[luau] Underclocking / Aluminum cases

MonMotha monmotha at indy.rr.com
Thu Jul 4 13:04:00 PDT 2002


Steel is probably ons of the worst materials for a heatsink precisely 
for the reason you gave: it doesn't move heat well.  For a heatsink, the 
objective is to MOVE heat (this is why people with lots of heat to move 
LOVE peltiers).

Remember, fans actually MAKE heat, but the reason they help cooling is 
because they move the air around.  This means that the hot air resulting 
from the transfer of heat away from the sink is evacuated quickly and 
cool air is brought in.  Again, larger delta T means faster heat transfer.

--MonMotha

Joe Linux wrote:
> We've sort of beat this subject to death, but I think what we are 
> looking for is a material that will quickly move the heat away from the 
> source (processor chip) and then quickly give it up to the air.  My gut 
> feeling is that copper "holds" heat. whereas steel tends to give it up. 
> I used to build custom marine refrigeration systems and it seems to me 
> that when you solder a copper tube, the heat stays with it longer, 
> whereas with steel the heat doesn't travel the tube as much.  It tends 
> to stay at the heat source and then cool down more quickly once the 
> flame is removed.  It may have been said before, but the idea behind 
> fins is that they greatly increase the surface area and thus give up 
> more heat to the air.  Actually fans always improve cooling.  The issue 
> Wayne has is that he wants to eliminate the fan noise.  Perhaps another 
> approach would be to continue with a fan in a case with good ducting but 
> concentrate on the noise reduction of the fans.  It could be that these 
> fans have resonate frequencies that are sympathetic with the case so 
> it's possible that some sound deadening material applied to the outside 
> of the case could greatly improve the situation.
>




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