upsetfuzzball

So I'm looking at building, not buying a phase change cooling system, and I've looked over NOL's guides and elsewhere, but I keep hearing about tuning the system to your specific CPU. Here are a few questions.

First: I get how the system works, the compressor, evaporator, condenser, etc. But how do you tune it to your system? Is it the amount (and type of course) of refrigerant used?

Second: When cooling like this, does it damage the cpu to be at -X° 24hrs a day? I realize that overclocking the CPU too much (too high of a voltage) will damage it, but is that the only constraint?

The first question is the one thats really been bugging me, but if there are any useful hints on top of those two questions, please feel free to elaborate so I don't do something stupid.

P.S. In the meantime, I'm still going to be on water cooling, but I like building stuff so I've decided this is going to be my next project.

upsetfuzzball

Links for those interested

Links to more Phase resources some of which are dead, and the post is on the Extreme Overclocking forum.

Single Stage guide from NOL

Tools and parts for phase change from NOL

Diagrams for phase change from NOL

Not really relevant for beginners (Three stage cascade)

Nevermind, I think I found a really good guide.

Linky

I'll be posting a thread on progress once I collect the tools and materials needed to start working.

MADMAX22

Sounds good man. Another good know all about phase is before, hes on here once in a while. Maybe PM him if you want and ask some questions. Hes really more into cascade and stuff I think but the knowledge is the same.

As far as tuning all I really know is that you can adjust the length of your capillary tube and how much charge or amount of freon you have in.

Oh and dont worry about the temps on the processor. THe only thing that will damage them is the voltage, and water if it gets in somewhere.

__________________
E6400@3856E4300@4158E6600@4510,Opti148@3102,opti170@2918,Xeon3220(B3)@3430(490fsb)
UD3P@8400600FSB

Reflexive

Tuning of a single stage, single refrigerant, refrigeration system is done by both the metering device and refrigerant charge.
In these cases, often times a dummy load, or artificial load is applied, and the system is then tuned by adding refrigerant until a set load is held. Then often times by measuring things like superheat, one can determine whether or not their metering device is proper, and then adjusting and retuning from this.
You must also take into consideration the range of load you will be dealing with, tuning for 400W might not be too difficult if you only deal with 400W consistently. Meanwhile tuning for 400W of load and then having half the time the system at 25W can easily result in massive amounts of liquid refrigerant reaching your compressor. End result? Dead compressor.