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Gas Immersion Cooling

Use compressed gas to cool a PC
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Using a compressed gas such as helium, then letting it expand into a sealed/airtight/airless compartment where the motherboard is, and taking it off the other side and recompressing it could allow for extremely low temperatures all across the board (pardon the pun) and, if you used a traditional heatsink for a forced-air approach, you could cool the CPU further. Sure, upgrades would be a pain, but if you could pull it off, and maybe color the gas, it would look cool and might even cool well. I thought of this after surfing and looking at liquid submersion. It cools well, but is expensive. Most liquid's problems are the dielectric property. Helium gas is nonconductive, cheap, nonflammable, easily compressed, and doesn't cause atmospheric damage. If it could be done, it might just work well.
sparks333, Aug 20 2004

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       i've been thinking of this as well, but would rather find a common, cheap liquid that could do the job. of course, pure water is a great insulator but you can never keep it pure enough... maybe some vegetable oils? gonna keep researching till i find something that works, maybe i'll burn up a couple computers in the process but that's life.
jcomeau_ictx, Apr 16 2005
  

       Why does it need to be a gas, specifically?   

       Flood your motherboard with some liquid refrigerant, whereupon the heat will boil the liquid, then send the gaseous refrigerant through a compressor to a condensor, send the condensed refrigerant through an expansion valve back to the motherboard.   

       Obviously you'll need to use a refrigerant which is a decent insulator, but surely there exists something suitable.
goldbb, Apr 30 2009
  

       Hm, similar to a the regular refrigerated computer idea, but it puts the computer in the refrigeration unit itself. I like it, but you would definitely need some cool/indestructible plastic case to put it on display and maybe a storage tank for the gas when not in use - and if you need to open the case for upgrades.
DIYMatt, May 01 2009
  

       If you used an actual refrigerator for cooling, you'd also have snacks handy for those marathon gaming sessions. You could even do this on a budget: a secondhand refrigerator costs less than most cooling packages.
sninctown, May 01 2009
  

       the 'route something cool in, take it out again, take away the heat, rinse and repeat'-system of cooling computers is widely used. You probably found the most noisy implementation to date.   

       Dry ice would be noiseless and would include the special effects.
loonquawl, May 05 2009
  

       //similar to a the regular refrigerated computer idea, but it puts the computer in the refrigeration unit itself//
Baked by Cray.
AbsintheWithoutLeave, May 05 2009
  
      
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