Frozen Path. Sub-Zero Cooling Club. - Overclock.net

Kriztoffer · 11-20-09

Thanks a lot to _02 for this lovely banner/logo.

Welcome to The Frozen Path

Post pictures of your Dry Ice and Liquid Nitrogen sessions, pots, rig and result if you like.

If there is something you are wondering about this kind of cooling. Feel free to ask, and we'll do our best to help you out!

Members of the Frozen Path.
Click the names under to view their Hwbot stats.

Mega_option101 Team Capetian of Overclock.net OC Team
Kriztoffer
Eek
CL3P20
Ira-k
Patch
OverShocked
Starbuck5000
Yomama9388
NCspecV81
El gappo
Tha d0ctor

New members are welcome.

Liquid Nitrogen
As liquid nitrogen evaporates at -196 °C, far below the freezing point of water, it is valuable as an extreme coolant for short overclocking sessions.

In a typical installation of liquid nitrogen cooling, a copper or aluminum pipe is mounted on top of the processor or graphics card. After being heavily insulated against condensation, the liquid nitrogen is poured into the pipe, resulting in temperatures well below -100°C.

By welding an open pipe onto a heat sink, and insulating the pipe, it is possible to cool the processor either with liquid nitrogen, which has a temperature below −196°C, or dry ice. However, after the nitrogen evaporates, it has to be refilled. In the realm of personal computers, this method of cooling is seldom used in contexts other than overclocking trial-runs and record-setting attempts, as the CPU will usually expire within a relatively short period of time due to temperature stress caused by changes in internal temperature

Dry Ice
Dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide (chemical formula: CO2), comprising two oxygen atoms bonded to a single carbon atom. It is colourless, odourless, non-flammable, and slightly acidic
CO2 changes from a solid to a gas at −78.5 °C (−109.3 °F) with no intervening liquid form, through a process called sublimation. The opposite process is called deposition, where dry ice changes from the gas to solid phase.

The density of dry ice varies, but usually ranges between about 1.4 and 1.6 g/cm3 (87–100 lb/ft3). The low temperature and direct sublimation to a gas makes dry ice an effective coolant, since it is colder than water or ice and leaves no moisture as it changes state.

Dry ice is non-polar, with a dipole moment of zero, so attractive intermolecular van der Waals forces operate The composition results in low thermal and electrical conductivity

Facts from wikipedia.org

An overclocker pouring Ln2 into his pots.

Cooling units; Pots.

1st Picture: North bridge Cooling unit from Kingpin Cooling.
2nd Picture: GPU Unit for cooling of the graphic cards GPU.
3rd Picture: CPU unit for cooling your processor.

Where can I buy a Dry Ice/Liquid Nitrogen pot?
This type of cooling are not very mainstream it's just the most hardcore enthusiasts who use it.
So you won't probably find a DICE/LN2 pot in a Store.(I know Koolance made a few)
Most pots are custom and are made by members of computer forums.
Only site I know of that you can buy right from is: Kingpincooling

Hardware Insulation Check post #2

Why sub-zero cooling like Dry Ice and Liquid Nitrogen?

Most people that have overclocked for a while just want colder and colder temps. They probably started with air, water and then moved from that to DICE/LN2.
With this kind of cooling you can increase MHz way above factory settings maybe by a 100% overclock + depends on what chip you use.
So with this kind of cooling you can run your computer for a short period at very high speed for benchmarking.
And remember all overclocking is at your own risk. You void warranty by overclocking your system and you can get fatal errors and even destroy your components. But this is a risk you have to take, if you want to overclock.

Where to get Dry Ice and Liquid Nitrogen?
At most places you have shops that sells propane and other types of gas. These stores often have Liquid Nitrogen and Dry Ice. Check out your home place for info about it.

But for using Liquid Nitrogen you'll need a Dewar. These can sometimes be rented at a gas store or you'll need to buy one which can be kind of expensive.

Here is a picture of Dewar's in different shapes and size.

For dry ice you'll only need a container/Box that is pretty air tight. Places where they sell DICE often offers you boxes for your dry ice.
Or you could actually use one of these:

The colder you can keep the Dry Ice the better it is. In a bag like that you'll loose around 20% by each night of your dry ice.

Kriztoffer · 11-20-09

Insulation the motherboard and CPU Cooling unit.

**I WILL NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY OF DAMAGED HARDWARE OR OTHER PROBLEMS YOU CAN ENCOUNTER WHILE DOING THIS, NEITHER WILL OVERCLOCK.NET **

What do you need?

Neoprene Sheet, Neoprene Round Tube, Painters tape, your GF's/moms nail polish, Ceramique thermal paste, knead eraser, paper towel and few rubber bands.(And ofc a Motherboard and CPU-cooling unit)

Motherboard insulated with Knead Eraser around the socket area.

If you have a empty DIM/RAM slot next to the CPU socket/area, I seal it with painters tape.

On the backside of the motherboard socket area I use my moms nail polish.

This will keep water away from the electrical circuits. This is optinal, but you can easily remove the nail polish with Acetone or Nail polish remover.

Let the nail polish dry, use a dryer if needed. After the Nail polish has dried up I use more knead eraser for the socket area.

So onto of the knead eraser on the back of the socket I had a good chunck of Neoprene sheet! My hold down plate will push this sheet good into the back of the MoBo and make it airtight and insulate good. Make 4x holes in it for your Containers screws and backplate.

After I'm done with the knead eraser onto I make paper towel and neoprene sheet fitted to the socket Area to absorb any form for moisture and seal it airtight between Socket and CPU pot.

Insulating the CPU pot.
At the unit itself I do a round with painters tape, so Armaflex won't stick as hell and make your pot look ugly and dirty after benching.. I don't overlapp, just one single layer.

Then some Armaflex insulation

Cut a length of the neoprene round tube so it will cover the length of your cpu cooling unit/pot

Fitted with the Neoprene gasket for the socket under.

Adding thermal compound/paste. I use Céramique by Arctic Silver.. I add around a peanut size dot in middle of the CPU IHS. I use to add around twice the much I need the first mount, so I can unsure myself there is good contact between the CPU pot and IHS. Then you can take it of, whip the TIM of the POT and remount it!

Then we can mount the pot up ready and insulated.

Then you need to warp some paper towel around the pot. You could fasten it with a rubber band or tape.

Then you should be ready for some DICE/LN2 benching.

Think someone got kind of tiered insulating motherboards

Patch way to insulate a motherboard
While much messier, I prefer using vaseline or dielectric grease to make a sealed, insulated setup like this:

With this setup I can bench many different sessions without getting condensation in or around the socket.

By Patch

Thanks alot Patch for letting me use your pictures!

Knead Eraser
Knead Eraser is one of the most common ways to insulate hardware. This could be bought at most art/drawing stores for a cheap price. Knead eraser is very easy in use. You won't even notice use of knead eraser after use. After you are done with a session you can just pull all the knead eraser of in few seconds and the motherboard looks exactly the same! BUT there are some types of the knead eraser that is more sticky than other types. I use the one from Faber Castell, I fancy this knead eraser very much and it don't stick onto the motherboard after use making it ugly and dirty..

Neoprene
"Neoprene or polychloroprene is a family of synthetic rubbers that are produced by polymerization of chloroprene. Neoprene in general has good chemical stability, and maintains flexibility over a wide temperature range. It is used in a wide variety of applications, such as laptop sleeves, orthopedic braces (wrist, knee, etc.), electrical insulation, liquid and sheet applied elastomeric membranes or flashings, and car fan belts
A foamed neoprene containing gas cells is used as an insulation material, most notably in wetsuits. Foamed neoprene is also used in other insulation and shock-protection (packing) applications."

Neoprene is used to make a gasket around the socket area. This gasket will make it airtight between the CPU socket and CPU cooling unit to avoid condensation. We also use round tube neoprene foam for the CPU-Cooling Containers.

You'll find several of guides on the internet.

[Guide] How to: Insulate your Motherboard by yomama9388

KingpinCooling.com F1EE insulation & prep by 3oh6

Insulating with eraser by loc.o at XS Forum