Cooling Computer Systems

By: Andrew Linthicum

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Oil Cooling- What is it?

•Oil cooling uses mineral oil to achieve thermal performance.•The entire computer must be submerged in mineral oil for this to work, and most enthusiast put the system in a fish tank.•Used in large server farms as well as data centers.

Oil Cooling- Benefits•The main benefit is temperature reduction, and not just simple reduction, but at least 34% better than air cooling, and is easy to implement in data and server farms environments.•Oil is a electrical insulator and can be used in direct contact with electrical components.•No dusty fans.

Oil Cooling- Detriments•Oil cooling is by far the messiest of the three cooling options.•The oil feels gross it is slimy.•It is hard to replace components with.•It is costly to implement on a consumer level expect to spend over $100 in oil alone, but still cheaper than most whole system water cooling solutions.

Air Cooling- What is it?•Air cooling is the processes of cooling a computer system with air.•Usually uses heatsink and fans to push air and suck air out of the case.•Sometimes a Central Processing Unit (CPU) will use only a high quality copper heatsink with no fans.

Air cooling- Benefits•Laws of thermodynamics can make air cooling a fantastic method of cooling.•Air cooling is not messy, you only have to dust off fans one a month or less.•Air cooling makes it easy to exchange components and can deliver good Performance, price ratio.

Positive air pressure•Positive air pressure is where you have more air coming into the case than what Is leaving the case.•Using fan filters will make this the best air cooling method.•If no fan filters are installed you will be cleaning your case very often.

Negative air pressure•Negative air flow is where you have more air leaving the case than what is coming in.•Negative air flow is most beneficial in a case with our filtration, the air is sucked up like a vacuum.

Air Cooling- Detriments •Fans can be loud.•Air cooling is will not cool as well as the other methods.•You have to clean the fans depending often depending on what air pressure configuration •Is slightly complex, and needs a basic understanding of thermodynamics.

Water Cooling- What is it?•Water cooling uses water that is pushed trough a radiator to cool computer components via a pump, reservoir, and tubing.• Water cooling is used to cool high end servers, desktops, and super computers like the Cray systems.

Water Cooling- Benefits•Water cooling offers a completive performance compared to oil and air.•Water cooling can be made to a single component or to all components Including the north and south bridge chipsets. •It performs just as good as oil and does not make a mess.

Types of Water Cooling.•Water cooling comes in three differentFlavors.•The first flavor is a sealed kit that mounts to a 120 fan bay and connects to the CPU.•The second is a kit premade by someone else, these kits can be mounted in several different ways .•Third is a custom kit you make and build, these builds are the best choice due to the quality, but cost a lot of money.

Water cooling- Detriments

•Water cooling can be expensive, for example water cooling a whole system will cost almost $5000.

•It can be dangerous if the hoses are not sealed tightly, the water can leak into the system damaging components.

Computer Cooling Conclusion

Cooling a computer can be accomplished in any of the methods we covered, however it is clear that for the average Joe air cooling is the best choice for cooling. If you are running a server farm or tech business a oil cooled solution may work best for the equipment . For the enthusiast pc cooling water and oil can both be used as referred earlier oil can be a good thermal solution, but if you plan to upgrade it will be a huge mess.