I have a cooling system to effectively cool to around -100C+/-20c Whats next?

crumbling dreams?

I haven't overclocked in over 6 years (school followed by carreers do that), last time I overclocked heat and $ was my only problem. Now my biggest problem is time, and lagging hardware knowledge (software engineer). I plan on catching up as free time is sneaking back into my life.

I was hoping this $1000 cooling system would allow me to push this system beyond what the market provides Would I have been better off buying a better processor (leaving out the coolness factor) Could you elaborate on missing AGP/PCI locks? It looks like things have gotten much more complicated than last time I have done this, could someone point me to some catch up material so I'm not as much of a bother?

 

I'll post it when I finish.

 

ty

 

Ooohh man I wish I were you

Ok, for starters the H/w & OC FAQ is great source of general information. Then check out the SuperPI thread.

There are probaly 4 difference chips I would consider if I were you:
-AMD Mobile Barton (either 2500+ or 2600+)
-AMD FX-53
-Intel P4 3.2E (Prescott)
-Intel P4 3.2/3.4EE (Really a Xenon on a P4 package)

Seeing as your aim is to achieve performance better than you could without overclocking you are going to be spending a bit of money... which makes the barton seem wrong as one of its main appeals is the price - you will get better perfomance out of an FX, and EE and possibly a prescott. IIRC the most powerful(ly overclocked) CPU out there is an FX-53 with dry ice cooling - though you're not going there as you're after a long-term stable system).

I know from experience (see) that the prescott does overclock very well and scales brilliantly with that overclock. A friend of mine had a 3.2EE @ 3.8 with a prommy (I think that was a 36s PI while folding) and now runs it at 3.6 (38s) on air.

If you're serious about this (and I hope you are) you are going to need extra cooling for your northbridge, southbridge, other ICs and mosfets. Be perpared to voltmod. I'd consider watercooling for chipset and GFX. Bigz's mobile barton blog is a great read.

I'm sure the community here can recommend you the best components for the system you build, and as far as overclocking goes bigz is the man.

 

Boring details:
I have some connections that are allowing me access to some pretty cool chemicals. I am trying to use a poor mans cooling system similar to that of CRAY computers. I am currently having chemical compatability issues with my silicon sealent and my chemical. I could upgrade to CRAY exact coolent and eliminate this problem, but that would significantly increase the cost of my cooling system.

I was planning on trying to get by on 2 gallons of coolent for cost reasons and have it boil the heat away from the board (yes flood the case). which would only cover the bottom 3" of my case (board and small cards), and extract the heated vapors and recondense. So I don't have too much cooling outside the M-board

 

Essentially, you are using a phase change system with the motherboard inside the evaporator. Am I right?

If so, is it built, and if not, how well is it planned out?

8-ball

 

Sounds interesting

 

Woah, you mean cool the WHOLE MOTHERBOARD to like -100C!

In that case you can ignore the stuff I said about heatsinking, with temps that cold I think some things can fail just from being too cold! Also have to be cafeful about thermal shock (ie you want to take you time to get it that cold).

If you're only going to have 3" of liquid you'd probably want an AGP riser for the video card (So it's sortof an L shape and lays flat across the PCI slots), so that the video card will be immearsed for maxium overclocking. Your hardware choice of hardware will be based almost purely on how much voltage you can put through it (ie voltmods), and after that how much money you have to spend. Heatsinking of components becomes rather useless when you have a -100C liquid right there. Just have flow directed at CPU, northbridge, GFX card and probably RAM.

Designing the system is going to be the hard bit, but I guess you have some knowledge in that bit. I'm assuming that you'd need a sealed unit containing the motherboard, CPU, RAM, graphics card and probably a sound card - though if you have a tall GFX card with a riser it might be hard to fit a sound card - with cables for power, drives, LEDs and switches coming out and connecting to another part of the case which would house PSU, drives, switches etc. I'm guessing you'll need a lot of insulation around the evaporator core / motherboard, so you'll need extensions for all the items you'd normally have on the backpane of the computer so PS/2 extensions (keyboard + mouse), USB extensions (easy just buy a small hub), video (either D-sub or DVI extension cable), sound (easy) and probably network (also easy, CAT5).

You probably already know most of the stuff I've said, and maybe need more info on some of it. If you could post your design(s) that would be great.

 

i don't doubt a cpus ability to survive that temperature but i do doubt a motherboards, think carefully about what you are doing or you'll have some very expensive dead components on your hands

 

there was a new zealand overclocking site that i went to a couple of years back, where they had completly submerged mobo with all components to achieve maximum overclocking...ill have a go at getting a link later....

 

Yes, they used flurinert (sp) in a box and cooled it with dry ice and then LN2 (liquid nitrogen). They found that the liquid went all gluggy when they got it too cold, so they just stuck the dry ice right in there (which worked great and they about doubled the speed of a PIII IIRC), but when they poured the LN2 on the computer just crashed because it got too cold.

 

seen this type of thing fail badly on a few sites, things like mobos tend to get so brittle they crack

 

Arg, I live in texas, the entrance to the heater of hell. but i like it. Im going to try liquid nitrogen...

 

And yes I know it is bad, and yes I know it is unreasonable, but hey, as long as it boots.

 

Have you actually thought about the details of how this system is going to work?

You are essentially building a refidgeration unit. However, instead of having the evaporator cool the motherboard, the motherboard is actually inside the evaporator.

Problems.

You will have to build a PERFECTLY airtight container for the motherboard which once the system is set up, CANNOT be opened without having to completely recharge the refridgeration system.

You will also need to have the necessary equipment to pull a near vacuum in the whole system and then charge with coolant, which will probably require that you have an HVAC license.

I'm just not sure you have "thoroughly" thought this through. It's a nice "dream" but probably THE MOST impractical cooling system I have ever heard suggested.



It would be both a lot simpler to submerge the motherboard in a non conductive, non reactive coolant and then cool this using a refridgeration unit.

8-ball

 

You are too cool! I don't know why I didn't think of using an AGP riser!

I am making some mods to my design based on some of your ideas. Another concern I have is the vulnerability of some of the components to a vacum. I can't seem to find any docs on how much of a vacum the components can be exposed too.

I think I have the case design completed(still taking ideas though), but now I need to catch up on the overclocking tricks that have cropped up over the last few years.

 

I wish that would hurry up and get released.

 

"too cool" from the guy buliding a -100C computer - now THAT's a compliment

I wouldn't worry about vacuum (sp), the cold will be a much bigger problem.

As for the overclocking tricks-of-the-trade, the main thing will be finding voltmods for the parts you buy, as with those temp you will need to be putting INSANE voltages through every component (and I'd say you'd easily get 3GHz out of a barton with such as setup, possilby even stable that fast).

I wouldn't recommend a dual proc machine because they're notoriously hard to overclock. FX if you're an AMD man, EE if you want the responsiveness of a hyperthreader (and I'd never go back ).

 

Forgive me for being a little slow, but I'm still not entirely sure what it is you want to do.

Could you possibly draw up a quick sketch of the cooling components in relation to the motherboard. I'm not asking for a full system drawing, just a brief outline.

You'll probably get more help that way.

8-ball

 

So it wasnt just me that was finding this hard to follow.