[ CPU temperature @ 4C ] Nothing fancy, just fan power and cold winter air.

[InvaderFromNeptune]

CPU fan @ full, all 5 case fans @ full

CPU fan @ low, 2 case fans @ low, 3 case fans @ off

Hi all. As you see from the screen-grab above, I've managed to get my CPU down to 4C (idle). No water-cooling, or any fancy stuff. Just plain old fan-power and cold winter air, and lots of it. All the temperatures were confirmed by additional DigitalDoc readings.

My CPU (Socket 939, AMD Athlon 64 4000+, San Diego) usually stays around 30C-35C, and that's under extensive and heavy loads. (4-hour long video encoding session, with CPU load @ 100% for the duration) Idle temperatures are usually in mid 20s, depending on ambient/room temperature.

How did I get the temperature on my CPU this low? Well my temperatures, even under extensive loads never went over 40C, all thanks to Venus 12 CPU/HS combo and some carefully "tweaked" cabling and component positioning. (Air flow does matter). But, I just wanted to see how low can it go. After almost a week of testing and tweaking I realized that the issue was not inside the case, but outside it. No matter how fast the fans were spinning or how big the CPU heatsink was the temps would not go below 18C (which is really pretty amazingly low in itself). No, the problem was outside the case, the ambient/room air temperature. (23C-25C usually) I needed to get some really cold air inside my case.

I was thinking of running a CPU-tunnel-type of setup, where I would bring in cold air from outside of the house (we are talking temperatures of -20C to -25C here in Midwestern USA) So, thats what I did. Now, CPU tunnels are wide and bulky, so I figured a thin rubber hose would do. I attached a 40mm fan to the "outside end" of the 8 foot long rubber hose pushing the cold air along (fan is powered by the computer PSU, via the power cable attached to the hose). Hose itself on the other end is attached to a custom-made funnel that is attached to one of the 90mm case fans, which itself is directly pushing air to the CPU fan/HS inside the case via the CPU tunnel. So in effect, the hose is bringing super cold air, directly to the CPU fan/HS. As you can all see, these are some pretty great results. My room temperature stays at around 22C (around 71F-72F), while inside the case ambient temperature is 17C. All that cold air is bouncing off the CPU heatsink and spreading itself inside the case. The case exterior is extra icy on touch. There is very little noise, except some "hissing" coming from the hose. Of course, this is a winter-only setup, since outside temperatures are bound to kick-up once spring arrives.

(Little bit on my system components) My case is a massive steel monster, Thermaltake V7000C with 5 smart fans, 2 which are managed via the front case control knobs, and the other 3 are controlled via DigitalDoc fan/voltage/temp monitoring module. My CPU fan/hs is a Thermaltake Venus 12, a massive copper heatsink monstrosity with a 6000RPM fan on top. CPU is a Socket 939, AMD Athlon 64 4000+, (San Diego).

 

[yakkutekno]

Good I like it.. What about freezer in the kichen ?