liquid metal PC cooling...

[VJ]

When I read this (found the link on the Murc news feed), I was like WTF?

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=21894

... Coolermaster and Thermaltake, have told me that both companies' R&D departments are working on next generation PC cooling systems based on liquid metal, which will help bring future high-frequency CPUs and graphics cores to desktops and even notebooks.

Jörg

[Umfriend]

Quicksilver?

[VJ]

Wow, the article is withdrawn...

No, it was a different metal (also liquid at high room termperature, possibly requiring some heating at bootup).



Jörg

[Fluff]

Quick google produced this.... http://www.indium.com/documents/pds/97826.pdf

Thought Hg was the only one. Obviously not.

[Dilitante1]

I wanna have Terminator3 cooling my cpu for when the missed judgement day catches up to us and John Connor takes over things

[Jon P. Inghram]

Well, they've been using sodium to cool exhaust valves in engines for a long time, although I doubt the chips would appreciate running at over 100 C just to melt the coolant.

[Mehen]

well the new Intels...

[Brian R.]

May be a bismuth alloy. They are common.

http://www.engineeringfindings.com/cat22/cat22pg33.pdf

[Jon P. Inghram]

I'd still prefer a CPU built on a diamond substrate with a diamond heatsink, but I somehow think that'd be rather expensive.

[MultimediaMan]

Slightly OT: The Russians designed and built Liquid Metal Cooled reactors in their "Alfa"-class submarines.

They used a Bismuth/Lead alloy tweaked to about ~200 Degree Centigrade melting point.

From a design standpoint, they were engineering triumphs; from an operational standpoint, they were all but impractical; As a consequence of their design, they couldn't be refuelled, and they required the reactor to be connected to a steam plant while the reactor was inactive to keep the coolant liquified. Because of equipment failures/maintenance problems/budgetary cutbacks in the early 80's the steam plants were only used during the first few years of the "Alfa" Project. Eventually, the order was sent down to leave the reactors critical at all times! There were a couple of nasty accidents in the 70's and 80's involving leaks from the Primary cooling circuit...one leaking several hundred tons of coolant into the reactor compartment. Bismuth and lead are very dense, so a little volume goes a long way...

IIRC there is one Alfa still in service.

[Mehen]

So if they were to realistically do this they would have to use something with a melting point near zero.
I guess you can't just put in some antifreeze eh?