Rad in a refrigerator.

[Slickrr13]

My friend has recently come up with some weird ideas on where to put his 480mm rad to get better cooling because apparently is is not good enough as it is. He mentioned putting it in his mini fridge or a cooler with ice in it.... uh what?? Just how outrageous is this? Is it even feasible even with connector extensions? 

[defunkt]

How would he run tubing out of the fridge?

[Hans Christian | Teri]

Remember than an open fridge isn't usually cold and just uses tons of power. A cooler with ice in it will work, but in any case external water cooling is never practical.

[chaozbandit]

Wel, winter is coming soon so he could always mount it onto the window frame.

[Slickrr13]

Remember than an open fridge isn't usually cold and just uses tons of power. A cooler with ice in it will work, but in any case external water cooling is never practical.

Of course it isn't practical.

 

Wel, winter is coming soon so he could always mount it onto the window frame.

It shall be done!!!

[TwitchFast]

I also had this idea, when I brought the idea to others they quickly pointed out that things like refrigerators aren't designed to cool for long periods of time, they cool the area inside the fridge and then insulation helps keep the temperatures low.

If you stuck a radiator in there, the cooling unit would be working for a long while which would kill the fridge fairly quickly.

[KaareKanin]

If he's doing that, he might as well go for proper phase change. Your friends plans are certainly doable, but they sound kinda, well, not so smart... What kind of hellish system is he trying to cool anyway? FX9590 and multi 480 SLI?

[Hans Christian | Teri]

I know of a guy who pumped water directly from a pond he had in his backyard (of course with a filter). He got very good results but didn't run the setup for more than a couple of days.

[squirrl]

The idea is going somewhere, but in practice it wouldnt really work unless it was sealed really well. If you built some  sort of freezer encasing for a large radiator and added compression fittings to the outside it could be a cool new way of external watercooling below ambient room temperature, and you would only have the pump sound and freezer noise, however it would use a lot of power

[MayflowerElectronics]

If he wants better temperatures without doing anything drastic like you are talking about, you should have the CPU be delided.

 

If you have a 3570k/3770k/4670k/4770k they can be delided. Temperatures drop around 20C.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/350898562817

[Slickrr13]

If he's doing that, he might as well go for proper phase change. Your friends plans are certainly doable, but they sound kinda, well, not so smart... What kind of hellish system is he trying to cool anyway? FX9590 and multi 480 SLi

 

 

Quad titans. obviously.

[Slickrr13]

If he wants better temperatures without doing anything drastic like you are talking about, you should have the CPU be delided.

 

If you have a 3570k/3770k/4670k/4770k they can be delided. Temperatures drop around 20C.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/350898562817

How risky is this process though?

[MayflowerElectronics]

How risky is this process though?

 

I messaged him and he said he's done 40+ CPU's and he's never broken one. If he does, he'll send you a replacement. (His own personal chip).

[Vitalius]

How risky is this process though?

Not very. 

Take a vice. Stick the IHS in it. Tighten the Vice. Take a hammer and a wooden block, then tap the block against the green PCB of the CPU. It will inevitably fly off. Then take that, clean off the black thermal gunk, and get a cooling block for a delidded CPU.

[Langdon]

Not very. 

Take a vice. Stick the IHS in it. Tighten the Vice. Take a hammer and a wooden block, then tap the block against the green PCB of the CPU. It will inevitably fly off. Then take that, clean off the black thermal gunk, and get a cooling block for a delidded CPU.

 

or after cleaning the crappy thermal gunk off, put better thermal paste on, put the lid back on and use with the previous cooler.

[AMICLG]

Wel, winter is coming soon so he could always mount it onto the window frame.

Thought about that a long time ago but it gets to cold here in the winter (-10 F with wind chill is pretty norm) 

[Ghost]

What you want is called a water chiller. It uses a compressor to directly cool water in a resevoir inside it.

 

They are mostly used for cooling down water in salt water aquariums.

 

They are usually loud and problematic compared to radiators as if your water temp goes below the dew point, dew will start forming on your tubing and water can drip on your components. They are also very expensive.

 

Also, from what I've seen de-lidding leads to 5-15C temp drops ( @airdeano ) with some people seeing even smaller improvments. Most of the time it helps with equalising core temps rather than all the cores dropping down by 20C as suggested above.

[Virgule]

Wel, winter is coming soon so he could always mount it onto the window frame.

I wouldn't suggest that if you don't want your cpu (or whatever you're cooling with that loop) to overheat. Overheat because when you turn that PC off, the fluid in the radiator (which is probably not R134a) will freeze and block the flow. It might as well break your rad.

[wpirobotbuilder]

You could get one of these if you want to do ambient external watercooling.

 

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/symphony_mini/

 

Or one of these if you want to do subambient cooling

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cooling/2010/07/20/hailea-hc-500a-water-chiller-review/1

[B NEGATIVE]

I also had this idea, when I brought the idea to others they quickly pointed out that things like refrigerators aren't designed to cool for long periods of time, they cool the area inside the fridge and then insulation helps keep the temperatures low.

If you stuck a radiator in there, the cooling unit would be working for a long while which would kill the fridge fairly quickly.

Exactly this.

 

You will just kill the compressor off,they are not designed for continuous operation...which is what would happen with a heat source setting the thermostat off all the time.

[DrainDoc]

How risky is this process though?

It's only as risky as the size of your wallet.