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Buy or build a dice/ln2 pot?

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torin3

Member
Joined
Dec 25, 2004
Ok, I'm looking to get a pot for Forum Wars this February.

There is the Koolance pot for about $120. This is for an LGA 775 board, so mounting is fine.

However, I could probably build one for less. But I'd be relying on a coworker to do the lathe work for me. I'd be able to handle the lapping.

Copper is running about $10/lb for 2 1/2" bar of 110 alloy.

Are there any good guides with dimensions out there?

Or is it too much work?

Also, I was thinking of making the extension out of aluminum. Do they normally use an o-ring to seal between the layers, or just good threads?

Also, aluminum is a lot cheaper, how much of a performance hit do you take using it?

Thanks!
 
Please note, my comments are referring to observations of owning a container, not making or testing different setups.

The container I had did not use an o-ring, just thread. If you are going for cheap, I believe that the copper is going to give you a bit more performance. You could do a copper slug with an aluminum sleeve; that seems to be a common combination for these containers.

Is there a reason you don't want to pick up a Duniek like what I had? I can't remember how much I paid for it here, but it was around or less than $100.

(Sorry, can't find any pictures laying around, I know I have them...)
 
I don't know much about extreme cooling but as far as Alu, the reason it isn't used as much is b/c of its lesser ability to control temps. Trying to keep around the cold bug point but not going under it is easier with the more dense copper. Temperatures don't change as fast, so if you put too much LN2 in and see it dropping, you can stop and let some evaporate.

With aluminum, the temperature drop (and rise) will happen more quickly, making it more difficult to control, as well as requiring more attentive pot-watching. DICE has less of a problem with that than LN2 because it's not as cold. With DICE, I think you'd be ok with aluminum, assuming the cold bug is < ~-80C

Ok, there's my $.02 from someone with zero experience in extreme cooling. Just relaying stuff that I've read.
 
Is there a reason you don't want to pick up a Duniek like what I had? I can't remember how much I paid for it here, but it was around or less than $100.

(Sorry, can't find any pictures laying around, I know I have them...)

The only reason is that I didn't know it existed. After some googling, I've seen his pots before, and like the design. I tried getting the one in the classifieds, but the seller hasn't been on in almost a month.

I found his e-mail address and I've sent him an e-mail asking for a quote. If the price is about $100, I'll probably go for it.

I don't know much about extreme cooling but as far as Alu, the reason it isn't used as much is b/c of its lesser ability to control temps. Trying to keep around the cold bug point but not going under it is easier with the more dense copper. Temperatures don't change as fast, so if you put too much LN2 in and see it dropping, you can stop and let some evaporate.

With aluminum, the temperature drop (and rise) will happen more quickly, making it more difficult to control, as well as requiring more attentive pot-watching. DICE has less of a problem with that than LN2 because it's not as cold. With DICE, I think you'd be ok with aluminum, assuming the cold bug is < ~-80C

Ok, there's my $.02 from someone with zero experience in extreme cooling. Just relaying stuff that I've read.

Intersting to note Hokie, as I would have though it would have behaved the opposite due to aluminums lower thermal conductivity. Though I am aware the larger the mass of your metal, the slower the thermal changes.
 
I found his e-mail address and I've sent him an e-mail asking for a quote. If the price is about $100, I'll probably go for it.

I did get a rapid reponse. The all aluminum CPU pot is 42EUR, which is about $60. The copper/aluminum pot is 85Euro, or about $122. I think I can swing the copper/aluminum one. However, I managed to accidentally lock myself out of my bank account due to not noticing I had the caps-lock key on. (No light for it on my keyboard). So I have to wait until tomorrow to make sure I can get it, as my bank only has a few branches and no 24 hour customer service.
 
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Is this your first time sub-zero? I feel a frontpage article in the making...
 
Is this your first time sub-zero? I feel a frontpage article in the making...

Ok, I'll break out the camera.

You want the build of the benching station too? I've got 2'x2'x1/2" plywood that I'm going to use, and I don't think I'll cut it down. Should give me plenty of room to work with. The benching station is going to be a prototype for my next main computer 'case'. Which will have the 4-way SLI Classified motherboard, watercooled, so I need lots of room.

I'm not sure I can swing the northbridge pot before forum wars though.
 
Please tell me GPU was a typo, since I only run DICE I would be fine with an alu pot, and I'd have to go send that guy a PM. Not sure how well international money orders work in other currencies though.

Little off topic, but I was planning on maybe doing some kind of log for forum wars over in the public benching section. Seemed like it would be fun, plus it'd be nice for the people outside the benching section to read..... maybe? :shrug:
 
Please tell me GPU was a typo, since I only run DICE I would be fine with an alu pot, and I'd have to go send that guy a PM. Not sure how well international money orders work in other currencies though.

Little off topic, but I was planning on maybe doing some kind of log for forum wars over in the public benching section. Seemed like it would be fun, plus it'd be nice for the people outside the benching section to read..... maybe? :shrug:

Yes, it was a typo. I've fixed it.

I wound up going for the copper/aluminum pot. 85EUR, with about 20EUR shipping plus currency fees and paypal fees, wound up running me $162.

He does sell a northbrige copper/aluminum pot for about 35EUR.

Oh, and he will take personal paypal, and paypal will convert the currency for you.

Log for the forum wars section sounds like fun.

I'm only going to be using dice at this stage, but I'll probably start trying the LN2 in the summer.
 
No paypal here, I have to do everything in MOs. I still need to find out how much work it takes to use a northbridge pot on a CPU.
 
The different between his northbridge pot and the all aluminum pot is $10.

If you already have a northbridge pot, an adapter plate with a hole cut out of it for the pot might work.

Kind of like:

Code:
     |   |  --------pot
     |   |
   __|   |__  ------first hold-down plate
  |  |   |  | -------screws
 _|_ |   | _|_  ----second plate with screws from the top, and more screws down through the motherboard.
|____|___|____| ----motherboard and CPU level
^             ^  --- locknuts on the back of the motherboard

Sorry for the cruddy ascii graphics.
 
dang i was hoping you were gonna have one built .. be nice to see overall cost if you had access to tools to make one .. would b interetsed how to make the hold down bracket on one of these if you were to get a block cut for you
 
dang i was hoping you were gonna have one built .. be nice to see overall cost if you had access to tools to make one .. would b interetsed how to make the hold down bracket on one of these if you were to get a block cut for you


I was thinking about it, but the copper alone was going to run in the $40-80 range depending on the dimensions needed. Plus, while I have friends at work in the tool room, we've had our labor cut to the bone due to the recession, so we have too few people doing needed work. Not really the time to fit in a government job. Scrutiny is just too harsh at the moment. And while I do have a mill at home, it is a manual without a lot of tooling. And I have no lathe. (Well I do, but it rusted out in storage due to a leaky roof.)

And I've only got a month until Forum Wars.

Bracket would have been fairly easy on my mill though. I could manually lay out the hole pattern and mill the holes, then use a hole saw to cut the center hole.
 
well my brother always ask me if i need anything done and the offer has be untouched for a couple years so i figured id put him to the test .. oh and i was curious to dimensions too
 
Sending Duniek a PM over at XS, hope he replies to someone who has exactly 0 posts there.

EDIT: Oh hey I've made two posts. :shrug:
 
Oh, hey, a question on DICE cooling.

Am I likely to run into a cold bug on an E8400 at dice temperatures?

I'm on a bit of a budget at this point and if I could wait a bit to get a type-K thermocouple and a mulitmeter to read it, that would be nice.
 
Oh, hey, a question on DICE cooling.

Am I likely to run into a cold bug on an E8400 at dice temperatures?

I'm on a bit of a budget at this point and if I could wait a bit to get a type-K thermocouple and a mulitmeter to read it, that would be nice.

I doubt it. I ran several 65nm C2D plus several i7 chips under dice and never ran into a coldbug. Then again on dice you're not gonna get colder then -78c.
 
I doubt it. I ran several 65nm C2D plus several i7 chips under dice and never ran into a coldbug. Then again on dice you're not gonna get colder then -78c.

Thanks for the info. Yeah, I knew I wasn't going to get much cooler than -70°C with dice, and I didn't remember seeing any cold bugs warmer than about -100°C. But then again, I wasn't paying that much attention to cold bugs...because...you know...I'd never do anything that crazy...

:chair::D
 
Oh, I took a little bit of video when I did my dry ice run:
 
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