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1 2 3 NextOctober 5, 2003 by Fred Mah
This fanless CPU cooling project is an exercise in logical design and simple execution using available technologies. It is far from simplistic. Fred Mah's fanless heatpipe cooled CPU system shows us a new approach to integrated system design that opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities. The cooling power of his system is nothing short of impressive. His project is a valuable contribution to the SPCR information "coffers".
Fred, btw, is a mechanical engineer who designs and manufactures various types of products and components, mainly for the audio industry. This probably helps to explain the resources accessed to have the various parts fabricated. Thank you, Fred! - Mike Chin, Editor / Publisher
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Much effort has been made in recent years to minimize noise generated
by CPU cooling fans, a fact that has been demonstrated by the popularity
of variable and low speed fans coupled with efficient CPU heatsink
designs. Even with the adjustable fans generating lower noise at
lower speeds, the main noise sources in a computer system are fans
and hard drives. Therefore, the best way to eliminate the noise
is to remove these sources. As it is impractical to get rid of
the hard drives, it seems like a good idea to cool the CPU without a
fan. After looking at products based on heatpipe
technology, such as Zalman's graphics card coolers, I felt it would be
a good idea to try passive CPU cooling utilizing heatpipes.
HEATPIPES
Heatpipes are capable of transferring a large amount of heat per a given
volume of working fluid due to the phase change that takes place.
Inside of a heatpipe is a liquid under low pressure (or vacuum) that
boils into vapor when it absorbs heat. This vapor then condenses
back into liquid at the cooler surfaces of the heatpipe and releases the
heat. So the concept here is to draw the heat from the CPU into
one end of the heatpipe, while putting the other end of the heatpipe in
contact with a larger heatsink to expel the heat into the air. (Editor's note: In layman's terms, it's sort of like watercooling without the pump. Here is a thorough, accessible explanation of heatpipes, by Thermacore.)
DESIGN
After studying what was done with other passive CPU cooling projects by experimenters like bluehat1 and numano3,
I determined that placing the heatsink on the opposite side of the
motherboard would be the best configuration:
- This would allow the
creation of a case, or modification of an existing case, that could
support the motherboard and heatsink in a way that wouldn't obstruct the
motherboard components.
- It would also not limit the size of the
heatsink that could be used.
- This was also optimal for placement
of the heatpipes, since they would be used as the bridge between the
CPU and the large heatsink.
- Additionally, a good amount of heat
would be carried to the outside of a case design with this
configuration.
PARTS
At the beginning of the project, I purchased the following components for the heart of the
system, chosen mainly on the basis of cost:
-- AMD Athlon 1700+
(Thoroughbred) - about $50
-- Shuttle AN35N Ultra motherboard: The least expensive nVidia nForce2 motherboard with the four heatsink mounting holes that I came
across. It also had passive chipset cooling and cost around $80.
-- Heatsink: I happened to have a sample piece of aluminum heatsink extrusion that
seemed large enough for the passive cooling job. The dimensions
are 9 7/8" wide by 12" long by 1 5/16" tall. In order to see if
this would do the job, I had to look at the range of heat that the CPU
would be generating.
From the highly useful Processor Electrical Spec
web page by Chris Hare,
it can be seen that AMD's Athlon XP family of processors go up to 2.2 GHz in the
3200+ model which generates approximately 80 W of heat maximum. The 1700+ on hand dissipates about 50 W maximum.
The thermal
resistance for natural convection of the heatsink was known to be 0.91 °C/W for a 3 inch piece. According to a technical document
at Wakefield Engineering's website, the thermal resistance would
decrease by half if the length of the part were increased by four
times. Therefore, the 12 inch long extrusion should have a natural
convection thermal resistance of 0.455 °C/W. In an ideal
situation with no thermal losses between the CPU and the heatsink, this would mean that dissipating 80 W of heat would leave
the CPU at a temperature of 36.4°C higher than ambient. So
for a 25 °C (77 °F) room temperature, this would be a CPU
temperature of 61.4 °C (142.5 °F). The maximum allowable
CPU die temperature for a 3200+ Athlon is 85 °C, so the thermal resistance of this heatsink is theoretically sufficient for any Althlon XP processor available at this time.
A design concept was drawn up in Solidworks, and from this the
dimensions for the heatpipes, copper blocks, large heatsink mounting
holes, and test rig were determined. The idea was to have a
minimalist test rig to quickly build and test the performance of this
cooling system. I had the sheet metal stand portion fabricated and
spray painted it with white primer to prevent rust.
Solidworks
drawing of the proposed test rig
-- Heatpipes: Two 6 mm heatpipes were obtained from
AVC America as an initial design
sample. (AVC's main web site:
http://www.avc.com.tw/index2.html). The idea was to evaluate the performance of the heatpipes
for commercial applications. I did not know what kind of
performance I would be getting from two pieces.
-- Copper Blocks: Copper bar stock of 1/2" thickness was purchased and designed to fit
over the CPU using the four mounting holes on the motherboard. The
blocks were machined with suitable mounting holes and had half-pipe
grooves to fit the pipes. The large block/small block pairs were
identical at both ends, to make the machining work easier. One
large block attached to threaded holes in the big heatsink, while
springs were used to apply approximately 16 lbs of load onto the large
block mounted on the CPU die. The maximum load force for a
heatsink mounted on a Athlon XP is given as 24 lbs in
AMD
documentation. In the picture, very long screws are visible
in the mounting. These happened to be what I had available and are
a little longer than necessary. The small blocks are secured to the
larger blocks by threaded holes in the larger pieces.
Raw
copper blocks and heatpipes
Before applying thermal grease and mounting the blocks, I lapped them
down to about a 600 grit paper at the surfaces of contact. The
edges of the block were not cleaned up too much, so they look a little
rough. The area on the large heatsink that contacts the copper
block was also polished to a sufficient flatness.
Lapped
copper block surfaces
Surface
of large heatsink polished to a sufficient smoothness
The pipes were not snug, but not too loose either, and after tightening
the screws they were pretty well fixed in place. The heatpipes
were a little shorter than I was expecting, so they don't quite stick
out of the top of the copper block, as seen in the pictures below.
Before tightening the blocks down, Artic Silver 3 was applied at the
interface between the CPU die and the large copper block. Then
generic silicon grease was put on all other contact surfaces. I
didn't use AS3 since there was a fair amount of area to cover, and it
would have used a lot of the AS3.
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