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Topic: Liquid Nitrogen for cooling  (Read 5339 times)

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Offline doxastic

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Liquid Nitrogen for cooling
« on: November 18, 2007, 01:41:03 PM »
Ok, my idea is to make a cooling system with Liquid Nitrogen. Some problems I have, is that I don't know what material to use for LN holding. I thought maybe using the circulation system for a water cooling system. Just instead of pouring in water, I would pour in LN. I thought maybe using a rubber tube, but it would probably freeze right? How about using a metal tube, with foam like protector around it? I'm kind of afraid to leave the LN running around the computer when it's off, it could mess up the chips, so I thought the LN would flow into a container when the computer shuts off. Will the LN evaporate from the heat generated by the computer chips? Will the chips get messed up if I cool them too much?

Offline enahs

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Re: Liquid Nitrogen for cooling
« Reply #1 on: November 18, 2007, 02:04:14 PM »
You can not use Liquid Nitrogen in a closed system like that. Because liquid nitrogens B.P. is so low (-196 oC), it will quickly turn to gas. Your closed system will just become a mini bomb.

There are ways of doing cooling like this with liquid nitrogen, and they are used all the time for other things. But it will require a constant supply of liquid nitrogen.

Also note, it is incredibly easy to damage semi-conductors with liquid nitrogen, if they get too cold.

So, the answer to your last two question about the possible negatives of using it is, yes.


Also note, just because something is cold does not mean it is the best coolant. You want something with a high specific heat. That is, it quickly and easily takes in heat. Water is freakin' awesome at that. To make a more efficient water cooling system, you could somehow cool the radiator/heat exchanger part of the water cooling system (the part where the water flows through a radiator and fans blow air across it to remove the heat from the water and transfer it to the air). A device that regularly sprays a super fine mist of water on the radiator would be great. You want a tiny amount of water in very tiny droplet sizes so they evaporate fast and remove a lot of heat. To much water on this side will actually have a negative impact as it will slow evaporation.






Offline doxastic

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Re: Liquid Nitrogen for cooling
« Reply #2 on: November 18, 2007, 03:40:25 PM »
what if I will have a separate tube, from where the evaporated LN can go out of? What is the minimum temperature that the chips can take? Say that I have 0.5 liters of LN in the system. Under the conditions that the computer will will work 24/7. How much LN would evaporate every 24 hours? I think LN would be much better, because it can cool down the system 5x+ faster then water. There fourth, I can put more voltage into the chips, this is going to bring out the maximum performance out of the system. I want to try it with an old system at first and then try to do it at home. Don't worry, I will take necessary measures for this.

Offline Borek

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Re: Liquid Nitrogen for cooling
« Reply #3 on: November 18, 2007, 04:04:02 PM »
Search TomsHardware.com, I recall reading an article there few years ago about building LN cooled system for tests.
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Offline enahs

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Re: Liquid Nitrogen for cooling
« Reply #4 on: November 18, 2007, 05:43:24 PM »
I too am in to all sorta of overclocking and such.

The problem I have with liquid cooling systems is that they are contact based systems, and only cool major components (e.g. CPU, GPU or mem).

The problem is, as you overclock a system you are putting more stress on everything, not just the major components. When you start to get into the super-overclocking as you are talking about, I have no doubt that it is fairly easy to remove all the heat generated by a CPU overclocked 1000%. However, you are doing nothing about cooling the rest of the system in such cases; which I suspect is a large problem.


Back to your original idea. It could be done actually, but you would want to install some sort of pressure relief system; as such when the pressure gets to high due to gaseous nitrogen, it lets the gaseous nitrogen out relieving the pressure.

As to how often this will be required and how much liquid nitrogen in a day; A lot of variables factor that. One major factor is the target range you are trying to hit, and ask you asked, how cold is to cold. I am not personally sure, but it is irrelevant as well before you get to the point where it damages the system, you get to a point where the cold actually has the same effect as the heat and causes errors. Read the detail specs of the CPU at the website, it should listed recommended operating conditions. Yes, if you go below the recommended operating temperature you can actually causes the system to run slower.

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