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Lian Li v1000B Plus II and heat pipes

D

delirium

Junior Member
I've been reading about how heat pipes work and was wondering if the heat pipes on the new computer I'm building would be affected by the motherboard being upside down.

I know some heat pipes have wicks, but most motherboards (as well as CPU coolers) specs don't mention it. I'm thinking of getting an Abit IP35 Pro and Sunbeam Tuniq Tower 120.

I guess the question is: will these two components be affected by being upside down?

Thanks
 
.........oh boy....

Welcome to the forums btw.

Motherboards cant sense what position or direction they are facing. Therefor it wont make a difference. Same thing was asked about power supplies......
 
Isn't it something to do with the fact its self enclosed and heat will just go to the other end of the heatpipe through dissipation (so?), so it doesn't matter?

Sorry, that's more of a question than an answer, but I think it's the reason 🙂
 
Originally posted by: covert24
.........oh boy....

Welcome to the forums btw.

Motherboards cant sense what position or direction they are facing. Therefor it wont make a difference. Same thing was asked about power supplies......
Click to expand...

Actually that is incorrect. It depends on the heatpipe used as to if it has a wicking mechanism or not. The cheaper (and older) heatpipes did not have this and had problems with the heat source was elevated and the cooling surface was lowered (as the fluid condensing back to the liquid state would flow in the direction of gravity). With the newer wicking heatpipes, this problem does not exist. You need to make sure whatever heatpipe using product has "wicking" heatpipes. Most items will publish if they are using heatpipes with a wicking mechanism (I know my motherboard does, Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6).
 
Originally posted by: prosser13
Isn't it something to do with the fact its self enclosed and heat will just go to the other end of the heatpipe through dissipation (so?), so it doesn't matter?

Sorry, that's more of a question than an answer, but I think it's the reason 🙂
Click to expand...

No, the heat will not simply just transfer through dissipation. While there will be some transference due to the usual copper tube, the real mechanism that moves the heat in a heatpipe is the fluid used inside the pipe. The pipe itself is not completely filled, but only partially filled with the fluid, the rest empty. This fluid is designed the be close to its boiling temperature when just above room temperature so that when it is heated, it boils and expands into a gas form. As it expands into a gas, it travels "up" the heatpipe. Typically a heatsink is attached to the other end of the pipe, which cools the expanded gasses which then condense back to liquid (and release their heat to the heatsink during the process). The condensed liquid then travels back "down" by gravity.

However, in a wicking heatpipe, the insides of the pipe are different. The tube has a material on the inside which uses capillary forces to "wick" the liquid from one end of the tube to the other so that the liquid will travel even against gravity.

For more information see:

http://www.benchtest.com/heat_pipe1.html
 
Sorry, my bad!

That's what I was thinking of, but I'm not good with terminology. It was the very last bit ("The condensed liquid then travels back "down" by gravity") which I wasn't sure about
 
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