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[O/C]Mythbusters

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Overclockers.com

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Nov 1, 1998
Overclockers.com is looking for your suggestions regarding computer myths and wive’s tales – checkout this article and send us your ideas! Reader submissions will be used for a series of articles based on mythbusting!

Please use the form at the link below to send in your ideas.

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For those that post a submission, please be advised ahead of time, anything that is potentially dangerous/harmful and or going to cost a lot of money (seeing as how i just got layed-off work) is probably out of the question.

But, I will consider any and all requests, and it might surprise you as to what resources I have available to do some myths.
 
Submission cost...

Sorry to heare about you getting laid off... So i submitted one thats free to test and do.:welcome:
 
thans jet!

So far, i am trying to reply to every suggestion (they get e-mailed to me) and let people know I got them... but i have one of them that keeps bouncing back saying unknown recipient... so if you are reading this and sent a suggestion using an @gmail.com account.... and didn't get a response from me.... trust me, i tried... but our google overlords aren't letting my e-mail throughj

***edit***

some things I can still do despite 'cost'. I have a very good friend that has what is probably comparable to a small warehouse of older parts and computers. There are things I can do (which he'll gladly help with... he loves doin strange experiments on the gear he has) thanks to that.
 
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The suggestion I sent in about PSU (can't remember if I spelled my user ID correctly) could be done for free if you could find an older PC like 486's or early Pentium. The PSU just needs the 110/220v switch, set it to 110v, turn off 220v outlet using circuit breaker, hook it up to 220v line, set up camera(s), throw the breaker on, watch the fireworks.
 
The suggestion I sent in about PSU (can't remember if I spelled my user ID correctly) could be done for free if you could find an older PC like 486's or early Pentium. The PSU just needs the 110/220v switch, set it to 110v, turn off 220v outlet using circuit breaker, hook it up to 220v line, set up camera(s), throw the breaker on, watch the fireworks.

we like sparks flying.

However, i really need to look at it a bit more in depth to see if it qualifies as a 'myth' or a 'what would happen' test.
 
Just a quick idea:

Water loops:

"Water has to go slowly though the system so it will absorb the heat from the components/let it disperse to the radiator"

Perhaps it could be tested by varying velocity of water through the system, and measuring temperatures at different points? Before/after pump, before/after CPU, before/after radiator.

This seems to be a fairly common question for cooling. Maybe it'd be nice to have an 'official' article to point people to.
 
^to add to the water thing^

mabe check various things to see what liquid or additive and what ammount cools the best.

like antifreeze in cars is best at 50/50 but in a computer ots only being heated on one side for a short time (compared to a car) so mabe less or more will make it more efficient.

$4 jug o coolant
water your already paying for (or well water [free])
$2 measuring devices (cups ect)
probally have a water cooling rig some place there.

i wish i had a friend with a ton of old parts, i need a bunch of old hard drives, preferable death clicky hard drives with working motors, dont want to destroy good drives just for some motors, got a few ideas.
 
add to the wwter thing

u mean using substances with varying thermal capacities and heat absorption rates just an example ... an extreme one
mercury would absorb more heat faster than water
but thats not a myth its kinda a fact-test that idea can be calculated
 
I always wanted to know if there was any truth to the assertion that 'burning in' a CPU brings any better reliability or increases overclocking potential.
 
How about running a computer submerged in highly deionized water? The premiss being that deionized water does not conduct electricity and thus should not short out the computer. You would have to use a fanless system though as the resistance of water would probably overload the fans.

I think this would work but only for a short amount of time because the water quickly starts absorbing ions from everything that it is contact with including carbond dioxide from the air.

So if there was a way to have a sealed system with no air that continuously recirculates over ion resin beds I bet it would work.

I have an 18.2 mega ohm DI water system in my lab....
 
de-ionized water works... until it's ionized

I tried to find the very old article on Tom's Hardware (good luck!) where they immersed a system in de-ionized water. It worked fine... for about 5 minutes.

Considering that water is really good at getting ions from metal, the assumption is that it didn't take long for all the exposed surfaces of the PC to contaminate the water.

I really wish I could find that article. It was pretty hilarious. I think it was around the Pentium2 era?
 
I'm a lawyer for the Discovery Channel. Stop using Mythbusters in this thread or I'll sue you for copyright infringement.:p
 
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