Posted 10/27/08 at 05:54:41 PM by Andy Salisbury

Straight out of the “not as awesome as it sounds” file, Intel is looking to cool your laptop with the exact same technology that a jet engine does. The issue of burning legs (that’s right, burning legs) has been an issue on the mind of Intel for some time now, and they’re looking to soothe that with their latest breakthrough.

Intel has been focusing on the increasing issue of hot thighs with something called Laminar Flow. Laminar Flow occurs when a fluid or gas/air flows in parallel layers, allowing a non-turbulent way to misdirect hot air away from the surface of a jet engine (or laptop). As demonstrated, this technology allows efficient cooling of temperatures upwards of 1,000 °C.

A demo of this technology was given at this week’s Intel developer forum in Taiwan by Mooly Eden, Intel’s head of Mobile Platforms Group. “We are licensing it to our customers so they can keep making thinner and thinner laptops,” said Eden.

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2

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intel, cooling, laptops, hardware, notebooks, Jet Engine, Laminar Flow

Posted 10/14/08 at 12:00:00 PM by Will Smith

We love to have tons of cool electronics hooked up to the big living room TV -- who doesn’t? But, if you’re like us, your significant other is less keen on seeing all that awesome black plastic and shiny metal, and you probably did the same thing we did: Went out and bought an overpriced, crappy piece of mass-produced furniture that has doors. Doors! And what do those doors do? They create hot pockets of electronics-killing heat that will shorten the life of our precious gear. All to keep the wife happy.

Fear not, heat haters. We put the Maximum PC brain trust to work in assembling a quick, quiet, and easy cooling solution for, well, just about any cabinet you’re willing to cut a hole in. We tested our solution with two of the hottest pieces of hardware we could find: an Xbox 360 and an AppleTV. With both boxed turned on, and with the door closed, the internal temperature of the cabinet quickly hit 130F. But after we mounted our heat-triggered fan, we saw the internal temperatures hovering a scant degree or two above room temperature. Want to find out how we did it? Hit the jump!

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30

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cooling, fan, hardware, hack, htpc, blowhole, overheat

Posted 10/03/08 at 04:15:39 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

SSD’s are hot, but how do you mount your new 2.5-inch solid state drive  in a 3.5-inch bay without it looking ghettolicious?

The answer: Use a VelociRaptor’s extruded aluminum shell with Intel’s wicked fast SSD. The result is one a combination even better than peanut butter and chocolate if we may so say our selves.

Does it make sense to do this with a live VelociRaptor? Probably not, but we just happened to have a dead unit and rather than toss it in the garbage, we shucked out the dead drive by removing the four Torqx screws and mounted the Intel X25-M in its place. You can actually do this with a live VelociRaptor but you’ll immediately void the warranty on the drive. Does an SSD need all that aluminum to keep it cool? The answer is no, but it sure looks cool, right?

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8

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intel, cooling, mod, hardware, ssd, velociraptor, solid state drive

Posted 08/07/08 at 02:00:00 PM by David Murphy

Given its small size, we didn’t expect maximum cooling performance from Arctic Cooling’s Alpine 7 Pro. And while the Alpine 7 Pro doesn’t set any performance records, in some situations it does match the capabilities of our cooler of choice, Thermaltake’s DuOrb. Given the sheer size difference between this 9x9x3cm cooler and the, well, monstrous DuOrb, the Alpine 7’s performance was a pleasant surprise.

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3

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cooling, hardware, air cooler, build-a-pc, alpine

Posted 07/19/08 at 09:12:56 PM by Paul Lilly

Relative newcomer Danamic looks to jump into the increasingly crowded CPU cooler market with a heatsink of its own, but this isn't like any other cooler you've seen before. Rather than rely on air, water, or phase-change cooling, Dynamic's new LM10 heatsink uses liquid metal, and according to the company, it's the world's first commercially available CPU cooler to do so.

That might be true, but liquid metal isn't an entirely new concept when it comes to cooling processors. Coollaboratory used to market the metalic goo as a thermal paste (Liquid Pro) and now sells a thermal pad it calls Liquid MetalPad aimed at both PC and console owners. Danamic's solution differs in that it's not a paste, but a fully-fledged heatsink solution. A multi-string electromagnetic pump sits atop the LM10 and pushes the liquid metal through a series of heatpipes without using any moving parts. Judging by the available pictures, the LM10 doesn't come with a fan, which would explain why the company can claim a power draw of less than 1W.

No word yet on pricing or availability, which means there aren't any hands-on reviews in the wild either. Have any expectations for this new cooler? Post them below.

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17

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cooling, cpu, processor, Cooler, hardware, build a pc, liquid metal, danamics

Posted 07/11/08 at 07:33:48 PM by David Murphy

We never said water cooling was simple, and Cooler Master’s Aquagate Max doesn’t make the delicate assembly process any easier. But once you connect your last run of 3/8-inch tubing to this beastly setup, you’ll have accomplished two goals: doubling your geek cred and giving your processor an awesome heap of non-peltier cooling.

Hit the jump for delicious info on this ESA-enabled monster.

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0

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cooling, water cooling, Cooler Master, hardware, reviews, build a pc, aquagate max

Posted 07/01/08 at 01:27:53 PM by Chris Moody

Researchers at Purdue University are working on a miniature refrigeration system small enough to fit inside laptops and personal computers.  Their research focuses on how to design miniature compressors and evaporators, which are needed for refrigeration systems. Depending on how effective and reliable these systems can be made will determine their actual usability. They could very well suffer from the same trouble as Peltier coolers, which is price and condensation.

We’ll have to stick with conventional PC cooling techniques for awhile. The findings will be detailed in two papers being presented during the 12th International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference and the 19th International Compressor Engineering Conference on July 14-17 at Purdue. It has to be better than spraying your PC with upside-down canned air.

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cooling, hardware, peltier, purdue

Posted 04/18/08 at 01:50:25 AM by Tom Edwards

Tom, Gordon, Dave, and Andy get together to talk about online security and Microsoft's latest marketing move. We also answer your tech questions and poke Gordon with a stick to get him extra angry for this week's rant.

Subscribe: http://feeds.feedburner.com/maximumpc/1337

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vista, microsoft, cooling, blogs, No BS Podcast, laptops, videocards, online security