Author Topic: PC in a Refrigerator (Read 743 times)

eskimo2 · « **on:** August 11, 2007, 07:56:40 PM »

My latest stupid idea: Put our PCs in a refrigerator in the basement.
Why? Cooling is the obvious benefit and the elimination of white noise would be a secondary benefit.

I inherited my current system in 2002; I’ve replaced everything but the case, MOBO and CPU. It lost the ability to run AH a couple years ago.
Our old machine just died two days ago; it was running Win 98 and was used daily.
I’ll be getting a new PC soon, what I get depends partially on where I put it. Our living room has a built in desk/cabinet running the length of the room. Both PCs have lived under the desk against a wall for years. The knee area of the desk was a sweatbox until I cut a hole in the floor and mounted a big heppafilter to the basement ceiling. The heppafilter fan pumps clean cool air from the basement into the desk PC area cavity. The PCs temperatures dropped 15 degrees and they stayed a lot cleaner on the inside. Our house is not air conditioned and this room gets very hot in the middle of the summer. The air blasting through the floor is pretty noisy; it almost smothers the noise made by the six fans mounted in the surviving machine.

I’ve toyed around with the idea of mounting both PCs in the basement and running the wires up through the floor and desk. This would help the PCs run cooler, eliminate all white noise, create more knee room and make the place look less cluttered. I would have to get at least one external CD/DVD burner and figure out a way to hard reboot on/off button from upstairs. Usually the PCs are always running, but they would be bound to lock up at times.

My thinking is: if I’m going to do that, why don’t I mount a small refrigerator to the upper wall downstairs, cut a wire hole in the top of it and put the PCs inside?
My first thought was that condensation would form and foul everything up; but now I’m thinking that things get moist in refrigerators because wet things dry out. With no food inside, would it dew up?

If condensation isn’t an issue, will it even be effective at keeping the PCs cool? Do refrigerators create enough cold to offset the heat generated by two PCs? If not the refrigerator would become an oven.

Plan B would be to set both PCs on a high shelf and position a window air conditioning unit next to them, blasting onto them. The outside part of the air conditioner would be creating as much heat as the cool side would be cooling; the net loss gain of heat for the room would be zero, but there would be a cool spot.

john9001 · « **Reply #1 on:** August 11, 2007, 08:03:07 PM »

what about one of the dorm sized fridges? That sounds like a good idea, keep my PC and beer cold at the same time.

Meatwad · « **Reply #2 on:** August 11, 2007, 08:29:13 PM »

Until you spill your beer

Speed55 · « **Reply #3 on:** August 11, 2007, 08:39:53 PM »

http://www.air-n-water.com/portable-air-conditioners.htm

Why not buy something like that for your room, if you can't install a normal window unit. Get a piece of plexiglass to fit the window size, then cut a hole out the size of the exhaust. You'd probably want to insulate the condenser exhaust pipe on the outside too because they generate heat.

The refrigerator idea is pretty interesting too. I doubt you'd get condensation in the computer boxes, but you might. You could always take the door off, extend the floor a bit with a plank for the pc's, and put a fan on the fridge floor to blow onto the comps but i don't know how effecient that would be.

eskimo2 · « **Reply #4 on:** August 11, 2007, 08:44:56 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Speed55
http://www.air-n-water.com/portable-air-conditioners.htm

Why not buy something like that for your room, if you can't install a normal window unit. Get a piece of plexiglass to fit the window size, then cut a hole out the size of the exhaust. You'd probably want to insulate the condenser exhaust pipe on the outside too because they generate heat.

The refrigerator idea is pretty interesting too. I doubt you'd get condensation in the computer boxes, but you might. You could always take the door off, extend the floor a bit with a plank for the pc's, and put a fan on the fridge floor to blow onto the comps but i don't know how effecient that would be.

I've got a big old window unit just sitting in the shed, a cheap dorm fridge might work as well.

bj229r · « **Reply #5 on:** August 11, 2007, 08:45:23 PM »

I bet ya would get some condensation on mobo where hot meets cold--run into such things alot in my business. DO get where you're comin from tho, fan noise from a gaming computer is LOUD--mine is in a den-sorta thing outside MBR, I cant sleep if it on

Roscoroo · « **Reply #6 on:** August 12, 2007, 12:54:17 AM »

my pc at work is on water with a radiator sitting in the freezer . it only has a single 120 mm fan to keep the hd's and interior case temp down. condensation is pritty much nil .

as for putting the pc in a fridge ,you would still have to cool it and keep air flow moving over the parts , it would be generating alot of heat and over working the fridge ... plus the condensation when its shut down , you would need a moisture free environment .

LePaul · « **Reply #7 on:** August 12, 2007, 01:03:11 AM »

Check out the archives out to TomsHardware, they usually have a monthly piece on computer cooling. Be it case, CPU coolers, etc...its worth a look.

As others mentioned, your real enemy with what you suggest will be the condesation. Moisture is bad inside electronics

MrRiplEy[H] · « **Reply #8 on:** August 12, 2007, 02:44:17 AM »

Condensation happens on the fridge walls where hot air meets cold - not vice versa.

moot · « **Reply #9 on:** August 12, 2007, 05:19:29 AM »

An oil bath setup would take care of both heat and noise, I think.

FiLtH · « **Reply #10 on:** August 12, 2007, 10:06:13 AM »

Condensation will drip all over it, and the constant heat will cause the fridge to run continuously, so plenty of noise from that.

Ripsnort · « **Reply #11 on:** August 12, 2007, 10:12:27 AM »

Not a PC in a fridge...but a PC thru a fridge. Not a bad idea if you don't plan on re-arranging your room now and then.

http://pcdb.overclockers.com.au/pic.php?pic=mred32_8.jpg

eagl · « **Reply #12 on:** August 12, 2007, 12:22:53 PM »

I think condensation would be a problem in the long run.

You might be better off going with water cooling. You may need a strong pump to handle the extra hose length, but you can run the cooling lines down to a big radiator in the basement. That way the cooler basement air is helping cool the radiator. You could eliminate pretty much all of the fan noise in your computers (you probably want to keep one quiet fan just to circulate a small amount of air over the motherboard and hard drives) and you could keep the computers up where you are working. Almost all the heat would get dumped down into the basement. A fan on the radiator would be necessary if it's not a huge radiator, but it's down in the basement so the fan noise wouldn't bug you.

Water cooling sounds like a whole lot better idea than using a fridge... Condensation will occur anytime the room air contacts any surface that is cooled below the dew point so every time you open the fridge, you're letting warm moist air into the fridge and that means you WILL get some condensation on everything that is being cooled by the fridge.

An alternate method would be instead of the hepa filter and blower, put a small room AC unit in the basement and run the cool air up through that hole in the floor. It wouldn't be cold enough to cause condensation and the AC noise would be down in the basement. Of course, it'll drive your electricity costs up.

Overall you're probably best off just going with water cooling. There are tons of kits out there now that should make it fairly simple to water cool your entire computer, including cpu, vid card, and even mobo chipset and hard drive if you want to eliminate all case fans. I'd personally just water cool the cpu and vid card, and leave one large/slow/quiet fan blowing air over the hard drives and to help out the psu fan. PSU fans should be quiet too. If your psu is noisy, get a better one. Seasonic PSUs are very high quality and are very quiet.

kamilyun · « **Reply #13 on:** August 12, 2007, 12:50:14 PM »

Just thinking about this quickly...I don't think condensation will be a problem, or you could make it not a problem. Here's how/why:

1. If you give EVERYTHING in the computer a good cleaning and use surgical/latex gloves when assembling it, there should be no sweat/salt/electrolytes on your computer components. When you put it in the fridge, even if there is condensation on it, pure water is not a very good conductor. So it "should not" be a problem.

2. Put it in the freezer!

Even if you get condensation on it, ice is an even worse conductor! You could even put it inside an extra large Ziplock freezer bag

3. If the refrigerator is only for the computer, you shouldn't be opening and closing it much, so no condensation would work it's way in. If worried about it, then put a bunch of moisture absorbing material in it (think you can by solid, disposable moisture absorbent at most hardware stores).

Sound's like a great idea! Send pictures!

Edit: conductivity measurements...

pure water: 0.055 µS/cm ocean water: 53 mS/cm That's a factor of almost 100 million.
I think you're safe if everything is clean before you put it in.

bj229r · « **Reply #14 on:** August 12, 2007, 12:52:07 PM »

can you guarantee NO moisture in the air? If ya live in Arizona mebbe....