Rad in freezer?

[flyfisher]

I have begun thinking about going the watercooling route.

Next to my computer, about six feet away, there is a refigerator.
It holds a Keg of beer that I use to cool my brain when I am not working.
Can I run water lines to the freezer and house a radiator and fan inside the icebox?

It seems like it would cool the water down a lot more than room temp air. I think maybe I hafta insulate the water line back to the comp to keep it cold.

Maybe run beer thru the lines and drink it to keep the computer cold....

 

[CharlesHF]

I'd say.......go for it!! Yes, the lines will need to be insulated. Also, I'd suggest that you take the waterblock off first, run it for a while with the rad in the refrigerator like you said, and see if it develops condensation. I'm guessing that it will. If it does, then you'll need to insulate your motherboard. Here's a good article:
http://www.octools.com/index.cgi?caller=articles/socket_condensation/intro.html

Have fun, and let us know what happens, along with pics!

 

[Arkaine23]

testing it

Not only that, but if you remove the waterblock and want to test it, try to simlulate the heat the cpu would give off. That's where condensation would form first.

I was playing with an idea like this, but I only want to get slightly below ambient temp and not worry about condensation. The trick is getting the equilibrium just right.

I want to use a 6 1/2 gallon fishtank reservoir on my desk, plus a smaller tupperware reservoir in the fridge, a small room fan blowing on the fishtank res, and a 12 foot coppercoil in the icebox. No radiator. Gotta get a waterblock to complete the system and start testing it to see what temps I get.

 

[jimmytp]

Use beer to cool your computer? That's brilliant. A tap straight from your CPU would be incentive to keep drinking to keep a decent flow going! Why haven't I thought of this before?

Seriously, you would likely need condensation protection though.

And Arkaine I would use a single copper loop, like a circle, to make contact with the freezer element after the res.. Tupperware plastic is a decent insulator. A rad in the fridge might be a better idea still, for better heat transfer. It depends on where your equilibrium is found.

 

[The Coolest]

Hmmm,I'm not sure.
I think that the freezer can die on (not sure tho), I don't think they are dezigned to cool active heat sources, that can damage ur fridge.

 

[ol' man]

Hmmm,I'm not sure.
I think that the freezer can die on (not sure tho), I don't think they are dezigned to cool active heat sources, that can damage ur fridge.

Ahem, look at sig! Uptime has been about 1 month. Ran prime stable for 5 days over Easter vacation.

 

[jimmytp]

More Proof Positive. You are right though, they definetely are not designed for heat sources. The compressor will burn out faster if the source is too much and keeps it on all the time.

 

[Tiger]

Stories about burning out compressors and not being able to handle constant loads are just not true. The real problem that you are going to encounter even with a 50/50 antifreeze combo is that the coolant is going to freeze solid in the rad. I tried this trick when I first set my system up. What happens even in my own tank is that the coolant freezes for about 50mm around the evaporator. The evap is running at -30C. Going for higher concentrations of antifreeze is going to stop the freezing but is also going to reduce the heat capacity of the coolant so you'll probably end up with the same result anyway. The second problem is that you don't have the reserve capacity in the system. To get good results you need that capacity.

 

[CharlesHF]

So, another idea which would probably work would be to do what this guy did. I hope that's the right link. When I posted this, I kept getting a "can't find server" error trying to get into the frontpage!

Or to do what you did, Tiger.