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Computer water cooling is the practice of using water
instead of air to remove heat from a computer's CPU and, in some cases, its
chipset and GPU. Because water has a much higher heat capacity than air, water
is more effective at cooling at a given flow rate. People who want to wring
every last bit of performance from their computer will often run their processor
at speeds higher than rated speeds, a practice known as overclocking. Running a
processor at a higher voltage and/or speed will cause it to create more heat, so
it's important to dissipate that extra heat to avoid damaging the processor.
A cooling system's ability to remove heat is measured by its
thermal resistance in units of degrees per watt. The lower the resistance, the
more heat a system removes at a given ambient temperature. Typically, a stock
heatsink/fan CPU cooler has a thermal resistance around 0.4 to 0.5 deg C/W. High-performance
air coolers can achieve .25 to .35 deg C/W, but are expensive and noisy due to
high fan speeds. Though more expensive, a decent water-cooling setup can
achieve 0.12 deg C/W, allowing even a processor that dissipates 100 W to be
cooled to 12 deg C above the ambient temperature. Using a stock heatsink/fan, that
same processor would operate at 40 to 50 deg C above ambient, but not for very
long since that would probably exceed the safe operating temperature of the
processor. More information on overclocking can be found at www.overclockers.com.
An obvious drawback to watercooling is the potential for
leaks. Unfortunately, I've had this happen on a few occasions. Most
watercooling setups use a 50/50 mix of water and ethylene glycol (antifreeze)
as the working fluid. Ethylene glycol is used not to prevent freezing, but to
lubricate the pump and act as an antifungal agent. Unfortunately, the
antifreeze/water mixture is also a pretty good conductor. If the fluid spills
onto the motherboard, the computer may become unstable, crash or refuse to boot
altogether. Even after a spill dries, the residue can still create
crosstalk between data lines and render the motherboard unusable. Depending on
the size of the spill, it may be possible to bring the board back to life by cleaning it.
Should you find yourself in this predicament, try the
following procedure before throwing the motherboard away. Use a grounded wrist
strap and antistatic mat or bag to work on. Disconnect and remove the
motherboard from the case. Using a high-intensity desk lamp and magnifying glass, carefully inspect both sides
of the board for spill residue. When you find the spill location, use a
toothbrush and distilled water to completely clean off any residue. Dry the
board with compressed air. Reinstall the board and keep your fingers crossed. On
two of three occasions, I was able to repair such a board simply by cleaning it.
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