Thoughts from a mainframe guy

My step dad has a phd in heat transfer and just retired from IBM after 25 years there. He has worked with water cooling for about 10 years but never on a PC.. Always on mainframes..

I decided to interview him about it.

He asked my why all the waterblocks "you guys use" dont have heat sink fins.. He claims all the waterblocks he is used to using have heatsink fins.. "it cant hurt at all.. it can only help.. we put them on everything. "

Regarding waterblock designs.. "There are no original waterblock designs.. Its ALL been done years ago by IBM.. I would be hardpressed to figure out a new way to design a waterblock.. Sure you can change the width here the width there but the tenets and rules are all laid in stone years ago in dealing with mainframe cooling.."

On IBM and water cooling PC's

"About 5 years ago we built a prototype water cool system for comercial release for IBM PC's using PVC pipe. It was felt to be to 'scarey' for the home pc user to buy.. the system was scraped.. Air cooling was cheaper and easier."

Whats the biggest waterblock you have worked with.

"about 15 pounds"


"What kind of thermal paste do they use on mainframes?"

"We used a silver based paste.. We did demo at one time a crushed industrial diamond paste one time but the gain was not worth the price.. "

thats tight. very cool, u should ask about what is the most efficient water block design they came up with

Regarding the fins on "everything", did he mean inside the waterblock, or on the outside?

He cant tell me any details.. I was not even allowed in his lab.. Secret squirl, double secret stuff. It's as bad as the CIA!

Regarding the fins.. he said they go on the outside of the waterblock. I dont think EVERY waterblock used them, but he did say "we put them on everything"..

Seems to me that if the waterblock is cooler than air surrounding that fins may be a bad thing.. Ill need to get more details on this.

Putting fins on the outside does make a certain sense. After all, more cooling is always better. I've always wondered what would happen if you took one of those "heat pipe" heatsinks and scrapped the heat pipe and ran water through it.

Sub-ambient, fins wouldn't really cause any extra problems relating to condensation (aside from sealing the extra space), but they could cause extra cooling of the surrounding air, reducing the cooling applied to the core.

Interesting propositions...

Kid

i would think putting fins on with no fan or evena low cfm quite one would hwlp - unlwwss like spleener said the air aroudn is hotter then you moght wan the least amout of surface areaoutside but that is cool