My Case Idea

[Gonzo]

Im sure that this has been done because I would not be lucky enough to come up with a good idea that no one had ever thought of before. I was thinking about computer cooling the other night when my fridge kicked on, and the little lightbulb above my head flickered. Put the computer in the fridge! Then I thought about condensation, but what about "frostless" fridges? I live in a pretty dry climate and our frostless fridge/freezer never builds up frost in it, but our chest freezer has to be thawed out once a year. Anyway, lets assume that frost is not a problem.
I was thinking cut a hole in the left side of the fridge for the back of the board to show out of, that way when you open the door I would be looking directly at the mobo like taking the side of the case off. One nice thing about this is that the whole thing will be custom so I can decide how many drive bays I want the case to have. I would put the drives in the door so that they are accessable from the front of the case and when I open the door they would swing out of the way, the only downside of that is I would need long cables to allow them to move.
As for cooling I think I would be fine just to keep my hsf and then have a few fans to circulate the air inside the case so that there is always a new supply of cool air moving past the hsf. I wonder what my temps would be, I bet I could keep the air inside the fridge at around 10' C. So what are everyones thoughts, suggestions, has anyone here tried this? I am going to go search the web now because I bet someone had already tried this.

[Kingslayer]

This has been done numerous times, but no one has put any rational thought into before doing this.

Let's think about the drives. HDD's and CDRW's. What do they have in common? Heat. Drive heats up and expands, cools and contracts. Repeat daily. How much life will you take off those drives by doing this. Not to mention that the bearings of the HDD's do have a oil based lubricant that will get extremely thick from the cold and may potentially gum up.

Now, let's put the drives on the outside to combat this. Well remember that any IDE cable over 24 inches will start to rapidly decrease in data transfer and the risk of data corruption is extremely high at this length.

You say you want to run fans to keep the air circulating. Ok, have you ever looked at the fan for a central heat and air unit. Not the box on the outside of the house, I'm talking about the one inside. It's big and it's powerful. Not only because it has to circulate a ton of air, but because the air at the fan is pretty cold. My AC fan usually has a coat of frost on it. Computer fans aren't going to cut it inside that fridge. Not to mention that the plastic will get extremely fragile at 10 degrees and one bump against anything and the blades will just shatter.

You don't want to bring air in from outside. That is defeating the purpose.

Let's say you need to do an upgrade. Add more memory. You get your brand new 512 meg stick of Crucial memory. And you want to put it in. You are going to open the door of a cold fridge and let in hot air. I don't care how dry your climate is condensation is now an issue. It only takes the tiniest droplet in the right (or wrong) place and ZAPP! No more motherboard, videocard, soundcard....insert hardware of choice. The only way to combat this is to shut the fridge, and your computer down and wait a few days for the temps to regulate. Meanwhile all your buddies are enjoying the Counter-Strike tourny your missing out on because your computer is off for the next 2 or 3 days...for a memory upgrade.

I don't want to scare you out of this. However I don't want you to go and do this half-cocked like every other website has tried. You will notice a few trends about the guys that have tried this. No updates on how it went.

Use your head, use common sense, and be careful and it should go off without a hitch. And if you have any doubt whatsoever about any step along the way ask us and you'll get about 30 opinions on what that step may or may not yield.

[The Overclocker]

it has been done before, it ends up with a broken computer and nowhere to put the beer

[Intraveinous]

Originally posted by the overclocker
and nowhere to put the beer
And that, my friend, is a true tragedy!
;)
Peace
John

[Wa11y]

Been done. (http://www.pcrivals.com/projects/computerator/index.shtml)

But they used alcohol (water) cooling along with being tossed into a 'fridge, instead of a HSF. Make of it what you'd like.

[foxmulder]

If you want to go this route I'd use the fridge to cool a water reservoir for a water cooling setup