Zebra Cooling!!!

[RoadWarrior]

I just had this crazy idea......

I remember reading a while back in scientific american or some such journal about how the striping of a zebra with black and white, may help cool the beast, since it sets up convective currents circulating between the "hotter" black stripes and "cooler" white stripes....
So I was thinking, if you had some RAM, chipset, cache, chips, clock gen or VLSI logic even, that you thought might benefit from just a little help, that aren't worth putting a sink on or are difficult to, then it might be worth ZEBRA STRIPING them! :D

Be particularly useful in "dead" air areas of the case with obstructions or between slots I would think.

I was thinking that plain old zinc oxide thermal paste might be good to use for the stripes, you'd have to apply it carefully of course, being careful not to smear it, otherwise you end up with a grey chip, maybe use a small paintbrush. However, some thin highly pigmented paints like the ones in those paint based marker pens probably wouldn't be too bad. Those silver ones used to be cheap. As long as it's not too thick if it's paint I guess it won't harm any.

I think the silver and white paints are based on zinc and aluminum oxides anyway, not that you'd want to use them as thermal compound under a sink though.

You wouldn't have to make big stripes, just wide enough to have some effect, (I'd guess about 2-3mm is as small as you'd want them) and I wouldn't go for a "whited" area of more than around 40%ish

An approach I would consider is to "guesstimate" where the die is under the surface of the chip and draw a white box around it leaving the center black, then leave a black border and paint another white box around nearer the edge. That would encourage a convective updraft over the core where it's most needed I would think, instead of there being random "thermal bubbles" of convection, from a larger plain black area.....

Well it's no replacement for heatsinks of course, just an extra little tweak I thought of that takes just a couple of minutes to do.

regards,

Road Warrior

[Crash893]

i think that would only work if your computer was sitting in the sun and sweeting

also that idea could in theory do something but
a) im not sure if its enogh to cool a computer
b) would work with active cooling like hsf

[The Overclocker]

even if it dosn't work, it will make a nice theme for a case mod

[Silversinksam]

Scientists are not sure if the Zebra's stripes are for thermal or camouflage purposes or both, I remember reading it helps break thier siloutte from the heat mirage effect in Africa.

Also the stripes help the herd identify the Alpha Zebra as well as the baby Zebra identify her Momma. :burn:


If you paint your case or whatever, try not to lose it at the next LAN party as a camouflaged case may be hard to find if the room starts getting hot from all those overclocked pc's :)

[RoadWarrior]

Yeah Crash, it isn't intended for hsf situations any airflow totally disrupts convection so that's why I suggested using in "dead air" areas. Also it's no replacement for hsf cooling. Just might be an idea for chips you wouldn't otherwise put sinks on.

o/c and SSS, LOL :D

I'm thinking about doing this to some harddrives, since I don't have baycoolers. Don't really have a heat "problem" with them, just get concerned at how warm they feel sometimes. And the air in the bays is pretty much static.

Road Warrior

[flounder43]

The zebra stripe theory that I subscribe to, and probably the most accepted one, is that the stipes are there to protect them from predators such as the lion. It seems that when the zebras are in a herd, the lion cannot focus on just one animal with all of the stripes. When they start to flee from the lion, he is less likely to succeed with a kill if he cannot identify one zebra to pounce on.

Unless a lion is hunting your computer, I would say it would be of no help.

[RoadWarrior]

The thermal effect is real and has been simulated.

The arguments are over the evolutionary purpose, the real reason they exist. So all theories are good on that, since they're just theories, and in and of themselves they don't discount other theories which are just as valid.

Road Warrior

[Crash893]

well here is why i dont think it will work that well for cooling

the circulation comes from the sun heating up the air around the black part and it moving to where its cool ( white part)

there is no central broadcast point of infrared radation in your computer .

i think it would make a cool case paint thought
would work to cool the case at my house becuse in the afternoon it sits in the sunlight