liquid nitrogen cooling a possibility?

Alan Ward award at andorra.ad
Tue Jun 12 10:13:09 PDT 2001


To stay on the safe side, one would like to have a system that keeps CPU, mobo, RAM and the other chips all in the
0 - 40 C range - that's what most silicon components are rated for. The problem is keeping the temperature stable
at high thermal output (running with overclocking on) but also at boot time.

Any of you physicists hear of an electrically inert liquid with a boiling point in the 0 - 40 C range? Or
something with a boiling point slightly different at 1 bar pressure - but that settles to the required range when
under higher or lower pressure. That way (1) we use the usually considerable energy absorbed to change from liquid
to gas state, and (2) there is no need for complex regulation systems.

Liquid nitrogen seems a bit nasty (cf the Octool reference), but what about CO2 at low pressure? Ai'nt expensive
either. Though perhaps not at all practical :-)

Regards,
Alan Ward







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