Purdue researchers want tiny refrigerators cooling your PC
By Darren Murph 
posted Jul 24th 2008 7:02PM
posted Jul 24th 2008 7:02PM
[Via TheFutureOfThings, thanks Iddo]
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they're using little penguins.
that's how it's done in the fridge.
trust me i've seen it in a cartoon.
"a ways'
I was just thinking about that a couple of days ago, but what about condensation?
@Matthew Hilario: how did you get a reply without a comment?
god, i have been watching this site for 15 mins,
well de rank me
You heard him boys, mark him down!
I guess you needed to be more specific when you said "him".
I never said me...
Build them into a Eee and I might just buy one... NOT!!!
Your buying habits are FASCINATING!
well there is an eeeRefrigerator coming out soon
you have just used up all your firsts for the rest of your engadget days. never again are you allowed to post first
original comment deleted. crap
they are also developing tiny tiny beers to go in it.
Purdue Rocks! I'm'ma be a freshman in 1 month!
Boiler Up!
http://torrentfreak.com/purdue-university-launches-p2p-network-to-bypass-riaa-080415/
http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/22/riaa-lists-top-25-universities-handing-out-piracy-notices/
That's a great school. I always enjoyed eating their chicken parts. Their oven-roasters weren't bad either. Give my regards to Frank.
Steffen..stfu. and danakin, i attend purdue, you're gonna love it. come by sigma pi and ask for scott, i'll show you around campus, or answer any questions you might have =)
BOILER UP!!!!
BTFU
Now you can store your coke inside the computer! Sign me up.
bad day jd? nice way to vent your anger
Sounds sweet, now to make a cupholder that also runs off of your computer using this... It really would be pretty nice.
give it a week tops and someone will have a mod that does that you watch
They have these odd 5 1/4 bay air conditioner units for PCs right now, it seems...
http://www.overclockers.com/articles1233/
But... well, A/C needs a place for water to go (right?) so this may be the superior solution.
What a waste of food and water
You have obviously stumbled upon the wrong website! Here, I'll get you to where you're obviously supposed to be going.
http://www.children.org/
Nah, i was replying to a guys comment who was a buncha spam, meaning he was a waste of food and water. But the comment got deleted so mine looks very out of place.
Graham, did you ever get over to MCAS Cherry Point?
OH. Yeah Engadget needs to delete the entire damn thread when they do crap like that.
Look, I said "obviously" two times in one comment before.
Gross.
i want one for my 360. haha
Isn't this what phase change cooling is? Because they already sell units that do that.
"Which would hopefully boost cooling performance while enabling computers to be smaller."
Actually, continually improving processors do that and they don't introduce unnecessary cost and complication.
Actually, you're an idiot.
Won't that create condensation?
The best comment so far. We rank the worng people sometimes.
I'm sure our engineers have thought of that.
It won't create condensation in the critical areas because, unlike a refrigerator, the purpose of this device is not to cool things down to below room temperature (that's when condensation occurs) but to prevent the processor and other components from rising significantly above its ideal working temperature, which is a good couple of degrees above room temperature.
The idea is to keep the processor "cool" as in, say 45 degrees Celsius, and not to keep it cold.
Right, but how does this technique end up being superior than peltiers? Any solution is going to generate excess heat in some location. Perhaps this one moves the heat generation elsewhere, but it seems (at least in the picture) to involve bulky plastic wires and things.
The article goes on to say that 'The best that all other cooling methods can achieve is to cool the chip down to ambient temperature'. Though you have to solve condensation issues, I can't imagine that statement being remotely true.
"Honey, I shrunk the refrigerator!"
Just hope you don't blow it up when it's already in your computer.
I don't know why someone hasn't done this sooner all a fridge is a compressor that uses a gas that cools when it expands shouldn't be too hard to miniaturize .
Great. So when my system develops a refrigerant leak I have to pay a horribly overpaid technician to service it. Wonderful...
My Xbox just sits next to the a/c unit. no red rings of death for me
Can it play....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ROCK N ROLL?!?!?!?!?!
Damn..... Engadget cut off the word "ROCK"
Whatever you do, do not (I repeat - DO NOT) download the photo from the Purdue website... the guy in the blue shirt is in the middle of a very bad hair day.
On topic: this type cooling has been around for over 100 years and its predecessor has been around since the 1860s... and it's CARNOT efficiency is about 13-18%... not the best but as the article says it beats air cooled radiant type of heat dissipation.
There are other methods that are "in chip" - cool to about 1 degree C above absolute and convert the thermal gain to electricity but that's a whole nuther topic!
+1 to you sir for knowing of thermalelectrics, some day they will hopefully be another major game-changer in many aspects of our lives.
LOL I'm going to Purdue in about 2 years for college
Commenting from a Purdue dorm - woot
Some day Engadget will do a story on the amazing Purdue underwater robot (just started being made - I'm on the team)
how big are her boobs?
just a thought, but don't refrigerators put off a significant amount of heat from the back of them? sounds like an issue for an enclosed tower to me..
but hey, that's what millions of research dollars are for, right?
Correct. All refrigerators output more heat than they take away. But so do fans, so if you could make a refrigerator more efficent than a fan it would work.
Or make it more efficient at losing heat to the environment, by having a larger or hotter area on the outer surface.
That's a techie Indian guy, not a homeless Indian guy.
As long as they keep the avocado green away, I'll bite.
As long as they stay the hell away from my computer, I'm fine with it.
/sarcasm
oh my god. it's david blaine. i can't believe it.
I see him use one every day, I assure he has figured out how to put it to much better use than you have.
omg i had the guy in the blue for thermo last year!! go purdue BOILER UP!
Sure many of you are clearly failing to grasp this concept while others are clearly seeking an understanding. The irony is that this very technology may likely benefit those who are so quick to dismiss it now. As for those who seek to understand it more....
Yes refrigerators do put off heat from the back however by choosing the correct refrigerant the efficiency can be greatly improved (and in modern units this is highly optimized). When converting energy (read heat) from one form to another there is a loss associated with it, this is known as a enthalpy of transformation. To optimize the refrigeration process a maximal enthalpy of transformation is obtained for the liquid to gas phase transition while a minimal enthalpy of transformation is obtained for the gas to liquid phase. This allows the system to pump heat effectively by helping it expel more energy than is input into the system.
As for the rest of it there will be no condensation as this will not cool your chips below room temperature, its not designed to do that at all. It is to be built as a hermetically sealed part of the chips packaging so you'll never have to worry about unless you get careless and crack the CPU's die (in which case you're SOL anyways).
Its pretty cool to see such a story on Engadget as this work is being done down the hall from me and I've seen progress being made on this a while now. My personal work is coming along quite well and who knows, might be featured here someday as well. ;-)
i see this guy work all the time. i'm sure he is more than capable. it's rare to see any student at purdue without a computer.
i see electric bills soaring!
That's freaking stupid.......
Please think about about improving the efficiency of the chips rather than thinking how to cool it by a device......
Even it could make the laptop smaller, but I worry it will make it heavier and more expensive.
and a compressor surely consumer more electricity than a cooling fan......
Aren't we supposed to reduce greenhouse gas nowadays?
Think about it, save some electricity and it is good for your wallets, too.
making parts better sometimes has the drawback of making things hotter. I for one am up for them keeping systems cooler then improving the parts and repeating that cycle.
"making parts better sometimes has the drawback of making things hotter. I for one am up for them keeping systems cooler then improving the parts and repeating that cycle."
For processors, that only happens when you drive them past certain design criteria. The core2duo chip, for instance, is many times faster and many times cooler running than Cyrix processors 10 years ago. Intel and AMD are moving towards increasing numbers of cores instead of number of megahertz. Once OS's evolve to take advantage of this (snow leopard is an example) we should see huge gains without having to greatly increase heat output.
isnt this just peltier (tec) cooling !?
how is that not being racist? you based your assumptions about him on the way he looks
Why would you use moving parts, when solid state cooling devices exist?
ie: Peltier Devices.
phase cooling for PCs has been around for several years. Most hardcore enthusiasts use it to cool their PCs down to -30-0 celcius. Its rather easy to do and if you have a giant full tower case you can fit it inside the thing.
Also, dells black ice technology is a hybrid version of liquid and phase cooling.
This does not create condensation because there is a tube that leads directly to the CPU and it is sealed so no water can get out. If you do a bad sealing job then condensation can happen.
I hope this comes ot market, I just may skip attempting TEC cooling and get this.
They already sell miniature cooling units and they're named Peltiers or Thermoelectric Coolers. I understand that the guys at Purdue might be trying this from a different approach, but a separate company is working on something similar right here http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080110-startup-shrinks-the-peltier-cooler-and-puts-it-inside-the-chip-package.html .
This shows promise, but there are a lot of companies who have been attempting to do this exact same thing and follow in the footstep of the liquid cooling enthusiasts.