CPU Liquid cooled by freezer? good idea?

Good idea?
I'm not sure what to say because you're idea of a "good idea" (leaving the window open in Alaska) obviously differs from mine.

You do not specify the PURPOSE of overclocking which I assume is just for fun, so in that case knock yourself out but other than fun I don't see much practical benefit.

The crazier you get with cooling solutions, the more likely you are to damage your computer though.

There are ways of running sub-ambient coolant temperatures, and the use of a refrigerator isnt a good one.
Most fridges aren't designed to deal with a constant heat source, especially one as powerful as a computer. The cooling mechanism in the fridge would eventually just burn out.

However, there are sustainable ways to cool the water down using Peltier Plates, also known as TEC's. Basically two plates of dissimilar metal put together, and when you run a current through it, one side gets hot and the other side goes cold. Have some way of cooling the hot side, and stick a CPU water block on the cold side and you have yourself cold water.
Heres a build log that explores how sub-ambient cooling can be done (using ice and then Peltiers), and another that just outright explains how to use Peltiers.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/275185-29-exploring-ambient-water-cooling
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/282844-29-peltier-water-cooling

The resident expert on this topic, 4Ryan6, will no doubt show up soon with such an intriguing title :lol:.

First off I wanna say sorry I can't help with knowledge about the freezing a water cooled loop other than, I'd guess with enough antifreeze in it so it doesn't freeze solid, you'd be fine doing it. If you have an extra freezer layin' around, then I'd say go for it, worse that can happen is you don't like the temps you get and maybe ruin a nice system, but I'd think if you take it slow, it'd be fine. Also, you'd need a good sized pump to keep the water circulating through a good sized rig. You might be able to refrigerate your whole rig. Wireless Keyboard/mouse/internet means you only need power in and video out. Something to think about at least. Keep your video card cool too if that's not on your loop, also, if you're gonna cool the water in the freezer, I don't think you'd need or want the radiator/s. I think that's as much input as I have...

Second, and more importantly, I live in FL and have been on the same route as you, keeping my windows open in winter so that it stays cool in my room. I'd love to live in AK. I hear the music scene out there is pretty awesome.

This. Also? That tech is bloody awesome. I love computer nerds.

Wouldn't drilling holes in the side of a freezer just breach the insulation, and ensure it failed to keep -anything- cool?

I agree with the guy that said you're likely to kill the pump though. You're going to heat up the cooling liquid and force the pump on the freezer to run continuously.

I assume you don't want to actually use the freezer for anything else as you'll raise the temperature.

I'm not saying don't do it but the PUMP NOISE is likely to be greater than the noise you'd get with a $100 H110 water cooler. Sure you may cool it better but I wouldn't want to use that long term.

I'm also unsure how long the hoses can be. A water cooling pump is designed with specific lengths in mind because the amount of force required increases with the length of the hoses and how elevated they are.

Not really, the length of the tubing has little impact in regards to your pump. Restriction in the blocks is a much bigger concern.
However the length of your tubing does matter since you running a chilled loop. The more tubing you have, the more of the cold will be lost to the air even if you insulate them.

The PUMP SPECIFICATIONS will state the recommended tubing length.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cooling/2007/08/22/watercooling_101/5

*When I said length could be significant (height more so) it's because I didn't know how far he planned to run the tubing. In a normal PC build the small length difference is minor, but imagine if the tubing went a total of 20 or more feet and also up a height of three feet to a desk. The pump might not handle it.

Just read the PUMP SPECIFICATIONS for the tubing length, thickness and the recommended height difference if you can find those details.

Part of the "good idea" issue begs the question WHY are you doing this?

If it's just to learn, then practical experience is fine even if you make mistakes (I learn more from solving problems, thank you Microsoft... ). Anyway, if you do everything properly and it works you can cool your CPU a bit more and get a better overclock likely but again what's the point?

If it's for GAMING, then it likely won't make much difference as other bottlenecks (GPU) are likely to exist so overclocking the CPU won't matter much.

So, very interesting thread but you should really ask "good idea" slightly differently as you simply don't state WHY you're doing this so it's hard to answer.

I suspect your question is more like this:
"I'm overclocking the CPU, why is not relevant, I just want to know if there would be any major issues by using a freezer. Comments?"

So here's my comment to that:
For a lot of hassle you may get a better stable overclock though it's difficult to say how much better over your existing water cooling setup. I suspect the freezer pump will work overtime and may fail. Any food in the freezer is likely to go above it's proper temperature so I can't recommend using a freezer. The PUMP on the freezer will also add NOISE.

But, again if you're determined to do it then it seems possible. Not necessarily a "good idea" to me, but possible. Have fun!

Radiator:
There are ways to improve your current setup likely (not sure of your exact setup):

1) Larger/better radiator
2) Fans in push/pull

For example, the Corsair H110 supports TWO fans. By adding an additional two fans on the other side this can make a fairly big difference in cooling.

So it's not just about LIQUID TEMPERATURE but also about how well the heat can exhaust. This brings us back to the freezer which is not designed to exhaust heat quickly so I question how efficient this will be. My guess is that it could start out with good cooling but quickly warm up to the point that the freezer can't exhaust the heat any quicker; at this point your temperatures will rise and stabilize somewhere (no idea where).

It might work if, instead of using it to remove hit, you use it to chill the water.

Basically you'd have a LARGE reservoir, with a large radiator setup before it. The hot water comes from the CPU, dumps some of its heat out of the radiator, and flows into the reservoir. From there, the water gets pumped through a cooling coil in the freezer, and is then pumped directly to the CPU.


Though this would be the most practical solution, it still isn't practical - after an extended amount of time, depending on the water reserve, the entire water supply would have its temperature raised significantly, thus increasing the amount of heat the freezer has to deal with instead of having it simply trying to cool ambient temperature water.

"It might work if, instead of using it to remove hit, you use it to chill the water."

But that's exactly the same thing.

Coldness is the absence of heat. All a freezer does is remove heat until the appropriate temperature is reached. Any heat added by the CPU has to be exhausted by the freezer.

The other issue with it is, of course that of any sub-ambient cooling - how are you going to deal with the issue of condensation?

I think I slightly misunderstood your above comment about removing heat.

I think he already stated that he's using a PC radiator that will exhaust heat which I believe is what you're getting at. However, that wouldn't remove all the heat so the freezer would still get warmer.

Other:
Linux from NCIX did a really cool (groan) video comparing several PC cooling solutions. There were at least three:
1) High-end air cooling (NH-D14 ?)
2) Corsair H110
3) Corsair H110 with four fans (push-pull, two each side)

The important point I wish to make is that by simply adding two fans to remove heat more quickly his cooling improved. So even if you have a PC radiator AND the freezer's built-in radiator you'll still be limited by how effective the radiators are.

*Even if you can set the freezer to sub-zero temperatures, if its radiator can't remove heat quickly enough the temperature will steadily climb and may not end up being very effective once things stabilize. I would suspect the freezer method would be INFERIOR to a good PC water-cooling setup. If you're SUPPLEMENTING an existing setup you'll obvious remove more heat, I just don't think it will be effective once it heats up.

I'm still not sure if he intends to use the freezer. His food would be ruined if he did, and if he does NOT use the freezer except for the PC cooling then it seems a big waste of space.

Ahh, no, yes, I wasn't particularly clear.

The way I see it, using a freezer in a water-cooling setup would give you two options:

1) Have the hot water coming off the CPU be chilled by the freezer. This is horribly impractical, and would kill the freezer right quick.

2) Have the somewhat-closer-to-ambient temperature water coming from the reservoir, being chilled, and being pumped to the CPU. This would work BETTER, but there would still be issues, mostly with condensation of using a below-ambient cooling system within the computer itself, and with keeping the freezer and reservoir from overheating, even with radiators in the loop.

If the freezer, pump, and PC radiator are all in the same loop then the freezer will still absorb the same heat (whatever the PC radiator doesn't eliminate) but I'm not completely sure of what you mean (or him).

I believe his plan was to have TWO loops:
Loop#1: pump, CPU waterblock, PC radiator, PC reservoir
Loop#2: pump, CPU waterblock, freezer reservoir

I may be wrong. I thought he had dual inputs to the water-block and was going to run his normal water-cooling system, then turn valves on for the freezer loop.

I see several issues such as splitting the pump pressure into two loops. If he adds another pump to offset this then noise increases. Plus the freezer pump will kick in as well anway.

Cool thread, but I'm just not seeing this working well. The BEST CASE scenario might be to supplement with a freezer partially filled with sealed blocks of ice but again it's far noisier, difficult to set up, and makes the freezer unusable for food.

*Since we're talking crazy, why not just dump the entire PC into a suitable oil to dissipate heat? It can actually work, but I recommend that far less than the freezer..

(as for the OPEN WINDOW in Winter-time. Um... If you really have to this way the do this:
1) Open the window part way
2) Insert a board with a FAN to exhaust heat
3) Find a large flexible tube to run to your PC
4) Attach this to the PC exhaust from the CPU RADIATOR

The main difficulty would be finding a suitable tube and attaching the end to the PC. All the CPU's heat would go outside and not raise the room temperature which would increase the CPU cooling though I have no idea how much difference it would make.

You could also improve this by splitting the tube and connecting to another exhaust for the main PC to suck out more heat (graphics card, motherboard chipset, RAM etc.) The important things would be to create a good seal, and ensure that both ends of the tube have similar exhaust flow rates. Since the PC end should be temperature controlled, and the windows end likely can't be you won't achieve this exactly, but make the best effort.

**I'M DONE NOW. I'VE TALKED FAR TOO MUCH**

Doesnt matter how many fans you have or the radiators performance, you wont get below ambient temperatures, which the point of this whole endeavor I think.

I think at this point, using the freezer as the sole means of cooling down the water isnt an option. The most use I can see it doing is to act as a sudden burst of cooling performance. Set a big overclock, switch over to the chilled water from the freezer, get the CPU-Z validation and switch back to the radiator.