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Sub zero CPU

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Gangreean

New Member
Joined
May 21, 2001
I heard that keeping your CPU at below room temp (by placing your water cooler and pump in a nearby fridge) will make it run faster.

1. Has any one else heard about this?

2. I also heard that to keep condensation at bay to wrap the water tubes in insulation, which makes sense.
I also heard to coat the CPU pins in petroleum jelly for the same reason. Could there be any negatives to smearing my P111 in Vaseline? No pun intended.
 
There are a few people on this forum who do run there water thru the freezer part of a small fridge and get very good results.

As far as preventing condensation. Yes you would have to cover the lines with insulation. At least the line going from the freezer too the block as well as the block. You can also use polyurethane to coat your cpu. Or any other sort of conformal coating. Some people thin clear silicon down with acetone and brush it on. I used polyurethane on mine. Vaseline just seems far to sloppy for me. You can also put dielectric grease in the socket or slot to prevent any moisture from building up in there as well.
 
surlyjoe (May 26, 2001 10:59 a.m.):
or you can keep the water just above the point of condensation an dnot worry about it :)

but I think this would change with humidity , dew point ,etc
wildone
 
yeah, I still believe a pelt is better than chilling the water, as there is less to insulate, and also, the water temps will be higher than the freezer as it warms in the lines.
 
Yes you can use a freezer to do the trick. But I believe you will have better success using an old used A/C unit. You will get condensations on the hoses, waterblock, and probably CPU. So insulate these very very well. I wouldn't recommend using polyurethane on you PIII. Just use clear silicone. Polyurethane will develop micro cracks over time and will let in condensation. This is why the Navy doesn't use it on their waterproofed electronics. Do not coat the chip itself on the back and front around the chip but not on top of it. Using my freezer/peltier combo I got my Celeron down to -36C. Hope that helps.

-dasouthernocer
 
dasouthernocer (May 27, 2001 11:27 a.m.):
I wouldn't recommend using polyurethane on you PIII. Just use clear silicone. Polyurethane will develop micro cracks over time and will let in condensation. This is why the Navy doesn't use it on their waterproofed electronics. Do not coat the chip itself on the back and front around the chip but not on top of it. Using my freezer/peltier combo I got my Celeron down to -36C. Hope that helps.

-dasouthernocer

It takes a few years to devolop the micro cracks! And yes the silicone thinned down and painted on is suppose to last like forever. I just used what polyurathane cause it's all I had around at the time. I have had water build up on my cpu and the coating saved my a#@!
 
If I use a pelt directly on my cpu then im screwed if the pelt burns out. what if I hook up the pelt to the watter tank via a submerged heat sink with a fan on top. that way I would have some security if the pelt decides it dosn't want to work one day. would this bring the water temp down below room temp? Mabye two pelts on the water suply!
 
Even if you ran one pelt on the watersupply. Say in an aluminum reservoir, with the tec attatched to it. With say something similiar to an Alpha HSF on it to cool the tec. If you can get it to just keep the water going to the waterblock at ambient temp it should make a huge difference in your cpu temps.

And yes if the tec went out or didnt power up while running directly on the cpu it could fry your cpu, but if you run some sort of hardware monitoring program to check your cpu temps you should be fine. I have my Hardware Doctor program start up at bootup. That way I know right away if my tec powered up or not. If not I shut it down and restart. Once the tec powers up you shouldnt really have to worry about it going bad. I ran a 50w tec for well over a year and it never went bad, still works great! There are far more reliable then you think. But yes I have had them not power up at bootup. But with in intel chip it's not so devastating as it would be with an AMD chip.
 
bdf24 (May 31, 2001 05:45 a.m.):
Even if you ran one pelt on the watersupply. Say in an aluminum reservoir, with the tec attatched to it. With say something similiar to an Alpha HSF on it to cool the tec. If you can get it to just keep the water going to the waterblock at ambient temp it should make a huge difference in your cpu temps.

And yes if the tec went out or didnt power up while running directly on the cpu it could fry your cpu, but if you run some sort of hardware monitoring program to check your cpu temps you should be fine. I have my Hardware Doctor program start up at bootup. That way I know right away if my tec powered up or not. If not I shut it down and restart. Once the tec powers up you shouldnt really have to worry about it going bad. I ran a 50w tec for well over a year and it never went bad, still works great! There are far more reliable then you think. But yes I have had them not power up at bootup. But with in intel chip it's not so devastating as it would be with an AMD chip.

Afternoon bdf24, just a quick question here, i have a 54watt tec, not installed yet, what sort of temps can i expect to get from it on the cpu, btw, also have a PIII 800E running @ 900 at the moment, case cooling is pretty good, running @ 4 deg c above ambient.
regards
 
surlyjoe (May 26, 2001 10:59 a.m.):
or you can keep the water just above the point of condensation an dnot worry about it :)

don't you meen frezzing cus otherwise you will ahve gas flowing throu your water cooling system
 
He means above the point at which water will condense out of the air onto the components.
 
Spewn (May 31, 2001 07:22 a.m.):
Here's a thought, run a peltier AND a waterchiller! :)

Thats your best bet! If I ran a chiller on my PIII 800. I know I could drop my temps to well below 0c! Now I may even give it a try. I do have a 56w tec laying around as well as a Alpha P3125. And my other water block is supposed to be here tonight! I should just give it a try.
 
MAV (May 31, 2001 06:45 a.m.):
Afternoon bdf24, just a quick question here, i have a 54watt tec, not installed yet, what sort of temps can i expect to get from it on the cpu, btw, also have a PIII 800E running @ 900 at the moment, case cooling is pretty good, running @ 4 deg c above ambient.
regards


Well when I had my 56tec installed with my P3125 Alpha. My cpu temps were around 21c @ idle. Just barely under ambient temp. I did'nt even put insulation on it cause it just didnt get cold enough to even worry about condensation. I remind you that this was with a core voltage of 1.9v. It would have ran a lot cooler if I took the voltage down. but the problem was anytime the temp would warm up a bit outside so would my cpu temps. Thats normal but even more so with a aircooled tec.

For me it still would'nt run stable @ anything higher then 960mhz. Which is where I was stuck without the tec. So It sort of defeated the pupose. Reason being is my cpu will not run stable over 960 with any temps over 29c, which at full load would go over that with the 56w tec. So I bought an 85w tec. That kept it below 29c under full load, but barely. On a real hot day I may have been screwed. Plus to keep my case temps from climbing way up due to the heat being produced by the pelt I had to run my case fans @ 12v's (3 80mm fans + 2 60mm fans on my alpha) It got loud!

So that's why I'm where I am today, With watercooling. It keeps my cpu temps around 9c @ idle, even lower if I leave it with a screen saver on around 5 or 6c. and no higher then 20c ever under full load. And it's a hell of a lot quiter! Can barely even hear the thing running most of the time.
 
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