Ghetto Dry ice / acetone chiller on x1800xt...

P

plywood99

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 25, 2004
Messages
1,666
Hey all,
Figured I would try a dry ice and acetone chiller setup, totally ghetto mind you.

Here are the goodies I'm using for this project:




Gallon acetone
Fancy pot
10 feet copper tubing
Ghetto res
Dtek Mag pump
1.5 to 12 volt variable supply for the pump
Zalman water block from a old water cooling setup
Lots of silicone 3/8 tubing - stays soft and supple even under extreme temps
Aquarium thermometer - digital - reads to -50c


Here is the cpu, Opty 165 taped up and in the socket:




Here she is all assembled and leak testing:



Now time to go buy 20 pounds of dry ice...


Fill up the pot with dice:



According to probe taped to copper tubing temp is 1.5c
Cpu = 18c
Gpu = 23c
My first run of 3dmark05 goes good, 11819. So I up the core and mem.
Core 820
Mem 1010
Cpu at this point is runnning 3099mhz 1.65 volts rock stable.
Another run of 05 at these settings give me 12257. Not bad at all. So I try to up gpu core to 850, system locks up. Not cold enough.


Here is the pic of system with just dry ice in the pot after 40mins of testing:





But I have to get it colder. Time to add acetone to the dice pot. Slowly pour in about 2 cups of acetone. Now things are getting colder!!!

Here is the cpu and pump pics 10 minutes after adding acetone to dice:





Temps have dropped like GW's approval rating.
cpu -35c
gpu -46c
The temps are just too cold for the gpu. Screen goes all jittery on me and then locks up.

Thats when I try adjusting pump voltage to control temps. Drop it to 6 volts, still too cold for gpu. End up dropping pump volts to 1.5 to get back into windows.

Good temps for gpu hovering around -25c. Time to break out Clockgen and set cpu to 3099. Hit the set values button and the system locks up. What a time for this to happen!!!

Do a hard reset, passes bios screen no problem, goes to read hard drive and nothing. After an hour of fiddling around I realize my windows install is borked! Man i'm ticked off! Just 300 point away from world record. I was super confident it would happen too.

One thing I learned is to be careful with adding acetone to dry ice. I couldn't believe the temperature drop. Unfortunately I didn't upload my 12257 05 score, thought for sure I would get the record. Gives me a new found respect for the hard work involved in putting up scores like that.



Update:

Just tried again for the record and got this: 12398
Just a mere 146 points away from world record. Stay tuned... :D :D :D

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=1686680
 
Are you seriously using plastic tubing with acetone???? You do know that acetone is a solvent, right?
 
plywood99 said:
Hmm, acetone been in tubing for over a week, no problems...
Click to expand...
At that low of a temperature, it may take quite awhile to do any real damage to the system, but I'd certainly keep an eye on it just to be safe. I can't find any info on how acetone-resistant silicone is, but acetone is one of the more indiscriminate and harsh solvents out there (coming from someone with experience) when it comes to what it'll dissolve.
 
Hey Plywood, if you have access to a PCI HDD controller card, that would solve your OS corruption issues, as the drive would be on the fixed speed PCI bus rather than attached to the southbridge which has to withstand the increased bus speed from overclocking.

If you don't, send me a PM and I'll gladly hook you up to help you get that record.
 
woah nice one...amazing man...so you cracked 12k...now crack the worl record!!! :p

you took my advice from the last thread to go extreme cooling :p wheres my mention? ;)
 
I can't believe how much adding the acetone to the dry ice dropped temps, though it makes sense. Did you have temp for the probe connected to the copper tubing after acetone was added?
 
plywood99 said:
Hmm, acetone been in tubing for over a week, no problems...
Click to expand...

Isn't it so that you should throw the aceton into the dry ice, not into your cooling system itself? :)

Webquote: "The advantage of using the acetone/dry ice slush is one of heat transfer. It is difficult to get good heat transfer from solid dry ice and its vapors. Adding a liquid that does not freeze promotes the heat transfer (the liquid heat transfer coefficient is far higher than the gas phase heat transfer coefficient)."
 
pigpen said:
Did you see those temps?
Click to expand...

Ofcourse you should use some kind of anti freeze into your cooling solvent, but aceton is normally used to put into your dry ice. This way the dice is able to extract more heat from the copper piping.
 
Apple740 said:
Ofcourse you should use some kind of anti freeze into your cooling solvent, but aceton is normally used to put into your dry ice. This way the dice is able to extract more heat from the copper piping.
Click to expand...


Anti freeze would be too thick for the pump though. Wouldn't it?
 
Thanks alot fellas.
As for dry ice and acetone, both posters are correct. You are to make a slush with the dry ice and acetone and it is also running through my tubing because of low freezing point and viscosity.

Yeah Mays, took you advice. ;) Nothing like extreme cooling baby...

So to clarify, inside loop is nothing but acetone.
Inside the pot is acetone and dry ice, but you must be careful with the mixture or the dreaded cold bug will appear...
 
topdragon147 said:
could you use something like 99% alcohol instead of acetone, or does it even effect the tubing?
Click to expand...

I didn't know the freezing point of alcohol, and heard of others using acetone so went with the latter...
 
Plywood, what to leave Eva in the dust.. LOL
You are the man!
Get the World Record in the name of the [H]ard!!!!
If this isn't on the front page yet..
STEVE
HERES SOME NEWS!
 
CONGRATULATION

You are now Ranked 1 as far as single X1800 cards go!
Way to go Plywood99
Now get your ass a Crossfire Master Card and beat that
[email protected] guy with his score
of 17099
 
Majin said:
CONGRATULATION

You are now Ranked 1 as far as single X1800 cards go!
Way to go Plywood99
Now get your ass a Crossfire Master Card and beat that
[email protected] guy with his score
of 17099
Click to expand...

Thanks Majin.


Woot!! I just checked under approved Futuremark drivers and you are right!!

Cool thing is, I'm just getting started. I know for sure I can up that score a good amount.
As for Crossfire master card, my wallet is cramped all ready. Note this is Ghetto cooling baby.. :D :D :D
 
Just found out Futuremark has a glitch and did not show all approved scores. I'm still behind the world record by 146 points. Bummer man, totally.

Hopefully, by the end of the weekend I will have that killer score needed...
 
Nice! I always thought that you could run such a set up like water. Is this common at all? I don't make it over to extreme cooling very often.
 
congrats playwood!! only 146 points to go!! maybe youll get that with the new cats? :p
 
plywood99 said:
Just found out Futuremark has a glitch and did not show all approved scores. I'm still behind the world record by 146 points. Bummer man, totally.

Hopefully, by the end of the weekend I will have that killer score needed...
Click to expand...
not far behind ya on 28C water with air con blowing on rig hehe

Changed to 2x 512MB Gskill PC4400LE TCCD 431 @295mhz 2.5-3-3-6 and finally breaks 12k by 1pt LOL

512MB HIS X1800XT with Acetal Maze4 waterblock
@816/981

3dmark05 @816/981 = 12,001
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=1698234



 
forgive this question, as I'm sure the answer is obvious to everyone but me, but how is it you didn't have to cover your mobo with neoprene and all that to prevent condensation? Is it just because acetone doesn't have the same properties as water and therefore it isn't an issue? What am I missing?

Anyway, good luck with the record.
 
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