# Refrigerated PC Construction



## KH0UJ (Jun 6, 2009)

Here`s my project log with pictures from day 1 to day 10 
(5 Weekends work) saturdays and sundays

My rig: http://www.techpowerup.com/gallery/2227.html


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## KH0UJ (Jun 6, 2009)

Ived used a 3/4 marine plywood on this build and cut it into my desired measurements


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## KH0UJ (Jun 6, 2009)

I assembled the box to house the 1/8 HP compressor, condenser and the fan inside and put
an aluminum screen


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## KH0UJ (Jun 6, 2009)

put all the 1/4 copper pipes and bent it properly to have a smooth free flow of refrigerant and installed the high & low side valve connectors and after that drinking time


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## KH0UJ (Jun 6, 2009)

Now my home made mini A/C is starting to form, I only used the one row of the evaporator coils on this build to ensure that i have enough back frost to the compressor to cool the compressor windings


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## KH0UJ (Jun 6, 2009)

I calibrated my capillary tube length outside first to test the refrigerant control if its perfect, 
(fine tuned several times ) Now ived made a mini heat pipe for my NB heatsink, this chip runs very hot so I added some capillary pipes and soldered both ends and place another heatsink and a small fan to it:shadedshu


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## KH0UJ (Jun 6, 2009)

Here`s my home made HT Cooler


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## KH0UJ (Jun 6, 2009)

I assembled my remote controlled thermostat and fan control on my mini A/C,
damn samsung board is very hard to re activate, it had a sensor for the input frequency (60 HZ) aside from the air flow sensor and the coil sensor, DAMMIT samsung!

but i like the polyphonic tone on this control board, its OK if its very hard to modify
as long as its precise and has a cool tone but freakin hard to modify ived taken this circuit board from a dead 18,000 BTU split type aircon and put it on my home made mini A/C


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## KH0UJ (Jun 6, 2009)

I installed everything and put a 5 Watt flourescent light bulb on the back on the evaporator(controlled by the remote control to turn on or off), and installed my newly bought (USED) 8800 Ultra and  my 12 Volt rail is dropping

I installed another modified PSU just to power the 8800 Ultra,  now i cant add anymore optical drive, just one and only one

I soldered the two 6 pin connectors directly to the PCB of the Videocard to eliminate the voltage drop on the connectors


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## afw (Jun 6, 2009)

We would like to see some temps


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## KH0UJ (Jun 6, 2009)

Im so excited on this pic that i ran it the whole day to test the stability of the mini A/C cooler without the paint and i get a cold and runny nose because it still has no front plexi glass so all the coldness is also circulating on my face:shadedshu


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## KH0UJ (Jun 6, 2009)

I only set the temp. control to 15C/59F, it can go down up to -2C if i set it to the lowest but
 everytime i breath on the front plexi glass, it forms a cloud of mist already outside the plexi glass LOL and im afraid i might fry my motherboard or fail my HDD and im a bit tight on budget bro  that`s why im sealing my PC in a case so that there`s no dust particles that will stick to it, I wanted to prolong the life of my Antique Artifact PC


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## KH0UJ (Jun 6, 2009)

Im doing this Case mod as a hobby, just to have a pass time activity, my hands get very itchy if i have no work to do, specially on weekends, my work is only 5 days so i have a free time of two days  no work, i think sleeping all day on my weekends makes me sick  now its done i need to think of something again to mod before i get bored again.


Any ideas?


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## _jM (Jun 6, 2009)

Nice little mod bro  May I ask .. what are your idle and load temps with that case sitting inside your "AC Box" ?


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## KH0UJ (Jun 6, 2009)

_jM said:


> Nice little mod bro  May I ask .. what are your idle and load temps with that case sitting inside your "AC Box" ?



CPU  22C>>>36C
System  16C>>>19C
GPU 50C>>>68C ( I dont know why my Video card is still so high, ived tried setting the A/C to 0 C but still 50 C)
GPU Board 22C>>>29C
HT LINK 39 C>>>42C
HDD 18C>>>24C

im gonna post the screen shots maybe tomorrow


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## Duxx (Jun 6, 2009)

I love it!  I don't know how looking through a plexiglass window would be, but the concept is indeed pretty nice.  good work man, and it was nice to see the start to finish without having to wait too!


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## Sir_Real (Jun 6, 2009)

Nice work. Just it would have worked better if the box was smaller & you had the monitor & the pc's psu on the outside.


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## t77snapshot (Jun 6, 2009)

KH0UJ said:


> http://img.techpowerup.org/090606/16.jpg
> I soldered the two 6 pin connectors directly to the PCB of the Videocard to eliminate the voltage drop on the connectors



Wow, this is cool. Good job.


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## Dippyskoodlez (Jun 6, 2009)

Pretty nifty, but if you can handle managing the compressor and stuff, why not try direct die chilling? 

Pretty good idea for the pare heatsink/heatpipe thing lol! At first I thought you had just taken the door off a fridge, and put a PC inside... but this is way way more effective.


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## Arrakis9 (Jun 6, 2009)

subscribed to this thread


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## HellasVagabond (Jun 6, 2009)

Thats a mini AC ? This thing looks huge 
Nice mod but is it really worth it ? The temperatures dont really look so low.


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## 1Kurgan1 (Jun 6, 2009)

Looks interesting, but I gotta ask, why is the monitor on the inside of the plexi glass, or the tower. I assume the tower is because moisture?


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## KH0UJ (Jun 7, 2009)

*Temperature Readings*

















The first pic is the start-up, turn on my PC and turn ON the split type mini A/C
The second is after 3 hours of downloading movie trailer of the Transformers
The third is after playing Call of Duty World @ War Game, I got killed by a suicide (BANSAI) attack


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## Studabaker (Jun 7, 2009)

Those core temps are AMAZING.

I once (years ago) asked people if I could take off the door of my mini-fridge and put it directly next to my PC case, but they said condensation would form and fry everything


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## HammerON (Jun 7, 2009)

Cool idea
I like the creative thinking~


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## KH0UJ (Jun 7, 2009)

I installed an external Power button Switch to power ON/OFF the PC so that I dont always open the plexi glass door, to minimize the dust particles entering my ANTIQUE PC 

My mini A/C remote control, powers up my mini cooler and background lights wirelessly

here is a pic at the back of my evaporator (5W flourescent Lights)


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## KH0UJ (Jun 7, 2009)

Here`s the inside view of the external case ived made  my hand`s chilling
lights on and lights off, this is the final view of my pass time hobby


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## Chicken Patty (Jun 7, 2009)

I must say this was brilliant.  You did a great job


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## KH0UJ (Jun 7, 2009)

Studabaker said:


> Those core temps are AMAZING.
> 
> I once (years ago) asked people if I could take off the door of my mini-fridge and put it directly next to my PC case, but they said condensation would form and fry everything



now im confused with the CPU temps. where do we base our CPU temps.? there are 3 CPU temps on the hardware monitor software, CPU TIN? or core temps?


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## KH0UJ (Jun 7, 2009)

Dippyskoodlez said:


> Pretty nifty, but if you can handle managing the compressor and stuff, why not try direct die chilling?
> 
> Pretty good idea for the pare heatsink/heatpipe thing lol! At first I thought you had just taken the door off a fridge, and put a PC inside... but this is way way more effective.



I wonder if i can bro but im afraid of the condensation frying my motherboard
I think im gonna try it soon but not on this build, ive got a P4 back-up over here, maybe ill give it a try  the problem is its a gateway motherboard, I have no option to overclock it, it can only run on stock speeds all the time


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## KH0UJ (Jun 7, 2009)

1Kurgan1 said:


> Looks interesting, but I gotta ask, why is the monitor on the inside of the plexi glass, or the tower. I assume the tower is because moisture?



NO its just one of the ways to waste power bill  no just kidding dude, honestly i dont want my monitor and my PC to be contaminated with dust nor gets hotter to prolong its life,
i cant afford another set-up like this if this one fails sooner although its already obsolete to you guys but for me its still a lot <<<money a bit tight


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## AsRock (Jun 7, 2009)

KH0UJ said:


> CPU  22C>>>36C
> System  16C>>>19C
> GPU 50C>>>68C ( I dont know why my Video card is still so high, ived tried setting the A/C to 0 C but still 50 C)
> GPU Board 22C>>>29C
> ...




I think the high GPU and HDD temps are coursed by less air movement.. As it looks like you have loads near the CPU but not the GPU or HDD. And i mean high as you would think they be much lower..  So just pass a lot of air past them as that will freshen the air around them more often which makes me think it will cool them much better.

Any chance you can fit like a 80mm under the v card blowing outword though the slots at the back of the case ?. Thinking that would help to keep the cooler well cooler.

And more in take on the bottom of the case too.

Which i think also explains this GPU Board 22C>>>29C as the fans there above with CPU and case fan cooling it as it has more air flow.

Very nice work well done .


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## KH0UJ (Jun 7, 2009)

AsRock said:


> I think the high GPU and HDD temps are coursed by less air movement.. As it looks like you have loads near the CPU but not the GPU or HDD. And i mean high as you would think they be much lower..  So just pass a lot of air past them as that will freshen the air around them more often which makes me think it will cool them much better.
> 
> Any chance you can fit like a 80mm under the v card blowing outword though the slots at the back of the case ?. Thinking that would help to keep the cooler well cooler.
> 
> ...



Ived tested it with a powerful 110VAC 4X4 blower fan, but still the GPU temp. will not go down, I touched the side heatsink of the GPU  its chilled already, I bought it used though, any chance that this one had a busted sensor? or maybe ill relapped it again with a new thermal paste? im not really sure on the history of this GPU, i bought it cheap cause its been used already


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## AsRock (Jun 7, 2009)

KH0UJ said:


> Ived tested it with a powerful 110VAC 4X4 blower fan, but still the GPU temp. will not go down, I touched the side heatsink of the GPU  its chilled already, I bought it used though, any chance that this one had a busted sensor? or maybe ill relapped it again with a new thermal paste? im not really sure on the history of this GPU, i bought it cheap cause its been used already



Could not say but personally i've never had or actually heard of a GPU having a broken sensor although i bet if  i did a yahoo \ google search i'd find some lol.

Did you try putting the GPU fan on max just to see if it goes any lower ?.


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## Dippyskoodlez (Jun 7, 2009)

KH0UJ said:


> Ived tested it with a powerful 110VAC 4X4 blower fan, but still the GPU temp. will not go down, I touched the side heatsink of the GPU  its chilled already, I bought it used though, any chance that this one had a busted sensor? or maybe ill relapped it again with a new thermal paste? im not really sure on the history of this GPU, i bought it cheap cause its been used already



If it has been lapped, its possible it has been done incorrectly, or if it hasn't, could be making very poor thermal contact.


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## steelkane (Jun 7, 2009)

Strange & Creative,, I like this project.


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## MKmods (Jun 7, 2009)

I am really impressed by the soldering of the wires on the back of the PCB.. I know this guy that does that (lol) and he has been waiting a long tome to see others successfully do it as well

That was a fun read, may the Modding Force be with you


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## Chicken Patty (Jun 7, 2009)

MKmods said:


> I am really impressed by the soldering of the wires on the back of the PCB.. I know this guy that does that (lol) and he has been waiting a long tome to see others successfully do it as well
> 
> That was a fun read, may the Modding Force be with you



  it was about time Mark.


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## MKmods (Jun 7, 2009)

I was going over the picts and noticed there needs to be a better escape for the warm case air to exit.
Take a look at the very restrictive exhaust case fan (those perferations look like they restrict most of the 120mm fans flow.

Also I cant see the bottom where the GPU is supposed to exhaust but if its also restrictive opening it up would help a lot to remove warm air inside the case.

This is a bit extreme but here is what I like to see for a back panel


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## KH0UJ (Jun 7, 2009)

*CPU Temp. Question*






Here`s what i dont understand, where do we see the actual CPU reading? is it in the core temp? or the cpu temp?, in the BIOS my CPU temp is equal to the CPUTIN on the temperature monitoring software, and there is also 2 core temps


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## Chicken Patty (Jun 8, 2009)

KH0UJ said:


> http://img.techpowerup.org/090607/After playing Call of Duty World @ War.jpg
> 
> Here`s what i dont understand, where do we see the actual CPU reading? is it in the core temp? or the cpu temp?, in the BIOS my CPU temp is equal to the CPUTIN on the temperature monitoring software, and there is also 2 core temps



I think the core temp is more accurate.  the CPUINT temp is just ambient temp on the CPU.  But I think the core temp is more accurate, just me though, I dont know.


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## Easy Rhino (Jun 8, 2009)

that is pretty awesome. where did you get the AC parts and where did you pick up the chips? edit: btw, im guessing it gets pretty hot where you live which is why you built this to begin with.


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## DaMulta (Jun 8, 2009)

Going subzero with the hole machine going subzero will give you no problems. It's just when you are cooing one part subzero with everything else being a different temperature is when you have issues.

You have two temps on your cpu because you have two cores. 

The only flaw that I really see, and would bug me is your monitor. I would of slammed it next to the window, and then cut out the screen size for it. Then connect it a way that it would stay sealed(no dust coming in) but having the screen out side for a better view/not having the issue of it clouding up like you said you are having.


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## KH0UJ (Jun 8, 2009)

Easy Rhino said:


> that is pretty awesome. where did you get the AC parts and where did you pick up the chips? edit: btw, im guessing it gets pretty hot where you live which is why you built this to begin with.



Im currently employed here in Saipan as a car A/C tech. in thier local refrigeration shop, my mind keeps bugging me "what a waste" because we have plenty of home A/C`s and refrigerators here that the bodies are all rusty but the refrigeration systems are still perfect, and the customers are not claiming it anymore because its not usable for them, so I started scavenging all the parts that I needed before my employer ship it to the recycling area and you got it right broits kinda hot and salty over here, I got the CPU chips on the local computer store over here ($109 kind of overpriced but online its only $60+ but the vendor said its very hard to ship here, even newegg doesnt ship over here that`s why im forced to buy locally:shadedshu)



DaMulta said:


> Going subzero with the hole machine going subzero will give you no problems. It's just when you are cooing one part subzero with everything else being a different temperature is when you have issues.
> 
> You have two temps on your cpu because you have two cores.
> 
> The only flaw that I really see, and would bug me is your monitor. I would of slammed it next to the window, and then cut out the screen size for it. Then connect it a way that it would stay sealed(no dust coming in) but having the screen out side for a better view/not having the issue of it clouding up like you said you are having.



 that`s what happens bro specially if I set my thermostat to 0 C my breath tends to condensate on the front plexi but right now I just set it to 15 C to avoid the clouding but I dont know why my core temps are on -5 C to -2 C even my case temp is only 15 C, unless AMD put a mini peltier inside the CPU chip


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## KH0UJ (Jun 8, 2009)

MKmods said:


> I was going over the picts and noticed there needs to be a better escape for the warm case air to exit.
> Take a look at the very restrictive exhaust case fan (those perferations look like they restrict most of the 120mm fans flow.
> 
> Also I cant see the bottom where the GPU is supposed to exhaust but if its also restrictive opening it up would help a lot to remove warm air inside the case.
> ...



I think im gonna do the thing youve done on the back of your case bro


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## steelkane (Jun 8, 2009)

Good to see you using your skills from work, to enjoy your hobby at home,, great job


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## DaMulta (Jun 8, 2009)

http://www.relex.com/resources/art/art_prism3.asp


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## HammerON (Jun 8, 2009)

DaMulta said:


> http://www.relex.com/resources/art/art_prism3.asp



Thanks for the article
It is always nice to learn new things~


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