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When the temps are in the single digits or lower - anyone ever tempted to put their pc outside and overclock it to hell?

D

DEredita

Senior member

The temp lastnight was 7 degrees (F) outside - and I was thinking of the I wonder how it would run if I put the CPU outside and ran sick overclock on it.

Anyone ever do something like this? Would be interesting to see what the CPU temps would be with the wind blowing (windchills of -11 F) directly on the CPU.



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I used to know a guy that would build custom PC's by taking a mini fridge, modifiying it into a PC case, installing all the components in it (except for the obvious monitor, keyboard and mouse), OC'ing the crap out of it and selling them for ungodly amounts of money. They seemed to work fine, I just wonder what the extreme cold did to the components that didn't heat up enough to offset the low temps over time.

*edited for spelling*
 
Originally posted by: DEredita

The temp lastnight was 7 degrees (F) outside - and I was thinking of the I wonder how it would run if I put the CPU outside and ran sick overclock on it.

Anyone ever do something like this? Would be interesting to see what the CPU temps would be with the wind blowing (windchills of -11 F) directly on the CPU.



.
Click to expand...

Then you would get to experience the effects of condensation on your components...
 
^ Beat me by a second. Humidity and low air temps = water dripping down your motherboard. Building a PC into a fridge is insane if that's actually true.
 
Hmm in theory it seems like it would work, provided that the components didn't leech salt or any other electrolyte into the condensation that sits on the components. Pure water does not conduct electricity and the water would probably be pretty clean before condensing...
 
Not good for your hard drives to be operated that cold. Trivia item: if you get a hard drive that's been on a cold UPS or FedEx truck, you should let it acclimate for a couple of days before you use it. Quantum used to have a chart showing how long a HDD should acclimate after it got down to various temperatures.
 
Outside like that is a bad idea. If the fridge had a temp adjustment method, then you could run the fridge at 45-55 F instead of a 72 F room temperature and depending on the amount of heat generated, condensation should be prevented, but it really depends on many factors.
 
Right, so you'd need some way to first pump steam through the interior of the fridge to get out the dirty air water and replace it with a cleaner version.

I was googling computer fridges and it seems like some people got it to work quite effectively.
 
There was a guy who did this a couple of years ago (maybe during the Celeron 300A days) who put his computer, without case, outside on a window sill and put a big fan on it. I think he was someone in like Minnesota or Alaska and he was able to overclock well with that. An alternative would be to run your watercooler setup outdoors. Let the cold outside cool your refrigerant material and use that to overclock your PC. You can keep your PC inside, you just have to have lines running outside to the radiator.

 
There would be no condensation so long as warm air were not able to reach the PC. The air outside when it is this cold has low water content. When it hits the warmer pc components, the opposite of condensation would occur.

Condensation is only a problem for indoor phase change cooled pcs because warm air inside has a dew point above the temperature of phase change cooled components.
 
Originally posted by: Arcex
I used to know a guy that would build custom PC's by taking a mini fridge, modifiying it into a PC case, installing all the components in it (except for the obvious monitor, keyboard and mouse), OC'ing the crap out of it and selling them for ungodly amounts of money. They seemed to work fine, I just wonder what the extreme cold did to the components that didn't heat up enough to offset the low temps over time.

*edited for spelling*
Click to expand...

I call Shens.

What did he do when about the water condensation?
 
I honestly don't know, this was a few years ago when I was living in Massachusetts, I never thought of it. I never saw a condensation problem when I was looking at the ones he built though. I can ask my buddy up north to try to get a hold of the guy to find out, now you got me wondering. I'll let you know.
 
Couldn't get a hold of my buddy but this link might answer some questions.

I guess the answer is electronic sealant and an air tight case.
 
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