Liquid Nitrogen and Dry Ice CPU Cooling Insulation Guide

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Apoptosis
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Liquid Nitrogen and Dry Ice CPU Cooling Insulation Guide

Post by Apoptosis »

Liquid Nitrogen and Dry Ice CPU Cooling Insulation Guide

Today we will take you through the steps of a method for insulating motherboards against the harsh elements they are exposed to during extreme overclocking. We'll be insulating the board for liquid nitrogen benching and we'll show you how effective this insulation method is in preventing harmful condensation from forming on the board.

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Article Title: Liquid Nitrogen and Dry Ice CPU Cooling Insulation Guide
Article URL: http://legitreviews.com/article/924/1/
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Major_A
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Re: Liquid Nitrogen and Dry Ice CPU Cooling Insulation Guide

Post by Major_A »

Where does one even get their hands on LN2? Don't you have to have some special papers to get the stuff?
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Re: Liquid Nitrogen and Dry Ice CPU Cooling Insulation Guide

Post by Apoptosis »

Companies like Air Gas can order it in and you can go get some usually when the delivery truck is there filling a store order. No permits needed from what I have seen and done locally.
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Re: Liquid Nitrogen and Dry Ice CPU Cooling Insulation Guide

Post by Major_A »

Seems like there would be restrictions seeing as the stuff is very dangerous.

Once you fill up the pot how long does it take for the liquid nitrogen to evaporate? You can tell I've never played with the stuff.
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Re: Liquid Nitrogen and Dry Ice CPU Cooling Insulation Guide

Post by Gomeler »

Major_A wrote:Seems like there would be restrictions seeing as the stuff is very dangerous.

Once you fill up the pot how long does it take for the liquid nitrogen to evaporate? You can tell I've never played with the stuff.
That is actually a popular misconception, LN2 is quite harmless. It doesn't oxidize materials, it has a neutral PH, and it isn't harmful to humans. The only safety concern is its cryogenic temperatures. For that, safe handling is enough to work with it. Besides benching I also use it in the kitchen to make ice cream 8)

If you seal it in a vessel, it will expand and rupture the vessel, this I would say would be the only security concern. However, it would be immensely hard to use it in a destructive manner, the only way you could transport it would be within an expensive dewar and it would require destroying said dewar and your time would be better spent with more typical devices.

Regarding consumption, when benching a dual-core or quad-core processor I'll typically go through 3 to 5 liters per hour. This includes perhaps 30 minutes of actual benchmarking of single-threaded benchmarks like SPi and 3Dmark. Benching wPrime drastically increases LN2 consumption and 3DMark2006 and Vantage modestly increase consumption. I think the most I've used was benchmarking PCMark2005 with a QX9650, was using 7-9 liters an hour but I was benching for perhaps 50 minutes out of every hour. Once I test Core i7 I'll be able to report on that, I suspect I'll use the same 3 to 5 liters per hour for normal applications but make a huge jump with multi-threaded apps.

At a cost of $1 to $4 a liter, costs can quickly add up. Most LN2 suppliers will fill a small dewar in the 10 liter to 50 liter range without an account. To have a large dewar (start at ~100 liters, 180L is common) delivered it requires an account with the company, strictly for the financial risks the company is taking.

That is all for today class, tomorrow we'll discuss freezing and shattering fruit with LN2 8)
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Re: Liquid Nitrogen and Dry Ice CPU Cooling Insulation Guide

Post by Major_A »

Gomeler wrote:That is all for today class, tomorrow we'll discuss freezing and shattering fruit with LN2 8)
That's what I was getting at by being dangerous.

Thanks for the explanation.
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Re: Liquid Nitrogen and Dry Ice CPU Cooling Insulation Guide

Post by DX »

Now that is cool =)

I would like to make some LN2 ice cream sometime.
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Re: Liquid Nitrogen and Dry Ice CPU Cooling Insulation Guide

Post by eva2000 »

nice colours for clay!

it's been over a yr since i last touched sub zero cooling with 1/4HP phase unit... dusting it off very soon!

faber castell and generals kneaded eraser to the rescue!

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never used DI or LN2 myself - maybe long overdue ?
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Re: Liquid Nitrogen and Dry Ice CPU Cooling Insulation Guide

Post by gwolfman »

Thanks for the into. Looks pretty straight forward. Was a quick and interesting read. :)
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Re: Liquid Nitrogen and Dry Ice CPU Cooling Insulation Guide

Post by Zertz »

All I need now is a pot :)

You gave me a sudden urge to get this i7 sub-zero 8)
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