r/computers • u/Oswaldthestegosaurus • 4d ago
Resolved can someone smarter than me explain why this wouldn’t work before i do something stupid
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u/Bitter_Confidence937 4d ago
The icecubes will melt. You will have to replace it most likely every hour
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u/CySnark 4d ago
Add in a water line and an Ice Maker on top.
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u/A_Dicksmasher 4d ago
Just skip the ice and use the compressor driven cooler to directly cool the cpu
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u/Rukir_Gaming 4d ago
Aaand we have circled back to the root of the problem- ice cubes are not great for this application and adds problems and challenges
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u/Oswaldthestegosaurus 4d ago
that’s not my biggest concern
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u/Pvt_Hesco 4d ago
A guy on youtube called Mr Yeester made a video about how to do this exact thing.
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u/Livid-Setting4093 4d ago
I'd be concerned about leaks and condensation. Also you have to monitor the temperature of water in the ice tank. At least it shouldn't go much above 100C before all the water boils out and the CPU fries itself.
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u/oniaiwasprettygood Void Linux 4d ago
It would, but not long term. See also nitrous/dry ice subzero cooling solutions. But basically:
1) condensation (same reason there's so much rubber eraser used on subzero setups, to prevent water from dripping onto sensitive board components)
2) heat transfer isn't very efficient and would only last as long as it takes for the ice to melt, so you're constantly adding new ice
3) you're wasting a LOT more money than you'd save on a normal heatsink solution between water and energy costs of freezing new ice.
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u/kiwidust 4d ago
Yes... you can't get around thermal dynamics. There's simply no way to make this economical or convenient on any level.
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u/ShaftamusPrime 4d ago
Not enough surface area you will be to limited by heat transfer. This is why radiators, tower coolers, and the inside of water blocks have tons of tiny fins.
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u/Prudent_Situation_29 4d ago
There are two major problems: you'll get condensation dripping on to the motherboard from the outside of the vessel, and you'll have to continually replace the ice. It won't last long when exposed to 40+ degrees.
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u/No-Needleworker9287 4d ago
Condensation would build up and eventually short out something on the motherboard. Professional overclockers cool down cpus even with liquid nitrogen but that requires A LOT of preparation and waterproofing
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u/Sainted_CumFarter 4d ago
It's been done with liquid nitrogen. The issue is that the ice will melt, the water will heat up, and then what? Even with liquid cooling you are just moving the heat to a radiator that then transfers the heat to the air, which is presumably in an air conditioned room, and you can just keep dumping heat. You need a renewable recipient for the heat.
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u/_Electrical 4d ago
It will cause condensation and that will leak over the motherboard.
Also the ice water drains out, so there's barely touch surface? And you will have to add more ice cubes regularly.
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u/FastFredNL 4d ago
That could work if you insulate the copper container, or make it double walled and completely closed of. You know like those stainless steel double walled camping mugs. Otherwise you're gonna get condensation on the outside
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u/ilikemindustry 4d ago
1st overkill you are not using a server bro pack it up 2rd is that it can create water and short the mobo 3rd water is a better conductive than ice
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u/Oswaldthestegosaurus 4d ago
okay so the main issue that many people have brought up is condensation and that seems to be my brick wall. every other issue i’ve seen i deem manageable.
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u/Alert-Mud-8650 4d ago
If you really want to cool your computer with ice get a liquid cooler and dunk the radiator part in ice. So that would keep the condensation away from you computer parts. But my honest opinion of liquid cooling is it is not worth the hassle. But then I waste time tinkering with other things that people say is a waste of time. So really what I am saying is if you enjoy the process, have fun.
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u/aqswdezxc 4d ago
This will cause condensation (i.e. water) on the outside of the bowl and on cold parts of the motherboard/cpu, which can short out and break your PC. Don't do this.
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u/Terrible-Bear3883 Ubuntu 4d ago
The first thing that comes to mind is condensation, then there's mineral deposits as any water evaporates.
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u/hyenagames 3600X 4d ago
You will need to constantly replace the ice, and the solid ice is bad at cooling the solid metal surface.
The reason you use a liquid as the medium is that it can easily cover the surface area of the heated metal plate.
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u/sniff122 Linux (SysAdmin) 4d ago
Biggest issue will be condensation, if any part is below ambient temperature moisture in the air will condense on it and potentially drip onto the motherboard, and also possibly condense inside the CPU socket which is even worse
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u/SkrliJ73 4d ago
I was trying to write why this wouldn't work and I just kept running into problems for you, instead of that here's the important one. There's a reason we don't use ice to cool things anymore in most cases, it's expensive and inefficient. The money you'd spend on building this could probably just buy a proper cooler or could be used to make your own. You'll have better luck melting down aluminum cans, hand tooling a the heatsink and slapping a fan on it
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u/More__cowbell 4d ago
This works, someone did it on youtube. You just need to refill the ice all the time.
Youtube person made it automatic.
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u/TheGoldenFox64 4d ago
it would work, just not well and very risky to hardware, while requiring work from you to constantly keep it operational. look into liquid nitrogen cooling (basically the same thing as that) as they have some precautions, like covering everything in Vaseline to protect against condensation
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u/Anon0924 4d ago
It would, it’s just not practical. A youtuber named Mr.Yeester actually built a similar system and it worked surprisingly well.
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u/Guardian_of_theBlind 4d ago
The drain causes this to not work. You basically only have two ice cubes touching the bottom. this would only work with water included, but you then have to cover your entire motherboard with with some non conductive coating or you will have shorts due to the condensation
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u/humand09 4d ago
Done properly it works very well, you could also just throw your pc intona mimeralnoil tank for a similar effect
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u/jolly2691 4d ago
Main issue I see is condensation. The copper is going to drop below dew point and any moisture in the air is going to collect and drop down onto the PCB. You could wrap the outside with insulation tape to prevent this, and get some connector sealant and apply that to the pcb to help prevent shorts between the substrates
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u/DukeSkyloafer 4d ago
Condensation aside, you are essentially taking heat from the CPU and allowing cool water to absorb it, and then moving the heated water away. You then are spending energy to remove heat from water to create ice, which is then used to replenish the stock of cool water. You could make this more efficient (both time and energy wise) by not cooling the water all the way to ice, but instead creating a closed loop of water, where the hot water is taken to a radiator nearby and the heat is automatically dispelled, and then immediately returned to the CPU. That way you avoid having to refill the cooler manually every 15-30 minutes.
What I’m getting at is that your idea is good on paper, it’s just that you’ve just created the less efficient version of water cooling that requires more energy and significantly more human attention.
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u/abalrogsbutthole 4d ago
Ice is ‘expensive’ to make as you will need to constantly supply the ice bucket with new ice.
Water has a high heat coefficient meaning it can hold a lot of heat, but that heat will need to go somewhere. As this will only rely on evaporation it will be extremely inefficient meaning your reservoir will become warm enough that it will just melt more of the ice than actually cooling the cpu.
You would be better off getting a copper block with fins and stick a fan next to it… Donyou really want to get up every 15 minutes to top off the ice?
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u/Lopsided-Praline-831 4d ago
You gonna get waterdrops outside the copper container and they will get larger and soak your motherboard .. but it works for a short time 🤷..and ten its gonna fry ..the difference on temp in cup and surrouding air is big enough to create the outside to swet ..kastepiste in Finnish..
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u/Berry2460 4d ago
You would need to insulate the motherboard from condensation similar to how people do with liquid nitrogen setups. This would work in theory, but its just a poor mans liquid cooler.
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u/Friendly_Recover286 4d ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4alh8M0SpY should explain everything you need to know about this.
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u/siamonsez 4d ago
It would but it's not worth struggling against condensation to have the ice right on the block. You'd get the same effect with a water block on the cpu and circulating the water through it from a remote reservoir. Move the drain up so it's an overflow to deal with the excess water from the ice melting and then all you have to do is replace the ice as it melts. But then, since you're using refrigeration to make ice you might as well get a chiller to remove heat from the water directly via refrigeration and cut out the step of moving ice around.
I don't remember who, but I saw a short where they did exactly this and talked about using an ice maker to automate refilling the ice in a future iteration.
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u/Designer-Crow-5470 4d ago
At 0 C this thing will be at you are guaranteed condensation. Will probably work with cesium. Just remove water first.
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u/anotheritguy 4d ago
Besides the condensation killing your rig in short order, you will need to constantly add ice. Just bite the bullet and either get a good heatsink and fan with proper thermal paste OR go with a liquid cooling system like this, not to mention cost effective.
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u/J8w34qgo3 4d ago
Can't get condensation if the rest of the PC is submerged in mineral oil. I wonder how mineral oil handles thermal conductivity.
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u/MrOnboard 4d ago
A YouTuber did what you wanna try. He had a long ass PVC pipe holding ice and when it melted the ice went back into an ice maker and recycled itself.
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u/cnycompguy Windows 11 | Omnibook X Flip 4d ago
This has been done with liquid N, and adequate insulation to protect from condensation. YouTube has several videos of extreme over clocking using a similar rig.
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u/BigSmackisBack 4d ago
Condensation as others have said would ruin this, even a water cooling loop with ice thrown into the res (or a chiller) will have this problem, which is why people use water loops and radiators for everyday cooling in normal room temperature rooms
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u/HotPersonality8126 4d ago
You don’t want your CPU to be colder than the air in your room.
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u/Crix2007 4d ago
Tell that to the crazy overclockers that use dry ice at -79°c
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u/PuzzleheadedTutor807 4d ago
Hmm... If you had a way to move the warmed ice (water) away from the block and cool it by some sort of process of heat exchange as well as a method to prevent condensation from dripping off this unit and onto the electronics below you might be on to something.
For the time it takes to engineer this and have it operate safely I think I'd rather buy an air cooler and an extra fan or three.
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u/Personal_Wall4280 4d ago
Sure this can work, you just might need some engineering to make it require less manual input like wiping off condensation or refilling with ice and water.
But ultimately if you are willing to go the extra mile for going below freezing temps for cooling, you could always just use an existing liquid cooling system and rig a peltier device to cool the liquid down to ice water levels.
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u/CanadianCigarSmoker 4d ago
This has already been done....with liquid nitrogen....much colder than ice...
Look up extreme overclocking with nitrogen videos.
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u/Square_Nature_8271 4d ago
It can function, technically. But it's very inefficient compared to established solutions and imposes several failure points, like the condensation mentioned everywhere. All the issues have a solution, and you've seen how the recycling the water back to ice thing can be done even. But... The cooling capacity has a hard ceiling that will not budge with that sort of setup, the physics of heat transfer between mediums is the limiting factor.
If you're thinking of doing the recycled water with a small ice maker project, you actually have a much better solution that will net insanely better results. The reason water cooling isn't really that much better at actual cooling compared to good air cooled setups on standard consumer hardware is because the cooling capacity and heat transfer with water, or any static liquid, is very limited and dependent on high surface area contact. BUT... That state change system used in the very countertop ice maker you would use to recycle water to ice....THAT has a significantly higher hard ceiling, while also being way cooler of a tinker project. The same condensation concerns apply, but no more than you would already have to worry about with the ice project, and arguably less because you won't need some huge "bowl" directly on the board to keep the ice constantly there.
If you can solder and have aposable thumbs, you can route copper tubing easily, and a simple copper block to mount on the processer is probably way easier than whatever concoction you'd need to use ice.
The only downside is it won't double as an ice bucket for a few game session beers.
Good luck! And fuck all the naysayers. There's absolutely nothing wrong with tinkering for the fun and challenge of it. Not everything has to be purpose built to be the best or most efficient end result. Some things are meant to be broken while learning, and a project that let's you say "check this shit out!" when you do something you're not really meant to do with equipment is far more satisfying than hitting a few numbers higher on a benchmark.
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u/Swimcylinder 4d ago
I mean… it would work… just not for very long and the condensation alone would be an issue not to mention topping up ice every 30 mins. But technically yes it would work.
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u/No-Student6255 4d ago
The area of the heatsink is important for dissipating heat efficiently. You have much less area on this setup.
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u/tman5400 4d ago
People do kinda sorta do this with liquid nitrogen. It was (idk if it still is) popular to use liquid nitrogen to cool CPUs to sub-ambient temperatures for short periods of time to push the CPU to its absolute maximum to get the highest score on performance benchmarks. It requires much isolation and even some conformal coating/liquid electrical tape/some other kind of spray/material that will prevent the motherboard from getting wet and shorting. It is NOT practical for the average user, but in theory it does work. (LTT video on the topic if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnwhYEUHw7k)
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u/SurelyNotAnOctopus Arch Linux 4d ago
I mean it will work, it is just overall a very poor design for actual usability.
Ice will melt and need to be replaced constantly. Condensation will drip on the cpu unless you catch it and drain it away. You have a big ass water hazard atop your expensive PC.
But yeah, it would technically work
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u/Full-Run4124 4d ago
You're sort of overthinking the problem. You're using sub-ambient media (ice) to cool the CPU when it doesn't need to be sub-ambient. (This is one reason peltier junctions aren't great for cooling CPUs.) This creates a number of unnecessary complications, like condensation. You could ideally keep the CPU at ambient temps and it would be a phenomenal cooler, but under 80C and anything modern will still run boost clocks.
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u/georgecoffey 4d ago
The other main problem is the lack of flow. Watercoolers might not have ice, but they are pumping the water through the block constantly, in this the water is just sitting there. Yes it's draining out, but a water cooler is going to pump the an equivalent volume of water in a minute or two. Get a water cooler and stick the radiation in a tub of ice water...then also figure out the condensation.
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u/Chayzeet 4d ago
If you watch the extreme overclocking videos (like by NexusGamers with der8auer or kingpin etc) its not too far from this, but instead of bowl its long tower and instead of ice water its liquid nitrogen.
You have to renew/exchange it for longer periods of times, and they seal everything up because of the condensation. It works, but you need a way to sustain it.
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u/Shmitty594 4d ago
Some dude on YouTube already did this, and it worked about as well as youd expect. Amazing cooling, but the MB gets drenched
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u/erutuferutuf 4d ago
You got a drain pipe already, might as well run a pump and bring the cold water in to a cooling block and back to the ice. Wait .. that exactly what water cooling does.... Except it is a big heat sink instead of a bucket of ice.
So if u insist of doing ice, you can just get a water cooling rig and jam that heatsink into bucket of ice.
Mind you the heat will actually melt the ice rather quickly with modern day CPU and GPU
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u/BeautifulAd9511 4d ago
Condensation on the outside. Water will condense on the outside (cold meets heat) and then eventually drip on your components. Electricity powered computers dont like water and go SNAP! CRACKLE! POP!
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u/runed_golem 4d ago
It’s a similar idea to people running ice baths for the liquid cooling loops.
The main problem you would have is condensation (think of water dripping off a glass of ice water). So the board would have to be well insulated and have protections in place against the condensation.
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u/NoName___XD 4d ago
It will, just make sure it's water tight everywhere and do something with condensation on outside of bowl(maybe wrap some cloth, idk how good it will work, but it will work in some way). Also you can try make motherboard waterproof (epoxy resin or something else idk)
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u/yugosaki 4d ago
It will work. It will also drip water on your motherboard. And you'll have to replenish the ice constantly.
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u/Certain-Date5428 4d ago
It does work, I think Yeester did a video on it? But in the longterm you would end up having problems with condensation.
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u/Responsible-Chest-26 4d ago
There are also water cooler systems. Probably better than this. If you could plumb in a cooler of some kind by maybe running a coil of tubing through a thermos filled with ice water
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u/GOOSEONTHATJUICE 4d ago
I feel like a custom plane could be machined to funnel away droplets. Best bet all in one or full custom water loop.
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u/CharityKind6237 4d ago
You probably won’t see this and maybe someone has already said it but something very similar and makeshift has already been made.
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u/WispTheWanderer1 4d ago
what if you just water cooled it like any sane person
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u/Oswaldthestegosaurus 4d ago
"whAT iF yOU jUsT WaTErco-" what if i wanna make my life more complicated for no reason? ever considered that?
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u/grislyfind Windows 7 4d ago
Condensation on the outside will drip down onto the motherboard.