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Dipping my toes into extreme cooling

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SmokeTest

New Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2012
Hi everyone. Longtime reader, first time poster. I've been keeping an ancient LGA 775 based system limping along since I built it back in 2006. Was planning to go with IVB, but the disappointing overclocking results turned mt off. Picked up a 2500k and ASRock Z77 Extreme6, and man is this an overclocking monster.

Played around with it for about a day. Was able to boot at 5.35 GHz, but not stable and temps were through the roof (Hyper 212+, pair of Cougar 120mm fans in push/pull). This weekend I'm going to give it another shot and see what it can do. Seems like I got a really nice chip, and it would be a shame not to let it stretch its legs at these crazy high overclocks.

My budget is fairly limited right now, so I'm looking at dry ice for a low barrier to entry option. Only problem is, I can't find where I can reliably buy a copper pot. Is it reasonable to think I could get the equipment I need for a basic DICE setup for around $100? The ice and ethanol aren't problems to source locally, just the pot, insulation, etc that I'm not sure where to get.
 
I don't recommend putting body parts into the extreme cooling. :beer:

What, who doesn't like their feet to be -70C?

Machining my own is something I'm considering, but really haven't had time to look into yet. I have access to all kinds of cool equipment (I'm an engineer working on a military base), just need to make friends with the right people.

Also, those links are exactly what I'm looking for. Even if I don't buy one, it's nice to have a ballpark figure on what these things currently sell for.

Think I'll lurk a bit more and poke around in the benchmarking section.

Thanks for the help guys!
 
For the pot; you can also start searching some of the overclocking/ebay/etc for someone selling a Koolance V2 Dry Ice/LN2 pot. I have one (bought it new for about $180 about a year ago) and it works very well; it's not going to be as good as the KP or D8er pots, but it is a "cheaper" alternative.

For insulation you can go to Lowes or Home Depot and get some Frost King tape to wrap the pot with, or you could get some pipe foam insulation tubes from grainger that fit the diameter of whatever pot you get.
 
Yeah, I found several references to the Koolance pots, but couldn't find any for sale. Been checking eBay and Craigslist daily for a week or so now, nothing has shown up.

Also, thanks for the tip about the insulation. I believe I will need to insulate the motherboard as well with some kind of dielectric grease, right? Got any suggestions for that too? I've skimmed over about a dozen different guides to this kind of thing, and always see very extensive instructions about protecting the motherboard from condensation. If they mentioned where to get the stuff, I've since forgotten.
 
By the way, I recommend you *don't* dip your toes in the LN2 pot. Just in case that's what you were considering.

:welcome:
 
Check out the guide in the benching forum by I.M.O.G. I believe where he details how to use Vaseline to insulate your motherboard. I also have a layer of FK tape between my mobo and benching platform(scavenged mobo tray from an OEM atx case).
 
By the way, I recommend you *don't* dip your toes in the LN2 pot. Just in case that's what you were considering.

:welcome:
Bah, you guys are no fun. I wanted to freeze my feet and stick them on my wife when I went to bed :D
 
Bah, you guys are no fun. I wanted to freeze my feet and stick them on my wife when I went to bed :D
This feels alot like a batman vs superman situation..... She has an abundance of cold toe power naturally so you are trying to use technology to compete! Leme know how that works out...:chair:
 
Bah, you guys are no fun. I wanted to freeze my feet and stick them on my wife when I went to bed :D

I have got to get my mind out of the gutter!!!!! It took me three readings to realize you used the "clean" preposition. :chair:

As far as insulation goes...

I use this:
1- Frost King FV516 to insulate around the socket area on the motherboard.

2 - And I also use this sheet foam insulation on top of the layer of the frost king from (1). This one is thicker and will make a sort of gasket between the motherboard and pot.

3. For the pot; I use stuff like this: Pipe Foam Insulation

Lots of people use different methods and it all depends on what you want to do and how far you want to take it... The easier way would be to just use vaseline and cover the entire board with it. It is the easier method, but it does make a mess.
 
:welcome: to the forums.

The koolance pots are a great solution for a price for doing some benchmarking.
 
I would look for a used Koolance V2, failing that almost any pot with a copper base (doesn't have to be copper tube) will work fine for SB and DIce.

Welcome (slightly prematurely, perhaps) to the world of Grand Fun and Abused Hardware!
A lot of 2d and 3d benchmarks don't care if you're running more than two cores, or whether you're running HT. For air you can turn off two cores (always run at least two! Running a single core tends to kill core i CPUs) and turn off HT as well. That will cut heat substantially.
 
Got in touch with a mechanical engineer buddy of mine. He's going to see if he can get us some time on one of the CNCs on the base. Hopefully I'll be back in a few days/weeks with some cool pics of custom pots.
 
If you're going to be using Dice and making your own pot. You want to maximize the surface area exposed to the Dice slurry, but you also want to be able to stir it. Stirring will help you keep steadier temperatures and allow the dice to sublimate in the acetone at a steadier rate. If you put a small amount of acetone in the base and pack it full of Dice you will usually run into problems, as the acetone and exposed dice will interact, but without a stirring motion (or stabbing motion) the top pack of Dice will not drop into the acetone for optimal temperatures.
Edit: Holes increase surface area, but prevent a nice stirring motion. Either try to minimize holes or make them large enough to be able to poke something into. Steps are a good choice for increasing surface area, but they don't increase it as fast as holes and you're rather limited with the design options. A combination of both has been used quite successfully in the past. As far as base thickness goes, on intuition alone I would lean towards 1/4" to 3/8" thick. If you go too thick, it will take a long time to pull the pot down to temperature. Some mass is needed to minimize loaded temperature swings. Too low and the temps will jump all over the place. Too much and you will be wasting a lot of Dice just trying to cool the pot down.
 
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Great stuff. I just love a good DIY project. I'll be sure to post lots of pics if and when I get started. I've been looking at lots of pictures of pots, so I've got a pretty decent idea of how I'm going to do it.

If there are any guides or videos out there you could point me to on pot design, I'd be eternally grateful.
 
There aren't any that I'm aware of.
I think about the best DIce pot out there is the koolance ln2 rev2, tons of easily accessable surface area, still has some (not a bunch, but some) mass.
You should be able to equal its performance if you're creative about things :D
Maybe even beat it.
 
Time to bust out my old physics textbook and modeling software, then.

Also, just remembered eMachineShop. A friend of mine told me about them a couple years back, he was using them to make parts for his truck (he customizes them for offroading). He seemed thrilled with their price and capabilities.

Anybody ever try to use them to make a pot? I figure it's going to be more expensive than if I can get my hands on a local CNC, but cheaper than buying a second hand pot.
 
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