, doh! and even if it worked, id have to change the ice every day, but it seems like it would make my case nice and cool. and the cost would be small since im using cooling power from my refrigeartor and it makes ice anyway.

so.. any advice on how this wouldn't work? i know it sucks compared to water cooling your cpu and vid card, but if i could lower just a few C it would be worth it


edit: also if there would be a lot of condensation would it matter to make little pockets of ice in the icechest it self then have the tubing suck air from the core of the chest where theres no ice? sorry for my uneducatedness on cooling stuff.
 
ummm... wouldn't it be rather tiring to get all that ice? are you going to oc alot? if not you don't really need the ice.... but in theory i guess it could work.

if you are keeping the ice outside the case, i don't think condensation would be a problem... but on that you might want a reply from someone more experienced with ice :D
 
You could try geting Dry ice, its much colder, it sublimes so you dont have to disconect your contraption and dump out the water. And if you have grocery stores near by, they could provide you with free dry ice daily. A lot of stuff that comes in frozen to stores is kept that way in the truck with dry ice.
 
Don't bother with the ice. It will melt in a matter of hours, and your refridgerator can't keep up with that volume of ice. Once it melts, assuming you've ducted so that the water level will be below the level of both fans, the intake fan will have to produce enough pressure to fight the column of water in the tube. Standard 12v case fans just can't do that. Not to mention reliability; your temps would be going up and down, and there would be no way to get a stable temperature.

Dry ice would work much better, but with the volume of air going through, you'd be pumping out a lot of carbon dioxide gas - toxic levels. You'd have to have the exhaust from you case pumped directly out a window, but then you'd have to worry about your computer contributing to the greenhouse effect. :D In the long run, dry ice would be more expensive than a cheap water cooling system, unless you have a free-of-charge source. And again, reliability - if you can't obtain dry ice for one day, you're back down to your old overclock until you can get more.

As for condensation, there are many other topics on this board that cover that. The short of it is: you won't have to worry about it.
 
its not worth it at all...just add fans to your case, it will work much better..
 
Back