Which Cooling Method Is Best For Computers

Which Cooling Method is Best For Computers

Purpose The purpose of my experiment is to determine

which method of computer cooling would be the best at cooling computers. I’m going to be testing air cooling, anti-freeze cooling, and water cooling. 

Hypothesis If I use coolant for computer cooling then it

would work the best, because it is the more expensive method and people often use it too cool computers that run really hot.

Background Info The first computers with microprocessors were

fanless A heat sink and fan is the most common way to cool the processor 

Other methods of computer include Liquid Nitrogen Phase-change cooling Passive heat sink cooling Heat pipe Submerged Liquid Cooling

Background Info Cont. The first programmable computer was first

invented at around 1937 by a person named Konrad Zuse The original Internet was invented in 1969 The actual definition of computer is pretty wide so the first “computer” can be traced back to 2,000 years ago with the abacus    

Materials Titan Nikita Water Cooler Set A computer (parts list for the computer)  Antec Nine Hundred Gaming Computer Case(comes with fans)  Asus p5k Motherboard  2gb of DDR 800 MHz RAM (1GB each chip)  Intel® Core™2 Duo 2.66GHz E6750 Desktop Processor  PYN Technologies GeForce 7300GT Graphics Card  500gb Serial ATA Hard Drive  ULTRA Xconnect Power Supply  Samsung DVD Burner  Toshiba DVD Reader 

Procedure 1. Build computer & install all software/ hardware/ operating systems needed 2. Start up computer and begin normal use of computer 3. Pick a task that would need a lot of CPU power to run (normally a game that demands a lot of processing power) and do that for about 30 minutes 4. Record initial temperature and continue to record temperature for 30 minutes while still gaming or doing the CPU power requiring task 5. Turn off computer and let it cool 6. Follow instructions provided in the user manual in the Titan Water Cooling Set 7. Instead of putting in the provided antifreeze solution in, just fill reservoir with water 8. Repeat steps 2-4 9. Now add the provided solution

Results Air

Water

Anti-Freeze

Temperature Of Processor in Fahrenheit Min T1 T2 T3 AV T1 T2 T3 AV T1 T2 T3 AV 0 73 72 73 G 72.6 73 72 73 G 72.6 71 74 72 G 72.3 5

73

74

73

73.3 73

72

73

72.6 70

74

73

72.3

10

74

75

74

74.3 73

73

74

73.3 71

75

74

73.3

15

76

77

75

76

74

76

74

74.6 74

75

75

74.6

20

77

76

77

76.6 76

75

77

76

75

76

75

75.3

25

80

79

79

79.3 78

78

78

78

76

76

76

76

30

82

80

81

81

79

78

78

77

76

77

76.6

77

Results

Results Cont. The Coolant kept the processor cooled longer

and the temperature lower throughout the whole experiment The Water kept the processor at a lower temperature than just air cooling but the coolant worked better. Air cooling the cheapest cooling method and didn’t work as well its still efficient in keeping

Conclusion In conclusion my

hypothesis that the Liquid cooling would work better than the air or water cooling was correct. The null hypothesis was rejected. The antifreeze worked better because it had a higher specific heat than water. So it took longer for the antifreeze to warm up than it took for the water to warm up than the anti-freeze.

Discussion Some mistakes that would have affected the

results of the project would be that the temperature of my room could change as I did this experiment on different days. I could of used the processor more during one time than another so that some trials the processor generated more or less heat than previous trials. Some other variables could be add to future experiments, its possible to try a different liquid to use to cool with or use a different type of case or combine two variables together so that you could have liquid and air running at the same time.

Reference List Melchiore, Dave. "Computer Cooling Guide." Xoxide. 2005. 21 Mar. 2008 .





Pabst, Thomas. "Hot Spot: How Modern Processors Cope with Heat Emergencies."  Tom's Hardware. 17 Sept. 2001. 11 Apr. 2008 . 



Rutter, Daniel. "The CPU Cooler Snap Judgement Guide." Dan's Data. 01 Apr. 2008.  09 May 2008 . 



"technabob". "66-Fan Casemod Keeps Things Cool." Technabob. 11 Nov. 2007. 07 May 2008 .





Völkel, Frank. "Strip Out the Fans, Add 8 Gallons of Cooking Oil." Tom's Hardware.  09 Jan. 2006. 21 Apr. 2008 . 