Extreme cooling practical for everyday?

J

justin82

Limp Gawd
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Aug 8, 2004
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Excluding initial cost, would using something like a vapochill LS be practical as an everday rig or is it just for benching or "cool factor" (no pun intended). Does electric bill see a significant rise? Im looking for the stuff you dont think about until you get one.
 
Its ok for everyday use, but not for 24/7....reason is @ long period of idle cpu (no load), condensation will formed....
 
Now this might sound a little redundant but when people say not for 24/7 use do they mean 24/7 on all the time or do they just mean everyday usage?.. Like i usually turn my computer on in the morning off at nite.
 
in this scenario couldn't you just run a constant load on your system to not get condensation? say, folding or SETI?
 
The Vapochill LS takes care of this with a small heater in the clamshell and behind the motherboard. I keep my Vapochill LS running for about 16 hours a day. It's been running great for a year and no signs of breakdowm. As for the electric bill, we haven't noticed any change.
 
centvalny said:
Its ok for everyday use, but not for 24/7....reason is @ long period of idle cpu (no load), condensation will formed....
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Never had a vapo, but have built a few single stage coolers...no problems here ever.
 
Vapo LS you will unlikely have condesnation problem if you actually use the heater elements supplied, same with Mach IIs.
Custom units usually doesn't have elements... (well none I know of has one yet) but tend to have more massive insulation measure to counter it. As long as applied well, rarely you will see condensation problem (make sure there is fan blowing over evap area)... Now in really humid places, that might not be easy to say.
 
well.... I find that I don't run my Vapo 24/7 because of the noise it creates. I use my laptop unless I want to game or do work.

In hindsight, I'll probably stick to watercooling for my future "daily use" machines because it's quieter. I still love the Vapo for gaming though. :D
 
Trying to make a unit that does both. Vapochill IMHO is very noisey. Now power consumption... can't help with that :p
If you've seen my lian-li v2000 singlephase case, a new version is coming out with much improvement (and colder temp than vapo of course) All for 24x7 lovers :)
 
jinu117 said:
Trying to make a unit that does both. Vapochill IMHO is very noisey. Now power consumption... can't help with that :p
If you've seen my lian-li v2000 singlephase case, a new version is coming out with much improvement (and colder temp than vapo of course) All for 24x7 lovers :)
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Tell me more

I've had no problems when I've used mine 24/7.
Normal is not 24/7 for me, its on and off daily use, about 5-7 hours.
 
A phase change cooler will probably increase your power bill noticably. As to the matter of 24/7 use, there is no harm or danger in using a phase change unit for normal use, but it is imperative that you make sure you completely condensation-protect the socket area or else you're going to be in trouble. I'd suggest following the insulating guide at XtremeResources.com, I'll post a link when I get home.
 
BoBo 007 said:
Tell me more

I've had no problems when I've used mine 24/7.
Normal is not 24/7 for me, its on and off daily use, about 5-7 hours.
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Well give me couple more weeks, there is a LOT involved in making this working right and right now I am still going through few different configuration to make it happen :) Getting colder than vapo LS with r404 (not even r402a :p) isn't hard at all with the load I have -> x2 3800+ 1.71v running 3ghz dual priming 2x1gig crucial ballistix running 270mhz... (vapochill really wasn't designed with this kind of load in mind nor prometeia were) Only real problem I am hitting wall on right now are
1) Compressor that isn't overtly expensive while being quieter than vapochill's, around mach compressor noise is quite okay. Also must have more cooling capacity in preparation for dual core cpus which will be in many people's hand soon.
2) Condensors that can work exceptionally well with low noise fan. I am thinking of using 60-80cfm fan which can be run at lower speed for not heavily used condition. (Vapo uses 80cfm fan Panaflo M1a, while prommy uses Sunon 96cfm fan)
3) Control logic circuit to prevent new users from locking themselves out or burning out their equipment. There are few floating around but either too expensive or too rudimentary such as in original mach I type. I could design one but at current stage I don't have money nor time to further extend out.
4) Evaporators - there are nice evaporators in production such as chilly1's. Only problem is as usual the price of evaporator which neighbors over $130-140 once mounting kit and flexible suction line is included. I will probably have to use these to get by till I get some better idea on evaporators that will work efficiently enough.
One thing as usual is the controllers. I could make simple switch to turn it on and off (lol) which would cost almost nothing obviously. Or use mach I like controller which ranges somewhere in $100-120. Or something fancy like vapochill LS which lands sqaurely around $200. (yes just for controllers) Very iffy isn't it? What is your thought on controllers? If I can cut it I would rather save on the looks department for better compressor or cutting down on final pricing of unit :p
 
OK, I know this thread is a couple weeks old, but thought I'd add my input anyways.

I'm running a fairly regular watercooling loop (GPU + CPU + Reservior) with the radiator mounted inside a window AC unit. The water stays a fairly constant 16 to 18*C. The AC unit itself does a fairly good job of maintaining low humidity in the room and both blocks as well as the back side of the graphics card are always cold to the touch. I've been running 24/7 like this for about 3 years now and not once have I had a hiccup or any hint of condensation. I normally change the water every 6 months.
For those of you that are concerned about an idle CPU gathering condensation, consider installing F@H. (Check out the distributed computing forum)
 
cgrant26 said:
OK, I know this thread is a couple weeks old, but thought I'd add my input anyways.

I'm running a fairly regular watercooling loop (GPU + CPU + Reservior) with the radiator mounted inside a window AC unit. The water stays a fairly constant 16 to 18*C. The AC unit itself does a fairly good job of maintaining low humidity in the room and both blocks as well as the back side of the graphics card are always cold to the touch. I've been running 24/7 like this for about 3 years now and not once have I had a hiccup or any hint of condensation. I normally change the water every 6 months.
For those of you that are concerned about an idle CPU gathering condensation, consider installing F@H. (Check out the distributed computing forum)
Click to expand...

Good advice for F@H idea. :) BTW, my prototype A is finally working good as I hoped for. X2 dual priming 1.7v 3ghz with 2gig memory mbm temp reading on CPU is -1 to -6c (depending ambient from 35c to 17c). Evap temp somewhere in -38 to -42c :p About 10-15c cooler running than Vapo LS and much less noise hehe :) Within couple of days, preliminary leak testing will be complete and I can finally present you guys prototype A. (production unit will have different design to accomodate PSU and give more drive bays to user which will be on prototype B).
 
only thing I don't like about folding @ home all the time is that it generates more heat and uses more electricity. Not a good thing for me
 
bubblethumper said:
only thing I don't like about folding @ home all the time is that it generates more heat and uses more electricity. Not a good thing for me
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Generating more heat is the point :rolleyes:
 
Ahaha.... well someday someone might come out with variable speed compressor (DC compressors do that with voltage but not AC). Till than, there isn't much we can do to control the cooling :p Vapochill uses heater pad to control condensation. There are few people working on making controllers such as that for custom setup as we speak now :)
 
Cant you just use a valve to control the flow of coolant. When I was on a submarine thats how they adjusted our refrigeration units.
 
moon02 said:
Cant you just use a valve to control the flow of coolant. When I was on a submarine thats how they adjusted our refrigeration units.
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Phase change cooling isn't just a flow of cooled liquid that you can speed up or slow down. There is literally a phase change going on where the heat of the CPU evaporates a liquid (and the phase change helps take energy away from the system).

There is too much behind that for me to type (as I am lazy), but in short, the answer is no.
 
jinu117 said:
Ahaha.... well someday someone might come out with variable speed compressor (DC compressors do that with voltage but not AC). Till than, there isn't much we can do to control the cooling :p Vapochill uses heater pad to control condensation. There are few people working on making controllers such as that for custom setup as we speak now :)
Click to expand...

variable displacement compressor. this would allow you to use a manual valve or thermocouple controlled valve.
 
with all due respect I dont think you see what im saying. I understand whats going in phase change. basically it takes like 10x the energy to make matter go up that last 1 degree and change form. when you do phase change your cooling power comes from your coolant changing from liquid to air taking alot of heat with it.

However each molecule of coolant changing its form takes away a certain amount of heat. It follows that you control how much coolant hitting your block, you control how much cooling is taking place. so by putting a valve that would allow you to restrict flow of your coolant before your block, you can control the tempatures your getting.
 
Problem with variable control of temperature based on heatload would mean that it need to take into account of system balance. (Amount of liquid hitting evap, cooling done by returning gas to compressor, condensing control, and be able to insure proper oil return, able to balance high and low side properly on the fly... and list goes on).
It would be possible yes. It wouldn't be economically feasable for our use until the need for such things drive refrigeration market as our volume is insignificant vs general market. Just try to find condenser we use on single stage unit inside vapo like case. You need to get it custom fabricated. Find control unit for our need really. None exist in mass produced way... and list goes on. Each piece adds up to cost quickly unfortunately...
 
I've been runnin cascade @-90ish Celsius for about 3 mos...about 7hrs. daily without any major problem.
Only changed insulation a few times ;)
 
moon02 said:
Cant you just use a valve to control the flow of coolant. When I was on a submarine thats how they adjusted our refrigeration units.
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Sure... It's called a TXV, but they don't make many that work with as small a heatload as you get with direct die. Lots of water chillers use them though.
 
For me at least I tried out watercooling and really wasn't impressed with the gains at all and I hated having all the liquids and hoses inside the computer. So I decided to get a vapo and really love the performance gain as it's huge and makes for so much more room to have fun with OCing. I decided to keep the bills down and not risk anything going wrong with it that i'd only turn it on when I'm using it and that works great for me since I just use my laptop for anything else I need to do. The only thing I don't like is how it's not really convenient to keep your computer inside case anymore as i'm always messing with it or moving it around. So i'd either pick up one of jinu's sweet v2000 mods or make sure that your case and vapo will work nicely together. I've just given up and decided to run a bench setup for easy acess. But if you've got the money/time it's definitly worth it.
 
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