This PC is cooled by...Flames?

[AdamFromLTT]

The Hacksmith are here and they want to subzero cool a computer using..... Fire??? Yes that is correct, by using liquid propane this computer should be wicked fast.
 

 

[Bombastinator]

Somewhat limited application. One can’t just waste propane to run your computer, but if it’s being used for something else that’s different.  It’s phase change based though so I don’t know if this would work for residential homes with gas furnaces.  The other problem is a thermostat releases gas only when the heater needs to go on, so it becomes an issue for efficiency.  Might be good for rural systems that use LP or LNG tanks. Maybe a way around it is two tanks.  One that holds the liquid, the other that holds merely pressurized gas that can still be used for other things.  That would reduce the efficiency problem, and allow the computer to be used more often.

[darknessblade]

Campfire dad to linus: How hot is your marshmallow roaster

Linus: Mine runs at 6.2GHZ

Camp fire dad: how hot is it

Linus: Error 404 answer not found

[bluehawk]

I'm not a big fancy science guy but couldn't they add metal walls around the cooler to form a kind of chimney to at least contain the fire so it isn't shooting out in all directions? Or if you want to stare at the crazy fire maybe some fire resistant plexiglass to keep it in check

[creesch]

While somewhat entertaining, I have noticed recently that a lot of videos recently don't feel all that cohesive. This video being a prime example of it. 

I am not entirely sure if it is the writing or too much of the writing ending up on the cutting room floor. But basically I am missing the common thread in many videos, the story line so to speak. It is basically a lot of jumping back and forth between talking points but not always in a way that makes sense or without providing context. Here it really is missing an introduction as well as a bit more attention to what this actually is and how it works.

[Lurick]

 

About sums it up nicely for the monitor, lol

[Needfuldoer]

Does this make the computer a propane accessory?

  

2 hours ago, creesch said:

Here it really is missing an introduction as well as a bit more attention to what this actually is and how it works.

This works thanks to our old friend, the latent heat of vaporization. It's not that the liquid propane is extremely cold, like Linus said, it's that liquid propane's boiling point is extremely cold. But even though it's winter, the tanks are well above that temperature. Just like any other gas, propane can exist as a liquid above its boiling point if it's held under pressure. Once it's released from that pressure, it will instantly boil into a gas, and boiling takes a ton of heat energy. The boiling liquid propane will suck up all the heat it can get until it reaches a temperature where it can happily exist in its new environment.

 

I think the CPU block is acting as a chamber where that boiling can take place, so the propane can absorb heat from the CPU. The fire manifolds are just there to burn off the boiled propane.

 

Here's a fantastic video explaining this phenomenon (the relevant part starts around 4:47):

This channel's full of videos like this, it's great!

 

I think it would've been a much stronger video if they touched more on the science behind how this works, rather than focusing almost entirely on the "WHOA FIRE" theatrics.

[NekoBubbles]

Talk about a desktop you definitely wouldn't wanna get stuck with lighting while carrying  forget the idea of your heart exploding from the lighting you'll also be burned worse than cheap bacon. 

[creesch]

12 hours ago, Needfuldoer said:

I think it would've been a much stronger video if they touched more on the science behind how this works, rather than focusing almost entirely on the "WHOA FIRE" theatrics.

This is exactly what I mean, there is a fair share of LTT videos where I recently had this feeling. 

Often enough I do know enough about a subject to fill in the blanks or at least know how to look it up if I want to know. But when I don't have that context already, it quickly becomes annoying to try to look up the background information. 

 

In this case I knew it had something to do with expansion/evaporation of a gas. Which also makes it more apparent that the interesting bit is mostly the cooling block, the one thing they gloss over. Which also means that the "radiators" could just as well have been replaced with a stove, torch or whatever else. So yeah as you said "WHOA FIRE" which ironically has nothing to do with the cooling effect. 

 

And yes, Technology Connections is an awesome channel  

[Needfuldoer]

7 minutes ago, creesch said:

This is exactly what I mean, there is a fair share of LTT videos where I recently had this feeling. 

Exactly! It was a lost opportunity to do some Mr. Wizard / Bill Nye / Beakman / MythBusters science.

 

9 minutes ago, creesch said:

And yes, Technology Connections is an awesome channel  

Through the magic of linking two of them, I have another video on latent heat right here!

[Spotty]

16 hours ago, creesch said:

While somewhat entertaining, I have noticed recently that a lot of videos recently don't feel all that cohesive. This video being a prime example of it. 

I am not entirely sure if it is the writing or too much of the writing ending up on the cutting room floor. But basically I am missing the common thread in many videos, the story line so to speak. It is basically a lot of jumping back and forth between talking points but not always in a way that makes sense or without providing context. Here it really is missing an introduction as well as a bit more attention to what this actually is and how it works.

Yeah, I had the same feeling when watching as well. I think I can put it down to two things.

 

The first being the editing. To try and get people with short attention spans to continue watching the video they cram a bunch of stuff in to the first minute of the video. Flashing forwards and back showing everything that is happening in the video very quickly. It would be like watching the trailer for a movie at the start of the movie.

There's giant text popping up over the video (in particular in the first minute) and memes scattered throughout that just make the video annoying to watch ("REGULATOR" video clip inserted for example).

 

I don't think Linus properly introduced the guy from The Hacksmith's. I don't watch many Hacksmith videos and the only guy I know is the main guy with long hair and beard. I had no idea who the guy in the video was and I've never seen him in any of the Hacksmith videos I've watched. Unless I missed it I don't think Linus even introduced him by name. I think it would have been better to introduce him by name and explain what he does at Hacksmiths, and while doing so spend 10 seconds showing a couple of his best clips from Hacksmith videos to give the audience a better idea of who he is.

 

Another issue with the editing was how it shows Alex modifying the graphics card and then they filmed a separate section after the video was made and added it in with Alex saying "Sorry, what you just watched was pointless as we didn't include any of it in the video". I don't understand why Alex was modifying the graphics card at all when they weren't planning on using the cooler on the graphics card. Modifying the graphics card should have just been cut from the video completely.

 

The second issue I didn't really put my finger on until watching The Hacksmith's video is that LTT really have no purpose or involvement in the project. In Hacksmith's video they do all of the work on the project from the concept, design, prototyping, building, and testing. They even get as far as using the cooler to cool a 7950X CPU to sub-zero temperatures and then say "There's just one problem, we don't know how to overclock a CPU so we need Linus Tech Tips" then it cuts to them flying to Vancouver to LTT's studio. The viewer would expect that LTTs contribution would be to use the cooler for extreme overclocking except LTT doesn't really contribute to the overclocking aspect. In LTT's video Alex says that he's just using Intel's new one click overclocking tool to automatically overclock the CPU. There's very minimal time spent on the actual overclocking of the CPU other than throwing up a cinebench result on the bottom of the screen and having Linus react to the result. Linus reacts to first seeing the cooler. Linus reacts to the demo. Alex and Hacksmith guy install it in a PC. Linus reacts to it outside. Marshmellows.

 

LTT's only contribution to the project is to have Linus react to the cooler that The Hacksmith made. I think not having anything of their own to contribute to the project left them scrambling to find something to make a video out of and why it's a bit of a mess.

 

If you watch The Hacksmith's video the differences are obvious. It doesn't have any of the cringey attention-grabbing editing with giant text flashing across the screen or memes inserted over the video. There's a proper story of designing and building the cooler, proper explanations for how it works, and the video flows smoothly from concept to execution. At 9:00 when they introduce LTT they show off clips of LTT's other extreme cooling projects to give the Hacksmith's audience an idea of who LTT are, even if a Hacksmith viewer had never watched an LTT video before they'd have a pretty good idea of who LTT are and be able to relate to them. There's no inclusions of unnecessary information and then a cut away saying "Sorry, please ignore that bit". Most importantly there's actually a purpose to watching the video as you see them creating something interesting, not just reacting to it.

[Needfuldoer]

2 hours ago, Spotty said:

LTT's only contribution to the project is to have Linus react to the cooler that The Hacksmith made. I think not having anything of their own to contribute to the project left them scrambling to find something to make a video out of and why it's a bit of a mess.

I'd love to see what hit the cutting room floor on LMG's side of this project. This feels like it was supposed to be another "liquid nitrogen overclocking with Splave" kind of collab.

 

2 hours ago, Spotty said:

The viewer would expect that LTTs contribution would be to use the cooler for extreme overclocking except LTT doesn't really contribute to the overclocking aspect. In LTT's video Alex says that he's just using Intel's new one click overclocking tool to automatically overclock the CPU.

Anthony's their resident overclocking guru, as far as I know. Maybe he was supposed to be involved, but due to scheduling they had to shoot this while he was unavailable?

 

 

[YellowJersey]

I love Alex's crazy adventures in doing dumb shit