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Cooling with Liquid nitrogen is in some ways simpler than a refrigerator cycle since it’s completely impractical to compress & recondense it. A cryogenic coolin

Cooling with Liquid nitrogen is in some ways simpler than a refrigerator cycle since it’s completely impractical to compress & recondense it. A cryogenic cooling system usually just vents the gas into the room, it may just be a little well around the part which gets filled with ln2 from a dewar.

walrus01 5y ago
Indeed so, I remember seeing people do temporary "overclocking world records" with things like 900 MHz Pentium 3s, and Athlons, around twenty years ago, bare motherboard on an open table with liquid nitrogen dewar mounted to the CPU socket. Guys pouring more nitrogen into the thing as it evaporates and they run benchmarks. I guess the procedure for that probably hasn't changed very much, since it's a very ephemeral and temporary process.
- lozaning 5y ago
  Youtube channels like Gamer's Nexus are still out there doing this exact kinda thing. I'm still as fascinated by it now as I was back then.
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    Related from a little while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24280218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24280218
galangalalgol 5y ago
Do you need some form of sonicator to keep bubbles from sticking?
- analog31 5y ago
  Not in practice. I deal with LN2 cooled optical detectors, and the bubbles clear themselves out pretty quickly. Sometimes folks add a little bit of sand to help the bubbles nucleate.
trashtester 5y ago
> A cryogenic cooling system usually just vents the gas into the room, it may just be a little well around the part which gets filled with ln2 from a dewar. It depends on the scale, and whether the cooling is only required for a short while. Large scale cryogenics (such as at CERN, an LNG tanker etc) will recompress the vapor as it forms. If so, the loop basically IS as refrigerator, just a much bigger, higher performing unit. For an extreme example, see: https://home.cern/science/engineering/cryogenics-low-temperatures-high-performance https://home.cern/science/engineering/cryogenics-low-tempera...
- FuckButtons 5y ago
  True, I should have qualified the phrase impractical by stating at this scale. it’s an industrial scale process that because of the pressures and temperatures involved isn’t practical to use for anyone who isn’t permanently installing it at significant capital outlay - which, wouldn’t be practical for cooling any cpu other than maybe a supercomputer.

walrus01 5y ago

Indeed so, I remember seeing people do temporary "overclocking world records" with things like 900 MHz Pentium 3s, and Athlons, around twenty years ago, bare motherboard on an open table with liquid nitrogen dewar mounted to the CPU socket. Guys pouring more nitrogen into the thing as it evaporates and they run benchmarks. I guess the procedure for that probably hasn't changed very much, since it's a very ephemeral and temporary process.

lozaning 5y ago
Youtube channels like Gamer's Nexus are still out there doing this exact kinda thing. I'm still as fascinated by it now as I was back then.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Related from a little while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24280218 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24280218

galangalalgol 5y ago

Do you need some form of sonicator to keep bubbles from sticking?

analog31 5y ago
Not in practice. I deal with LN2 cooled optical detectors, and the bubbles clear themselves out pretty quickly. Sometimes folks add a little bit of sand to help the bubbles nucleate.

trashtester 5y ago

> A cryogenic cooling system usually just vents the gas into the room, it may just be a little well around the part which gets filled with ln2 from a dewar. It depends on the scale, and whether the cooling is only required for a short while. Large scale cryogenics (such as at CERN, an LNG tanker etc) will recompress the vapor as it forms. If so, the loop basically IS as refrigerator, just a much bigger, higher performing unit. For an extreme example, see: https://home.cern/science/engineering/cryogenics-low-temperatures-high-performance https://home.cern/science/engineering/cryogenics-low-tempera...

FuckButtons 5y ago
True, I should have qualified the phrase impractical by stating at this scale. it’s an industrial scale process that because of the pressures and temperatures involved isn’t practical to use for anyone who isn’t permanently installing it at significant capital outlay - which, wouldn’t be practical for cooling any cpu other than maybe a supercomputer.