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Hardware

Another Water-Cooling System For Laptops 154

Posted by timothy from the don't-spill-anything-now dept.
big writes "NEC has developed the world's first slim sized water-cooling module for notebooks. It uses a piezoelectric pump driving method. This water cooling-module enables a highly advanced, slim sized, notebook PC with minimal operating noise." Toshiba has been working on water cooling in laptops at least as far back as the year 2000.
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Another Water-Cooling System For Laptops More

Another Water-Cooling System For Laptops

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  • Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) * on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:24AM (#6398441)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Hail ye Entropy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by packeteer ( 566398 ) <packeteer AT subdimension DOT com> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:28AM (#6398452)
      Water cooling does not make the computer put out less heat. All it does it draw the heat away from the CPU faster, A water cooled system with a radiator with put out as much heat as the same system with a fan and heat sink.
    • Its true, you really can heat your rooms with your gear. Its currently winter in NZ and i keep long hours in my office at night-time and my wife often joins me in the room to watch t.v. on the old p300 i've got, just so she can keep warm (and also because the gas heater gives her headaches!) nothing wrong with computer heat, its summer i'm worried about....

    • hot trend will continue (Score:4, Interesting)

      by lingqi ( 577227 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:54AM (#6398525) Journal
      this is the official word from an engineer at a leading processor company. the company's name starts with the a vowel that is not "A."

      Seriously though, there are no new technology on the horizon that would make silicon run cooler, and the speed of core-voltage drop does not keep up with frequency bumps (heat is square of frequency for CMOS gates).

      at the mean time, i like to point out that even without water cooling, they can make some thin-ass [panasonic.jp] notebooks*. I don't see why water-cooling is such a big deal.

      sorry site in japanese - panasonic does not sell their really good notebooks in the US. summary: ~2.7lb including DVD drive, up to 7.5hr operating time, Pentium-M 1.3GHz, max 512RAM, etc. They also make one that's 999grams (just under 2.2lb) that does not have the optical drive.

      • Yeah, that sounds typical of Intel. What about VIA C3? Or Crusoe?

        Of course, you have to sacrifice a bit of raw speed for the sake of a more efficient design, but it's better than second-degree burns to the groin.

        Btw, it doesn't help for a laptop to be "thin-assed" if it can also double as a furnace (type quickly or your fingers will burn!) and roars like a jet engine. These days, the only useable laptops [laptopdepot.ca] I see are used. Though these [lindows.com] might be pretty good...

      • Re:hot trend will continue (Score:4, Insightful)

        by 73939133 ( 676561 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @05:01AM (#6398824)
        Seriously though, there are no new technology on the horizon that would make silicon run cooler, and the speed of core-voltage drop does not keep up with frequency bumps (heat is square of frequency for CMOS gates).

        Sure there are: asynchronous logic, reconfigurable computing, reversible computation, and many other technologies. Of course, that requires significant changes to the way we design software and hardware...

      • Re:hot trend will continue (Score:4, Insightful)

        by kinnell ( 607819 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @05:55AM (#6398941)
        Seriously though, there are no new technology on the horizon that would make silicon run cooler, and the speed of core-voltage drop does not keep up with frequency bumps (heat is square of frequency for CMOS gates).

        How about more efficient software, which doesn't require a 3GHz processor to run on? The problem with power consumption on laptops is that we need to run them so fast in the first place. With the exception of specialists who need to do video processing and the like, the vast majority of people don't need super fast notebooks, except for the fact that they are forced to use software designed with absolutely no consideration for power consumption.

    • Re:Hail ye Entropy (Score:4, Insightful)

      by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @03:10AM (#6398570) Journal
      But seriously folks... I can't believe how hot laptops and computers are running these days. It really is enough to keep a room warm without a heater. Is water cooling the future or just cooler processors?

      I hate to say it, but I don't think most people care how hot their notebook is going to run, at least not when they purchase it.

      "Ooh, look! This one is 25% faster! Yippie!"

      I would say the same thing about the weight of notebooks... The 4 pounder I'm using right now is the lightest one I could find, sort of Sony's multi-thousand dollar ultra-minitature notebooks.
      • Part of the problem is that stores don't generally have (or let you use) any programs that are power-hungry (games, etc.) - which would cause the laptop to heat up and the fan to go to high speed. On display they're quiet and cool, but run a game on them and it's a different story. (Which is why, when I tried out a Toshiba 2Ghz, I got it from a store with a good return policy - ie, the kind where even if you just don't like the noise/heat/colour, you can take it back within a couple weeks.)

      • Re:Hail ye Entropy (Score:3, Informative)

        by fbw ( 69311 ) *
        If you are concerned with the weight of your notebook, you should consider looking at Fujitsu's P series products.
        That, and the primary advantage (certainly true for the non-intel, crusoe cpu models) aside of weight is their low heat output. If heat, size, weight and price are primary concerns, these are great machines.

        Their smallest is the P1000 [fujitsupc.com], which weighs a mere 2.5 pounds, including a heavy duty battery that will last you 5 hours of real use.
        Their medium model is the P2000 [fujitsupc.com], which also has an optic

        • I second the notion. I have a P2000 and I use it all the time. Real world benchmarks... with two batteries in it (extended main and bay battery) I played mp3s for 8 hours and was down to 50% charge (with the monitor off most of the day).

          I can also play Civilization III - Play the world for two hours straight on battery and only be down to 50%.

          Suspends and Hibernates great, (I never shut it down) and I carry it basically everwhere I go.

          One more benchmark. On just the main extended battery I was able to
    • CPUs are getting cooler. A new Athlon XP definitely dissipates less heat than an old Athlon Thunderbird. With increasing clock speeds there's a gradual increase in heat dissipation until the fabs manage to use a smaller process (0.09 micron is the current target, IIRC), then you get lower voltages and cooler chips. For a while.

      I've just rebuilt an old PII-333 for someone - now THAT's a cool running chip. It's the later "Deschutes" 0.25 design, so it's basically an underclocked PII 450. No fan and it ha

      • I've just rebuilt an old PII-333 for someone - now THAT's a cool running chip. It's the later "Deschutes" 0.25 design, so it's basically an underclocked PII 450. No fan and it hardly gets warm.

        I've got a P2-266 which is also very cool running. I don't know how it compares to the one you mentioned, but I can run it in extremely hot temperatures without stability problems (though I don't do anything with high CPU usage). I've often used it in a garage (no AC) during the summer when its like 95F outside, a
    • I have six computer systems in my bedroom, mostly low spec, but also a pair of Athlons, and you better believe it's well and truly enough to heat that small room. My 19" monitor also whacks out a ton of heat too.
    • Well laptops don't run as hot as some desktops, but they are closer to you especially when you have a laptop actually in your lap. I'd like to have kids someday so I want it as cool as possible.
    • As an owner of a 12" powerbook, I'd have to say the real culprit for the heat is the fact that the case (at least part of it) is made from the same metal that's used in great abundance in really nice cookware. Aluminum is a wonderful conductor of heat.

      One of the things I like about the 12" powerbook is Apple's unintended Icy Hot (tm) effect: after an hour of intense typing, it kind of feels soothing to rest my wrists on the area below the keyboard that gets really warm.
      • I'd have to say the real culprit for the heat is the fact that the case (at least part of it) is made from the same metal that's used in great abundance in really nice cookware. Aluminum is a wonderful conductor of heat.

        Actually, having the whole case made of aluminum would make it cooler, since it'd act as a giant heatsink and would spread out the heat better.

        The other extreme option would be to make the case with neoprene or some other thermally insulating material, and have only a small opening to exh
    • I consider myself hailed. Thanx!

  • OK, more efficient at cooling than a fan. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hashish ( 62254 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:24AM (#6398442)
    But with laptops getting smaller and lighter, who wants a heavier bulkier machine that can run faster. Better off using a desktop if that's the way you want to go.

  • mod (Score:3, Interesting)

    by planetzeos ( 664652 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:24AM (#6398443)
    I want to know where I can guy something like this to upgrade and mod laptops we all already own.
    • Modding a laptop is too difficult for the same reason that no one builds their own laptops.

      Of course you could always slap a NOS or TYPE-R sticker on the top- that adds at least 500 MHz per sticker.
  • It is bad enough having a laptop burning your lap and now I have to worry about frostbite instead.

  • water (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:25AM (#6398448)
    Did you wet yourself, or did your laptop spring a leak?

  • There is water in my laptop! (Score:5, Funny)

    by QEDog ( 610238 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:26AM (#6398449)
    There is water in my desktop! Oh wait, that is my fish tank... There is water in my laptop! Hold on, those are my seamonkeys.

  • Nice! (Score:1, Interesting)

    by AntiOrganic ( 650691 )
    When can they water-cool my shower? Damn furnace has been acting up for weeks now.

  • Great, now we can have fast hard drives. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:29AM (#6398458)
    I have a sony viao, and water cooling would help it a ton. So it has a 2 ghz processor, half gig of ram, 60 gig drive, ati radeon, dvd burner, etc... It can barely keep up with a 16 speed cd burn with the hard drive it has. When I play games at 1600x1200 resolution the radeon gfx card gets so hot i think it is going to catch the laptop on fire. :) So with good water cooling maybe we can have a world where there will be no reason to have desktops anymore.. just laptops.
    • Well, I'd say that a desktop will still allways have better cooling and thus will be able to run faster. I mean, if you can fit a water cooling system in a laptop, you can fit a larger one in a desktop. So I do not see this as a reason that desktops would disappear. Besides, they will be cheaper for a long time still since you don't need to make everything as small as possible. I could probably come up with tons of arguments why desktops will not disappear in the near future to be honest :).

  • Does anyone else think that this is a bad idea? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TWX ( 665546 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:30AM (#6398460)
    Between being dropped, xrayed, beat on, slid, bumped, scratched, and the like, doe we need _more_ liquid than that which is normally spilled on a laptop to be present in it?

    I'd like a nice cool-operating laptop, even if it is a little slower, as long as it has enough RAM, decent enough video, and good storage. Speed, as long as it's fast enough, isn't a major concern. The Athlon at home takes care of that. I want connectivity and portability.

    If IBM still made the 240 series Thinkpad, I'd snap a newer one of those up in a heartbeat...

    • Re:Does anyone else think that this is a bad idea? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If they use heavy water (deuteronium) then you can just flip the laptop upside down and it'll all drain out.
    • I had to put my 240x together from parts. Ultimate portability (tho screen max size is 800x640) as long as you don't need a CD on the road. 500 mhz P3 and I stuffed in a 40gb drive and maxed out the ram, the whole thing cost maybe $500. If it had been made with built-in NIC and two PCMCIA slots, it would be my only machine.

      My friend bought himself one of those new Sonys with a 16" LCD. It even has a DVD burner built-in. Weighs 10 pounds. Runs at 2.8 ghz. Does not fit in his bag, needs its own case. But he
  • I'm looking forward to be able to overclock my laptop CPU without damage that way. Imagine the 4GHz pentium... ;-)
    Ok, the battery will be burnt in 15 minutes, but there is a price for everything...

  • Reminds me of a joke... (Score:5, Funny)

    by KillerHamster ( 645942 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:35AM (#6398475) Homepage

    Secretary tells help desk, "I just spilled coffee on my boss's keyboard. What should I do?" Help desk pilot fish decides, "What the heck, it's just a $35 keyboard. Have her disconnect it and wash it out in the sink. If that doesn't work, we'll replace it." Next call is from her enraged boss: "Who the hell told my secretary to put my new $4,000 laptop in the sink and run water all over it?"

    (source [computerworld.com])

  • Silent PC (Score:4, Informative)

    by cpc ( 656151 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:35AM (#6398476)
    I hope you didn't miss the: "This product is suitable not only for use in notebook PCs, but also in servers and desktop computers."
    I am already dreaming about a silent PC in my bedroom (check out silentpcreview [silentpcreview.com])
    • Silent? maybe you don't need the little high rpm fan on the processor; but, you still end up listening to the fan on the radiator and the pump motor...

      Your best bet is something like one of those Zallman coolers -- they only make 20dB of noise (less than the 30dB NEC stated)

  • I have a better solution. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by robogun ( 466062 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:36AM (#6398477)
    If heat is an issue, instead of attaching a huge tank to the side of a ghee-whiz watercooled notebook, why not build one using *underclocked* cpus and air cooling. Or use the crusoe. I don't know about NEC, but my personal preference is that my laptop be portable.

    It seems to me manufacturers think everybody wants one with desktop CPUs drawing 20 amps, just so they can say Lookie, my laptop runs at 2.8 ghz!!!!

    Run Crusoe, it's cool in more ways than one.

    • Re:I have a better solution. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rzbx ( 236929 ) <slashdot@rzb x . o rg> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:59AM (#6398537) Homepage
      I fully agree with using Crusoe chips and such, but I understand the need for faster processors and better cooling. For the most part, we will continually see processors drawing much less power before and staying very cool. Yet heat is something that is hard to get away from, especially when you need more processing. I have a laptop running an AMD processor that runs fairly cool compared to other laptops, but when it is under heavy load, the fans kick in. Water cooling has the advantage of being far less noisy if done right and at times does a better job as well. Until the day that processors use extremely small amounts of wattage and are able to keep up with demand (it will come, just a matter of how long), then we have to compromise and use the best available means to cool our hunger. I'm pleased that NEC is taking the initiative on making water cooling more popular. Obviously it is in their best interest. Yet, more efficient and quieter methods of cooling are of interest to anyone in the IT arena.
      Also, Crusoe's are really nice when it comes to power consumption. Unfortunately, many need/want more power.
      Also, NEC is not attaching a huge tank to the side of their notebooks.
      • I have no idea who would be running 3ghz all out on the laptop, unless they were running XP with indexing on :)

        Maybe it's just me, but it just doesn't seem smart to pump liquid through an expensive and fragile machine, just for the purpose of a debatable performance and/or noise improvement.

        I don't like there being *anything* required to be attached to the laptop to run. It is too easy to forget the charger and suck, but at least it will run. But a tank (of any size)? Imagine the conversation at the prese
        • You still fail to realize that they are NOT implementing an idea which consists of a tank or any other device that you have to carry with the laptop. The entire system is contained within the laptop. Although it seems they are also considering desktop/server versions that won't be the same as the laptop ones. Your fears of liquid in your computer are a little too much. Any liquid within such a device will be tightly enclosed. If you drop your laptop hard enough to cause the enclosure to rupture, then y
    • ...like this [lindows.com] computer. As far as I've heard, C3's get better performance than the crusoe while having equally low heat production/energy consumption - haven't seen any numbers, though. Btw, has anyone gotten one of those Lindows laptops? They're pretty cheap, light, and small...are they cool and quiet, too?
      • Im posting from one, and I love it.

        Its extremely light weight, extremely thin, barely ever gets hot enough to be uncomfortable, and even has a pretty good battery life.

        The downside is that it sometimes a little slow, like when I want to open up openoffice it takes a bit of time. The other downside is no floppy/cdrom.

        Btw lindows sucks, the best thing I did to it was install RH9.

        Overall I would give this laptop a 9 out of 10.
    • Not to be an intel-fanboy or something, but isn't this the purpose of the Pentium-M line? Lower power comsumption and less heat through slower processors and smarter power management?

  • Transmeta anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Agent R ( 684654 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:39AM (#6398488)
    Wonder if the user would be able to shut off the computer fast enough should the water pump decide to buy the farm?

    Why not just develop a Transmeta-type CPU that uses less power? That way there won't be such an extra need for the extra cooling capacity. What's next? Helium cooling? Not that there are THAT many users out there who really needs all the CPU cycles/sec. (Engineers and gamers don't count. :-))

  • Servers? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by AntiOrganic ( 650691 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:39AM (#6398489) Homepage
    This product is suitable not only for use in notebook PCs, but also in servers and desktop computers.

    I don't know about you, but I sure as hell wouldn't want so much as a drop of moisture anywhere NEAR a $35k Sun blade server.

    • Re:Servers? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Alien Being ( 18488 )
      Water cooling of mainframes and other multi-million dollar electronic systems is nothing new. What's your point?
    • Sun air cools it's servers; but, other manufacturers regularly use water cooling.

      Afraid of water? Let's take a page out of Cray's history book and use Liquid Nitrogen! Now that's cool (pun intended)

    • If I had a $35k Sun blade I'd sell it so I could buy a glass of water and a few months of my life back.

  • Laptops - the spoilt kid in computing... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:41AM (#6398492) Journal
    More attention that warranted seems to be the issue with laptops these days. So long as laptops run Windoze, what's earth-shatteringly different between different models? The true worth of laptops could be about $400 (what HP offered Thailand). Anything much above that is just waste of money.

    Rather than cooling, why not work towards standardizatrion on laptops. The power supply for these gizmos range from 8.6V AC to 33.4V DC. Power supply connectors come in all fancy pinouts and crazy designs.

    The lesser the laptops, the better it is for the environment. laptops break down more often thsan desktops (13.5 times more often actually) and are often ir-reparable, or too cost prohibitive. It's time there was legislation requiring standards on all laptops - those that didn't conform ought to be banned outright. This is a classic case of capitalism screwing global interests for a few dollars more.
    • Well, since millions of corpses are NOT rotting in the streets and wilderness from all the toxic waste generated by laptops, and millions of people ARE under oppression due to lack of freedom to information, I would think that fierce competition in computers DOES serve a global interest. The human global interest.

  • NEC not the first (Score:4, Informative)

    by MoFoQ ( 584566 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @02:41AM (#6398494)
    Hitachi came out with a watercooled P4 notebook a while back....
    • >> Hitachi came out with a watercooled P4 notebook a while back....

      So YOU'RE the guy I saw spill a Big Gulp on his Hitachi.

      • Re:NEC not the first (Score:4, Informative)

        by MoFoQ ( 584566 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @03:22AM (#6398595)
        no no no....it's a notebook ONLY available in Japan (since I don't think it was ever released here in the US or Europe).

        Anyways, it has a small tiny tiny tiny tiny pump that moves the coolant (water + additives) thru VERY small tubing and dissipanting the heat energy from the back of the LCD screen. I thought it was Slashdotted. I know it was on Toms and [H]ardOCP

        Lemme look for it....here: On [H]ardOCP [hardocp.com] and here: On IT World [itworld.com]
  • Hmm..

    I wonder whether we can substitute the water for something else.. I mean, like a car, we can substitute radiator-coolant. Maybe there's a a screw we can loosen and open to drain the water out, then refill back with some sort of coolant for laptops.

    Yeah, while we are at it, it'll spin-offs to a few types of coolants available... and computers will be more and more like a car!

    I like the green colored jelly type radiator coolants, dunno what is it called.. heck, I'm a computer mechanic, not a car
    • It won't DO anything though. Automotive 'coolant' is no better than water at conducting heat. What it's for is to RAISE the boiling point for the water so the water doesn't evaporate (engines run at above 100C/boiling pt.). Adding salt to your 'laptop water' would do more for it than pumping in ethelyne glycol (car coolant).

      'Coolant' is a total misnomer, all it does in a car is flow in a circle from the engine (heat generated) to the radiator (heat expelled to air) and back again. The green stuff (artifici
    • Liquid nitrogen would be cool (literally ;-)
      Especially if the laptop has fuel cell in it.
      The whole thing would look like a rocket launch with fumes, pipes and hoses going to the docking station, ...
    • From a computer mechanic / automotive mechanic (past lives) / physicist: The green colored radiator coolant is usually a mix of ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, detergent, and various corrosion prevention chemicals. The low-tox versions remove the ethylene glycol (it's poisonous)

  • Must have been some mix-up... (Score:5, Funny)

    by gumpish ( 682245 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @03:15AM (#6398581) Journal
    Hey NEC, we said we wanted laptops that are more PORTABLE, not more POTABLE...
  • Put a tap on the side and I will never have to leave the water to make a cup of tea!

  • Misunderstandings (Score:5, Informative)

    by panurge ( 573432 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @03:27AM (#6398610)
    RTFA...

    This is basically a means for spreading the heat from the processor efficiently into the large flat surfaces that are the only heatsink you can get on laptops. The problem at present is that the processor occupies a small area and the heat has to escape sideways through a limited area of metal. A liquid flow can transfer heat much faster and spread it more efficiently because water actually has a greater heat capacity than metal, and the pumped flow can be faster than the conduction flow through metal.

    Looking at the NEC design, as described in the article, I would have thought that the risk of leakage was far less than water entry via spillage, rain, or simple condensation.

    As for pumps stopping, what happens with modern Intel CPUs when fans stop? They slow down and so control their own temperature. It's only AMD CPUs that suddenly fry themselves.

    The basic idea isn't even new. Over 50 years ago exhaust valves in high performance engines were drilled through and part filled with sodium metal. As the valve got hot the sodium melted, then the vibration caused it to move around transferring heat from the hot valve face to the water cooled guide. Doubtless geeks at the time worried that the sodium would somehow escape and damage their engines.

    • Re:Misunderstandings (Score:2, Informative)

      by robogun ( 466062 )
      Sodium was used mostly in applications requiring high reliability -- such as aircraft engines (Lycoming comes to mind). But as far as I know they were discontinued because they bring their own problems. Sodium valves seem to stick more; fortunately one bad valve doesn't usually bring the plane down.

      Also VW Bus motors used them, but they also used magnesium engine blocks -- have you ever seen a VW Bus burn? The firefighters do not even pump water on 'em because the magnesium burns so hot that water is elect
      • Heat does not electrolytically break water down. You don't put water on a Magnesium fire because Magnesium burns in water as well as in air. (Which is why underwater flares use magnesium).

        If you take a look at the Periodic table, you'll find Magnesium over in the Alkaline Earths column. These elements all react strongly with water. The closer to the top of the table, the more strongly they react. So, Calcium kind of bubbles, Magnesium burns and Beryllium explodes.
      • The US stuck with air cooled aircraft engines long after everybody else had gone to water cooled because of fears about reliability. If you look around now, even small motorcycle engines are liquid cooled. OK, Harley (100th anniversary!) has stuck with air cooling, but that is a huge lump with relatively low power/weight ratio. Automotive liquid cooling is now very reliable: I've never opened the header tank cap on either of my cars between coolant replacements.

        As for sodium exhaust valves, one reason they

        • Yes, early VW's used magnesium, for cost reasons, and when it caught fire (due to either overheating or fuel leak) it was nearly impossible to put out. The magnesium reacts with the water under those conditions to produce more oxygen and hydrogen and more fire... The only way to put out an early VW engine fire was to use a grade D fire extinguisher.

  • Neat! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Valar ( 167606 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @03:29AM (#6398615)
    I think I'll make a bong out of it!
  • You know you should stop doing what you're doing when your thighs get wet.

    How many NASA managers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? "That's
    a known problem... don't worry about it."

  • Heat, Schmeat! What about Battery life? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @03:38AM (#6398636) Journal
    All I want is a laptop that doesn't have to be tethered to the wall all the time. Why are these things even called portable?

    I want a laptop that lasts for 8 hours. A regular workday, or a long bus/car/plane trip.

    If my 20+ year old Tandy 102 can last for 2 weeks on four AAs, why can't a new laptop go for 8 hours?

    And my damn 8600 is taking 20 minutes to copy a file! ;)

    • Battery life (and generally heat) often have a direct relation to how "powerful" a computer is. Faster CPU, uses more juice. Bigger screen, brighter, fancy colours... sucks more power.

      Arguing an old 486 or less CPU against a modern Athlon/Pentium is like wondering why your 150W bulbs give you a higher power bill over the 40W ones.

      Of course, modern CPU's also seem to be very inefficient, with large amounts of power being (presumably) lost as heat. As cores, etc improve we should see heat decrease in rel
  • A new invention to cool an overheated lap at a strip club.

  • Heat Pipes (Score:4, Interesting)

    by anubi ( 640541 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @03:50AM (#6398665) Journal
    It seems to me another way to do this might be to make the cases out of aluminum ( all sides ) and during the molding process, fabricate a small channel along the corners to hold a quantity of a volatile freon type fluid, so as to fabricate a "heat pipe". Aluminum is a good conductor of heat.

    If the thing were designed appropriately, you could have the freon doing a phase change from liquid to vapor where heat was being generated, then the vapor condensing back to liquid at the case. I'll betcha the major snafu will be the hinge. The idea is to make the whole case surface area isothermal.

    The intention is to eliminate pumps by using wicking to transport the fluid to the hot spot, whereas the vapor travels by pressure.

    Incidentally, has anyone looked to see if halon makes a halfway decent refrigerant? It looks neat that in the event of a fire, you could vent it to knock off the fire. Isn't halon another fluorocarbon? I haven't seen much spec on it for use as a refrigerant, but maybe another slashdotter has...and being I just posted the idea here, its now prior art....

    • fluorocarbons like freon and halon are not that nessecary for cooling purposes. you could use butane all the same. the nice thing about freon etc. is that they allow you to mix it with oil to get lubrication for the compresssor.
      There is no compressor or vapour phase in this design, so you can do with nearly any liquid. Water is just cheap, safe and suitable in his case.

      If you use only a wick you are very much reliant on the orientation of the heatsink-radiator, and that is not something that is guaranteed
    • You couldn't use halon to put out a fire in a laptop either. Halon works in server rooms because it smooshes out all of the oxygen in the room. No oxygen means no fuel source for the fire. Releasing a minute amount into a room would do nothing. Sorry to burst your bubble. Excellent thought about making the case out of aluminum. I think Apple or someone already makes brushed aluminum laptop cases. I think that is more for esthetic appeal though.

  • Just use a Mac for a Laptop (1/4th the heat) (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @04:16AM (#6398726)
    Forget water cooling.... Just use a Mac for a Laptop (1/4th the heat) for the same workload.

    Or even far more than 1/4th when doing benchmarks such as the open source RC5 cypto benchmark in which a Mac with a G4 in a laptop totally crushes intel offerings, not merely from its barrel shifter and not merely from a couple altivec instructions, but overall.

    Macs conserve batteries. Some older mac powerbooks allow you to run os 9.2.2 permitting virtual memory to be DISABLED saving more electricity from not needing drives spinning.

    Even a commmon 1998 powerbook mac could play an 130 minute dvd on one heavily used older battery, while no intel latptop in 1998 could play a 130 minute dvd without having to swap batteries at least once, I seem to recall.

    Most mac powerbooks never need to have their internal emergency fans kick on, even while crunching hard core mathematical benchmarks on warm days.

    • Absolutely true. I bought my first Mac, a 12" iBook, a few months ago. Besides the fantastic operating system (Unix command line and tools as well as a beautiful, consistent UI and perfect hardware support), it is a genuinely portable computer. With 640MB of RAM, it hardly touches the hard drive, and I can use it for over five hours unwired.

      One of the reasons that I chose the iBook over the 12" PowerBook was the longer battery life. The G3 is a sound choice for a mobile computer, and at 900MHz, it's

    • Macs conserve batteries. Some older mac powerbooks allow you to run os 9.2.2 permitting virtual memory to be DISABLED saving more electricity from not needing drives spinning.

      Mine's running 10.2.6, and I caught it with the drive spun down just the other day. I do miss having a control strip item to spin down the drive on command, but in my experience, 9.x was a lot more likely to keep the drive spun up than 7.1 was on my old PB145.

      Most mac powerbooks never need to have their internal emergency fans kick

  • Maybe Apple should take a look at it for its hopefully-soon-to-come G5 laptop.

  • Truth Serum (Score:3, Interesting)

    by malia8888 ( 646496 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @04:50AM (#6398796)
    There were three words (conveniently put in bold) in this quoted section of the article that gave me pause.

    1) Water pressure of the electromagnetic centrifugal pump is relatively weak. If the thickness of the circulation channel is decreased, cooling-liquid flow is restricted. (2) The system is difficult to install as the tank, pump and CPU attached area are all inter-connected to a metal pipe and a rubber tube. (3) Installation of a large tank is necessary as cooling liquid seeps through the resin parts of the tank, pump and the connection tubes resulting in liquid reduction over time.

    These three "selling points" to me just stress how prone to failure this product can be. I read it as follows:

    1. The water pressure sucks. 2. The thing is pain to put together 3. And the water will evaporate in a New York minute.

    Guess the writer was given some heavy truth serum before he wrote this one up.

    • Re:Truth Serum (Score:2, Informative)

      by tomson ( 100060 )
      If you would have read the article a little better, you would have seen that he was reffering to conventional water cooling systems. The new system presented by NEC does not need an external tank, is easy to install and has twice the cooling capabilities as the concentional systems. Also, high pressure is not a must for good cooling.

    • Re:Truth Serum (Score:5, Informative)

      by FatPaulie ( 197122 ) <paulie@fatpaul[ ]com ['ie.' in gap]> on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @05:35AM (#6398893) Homepage

      These three "selling points" to me just stress how prone to failure this product can be. I read it as follows:

      1. The water pressure sucks. 2. The thing is pain to put together 3. And the water will evaporate in a New York minute.

      Guess the writer was given some heavy truth serum before he wrote this one up.

      Read the article again, and you'll find that the author (this looks very much like it was Babelfished from Japanese source material BTW) makes those 3 statements about conventional cooling systems, not NEC's new laptop cooling system.

      The cooling system made by NEC has a small, high-pressure pump, the tank, pump, and CPU attached areas are NOT inter-connected, and no large tank installation is required.
      • Those were under the heading "Features of the conventional water-cooling system"

        And, yes, they were in bold type in the article, too. Right above the text you quoted.
    • This system does not use a centrifugal pump.
      the whole assembly is integrated in the metal tank/heatsink and powered by a membrane pump powered by 5 volts piezo.
      In othere words: they are trying to sell it as a single component, reliable, maintanacne-free and easy to install.
  • What we want is a water cooler show, because you can discuss it at the water cooler at work. Now, you can just discuss it over your laptop.

  • Why water?? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There are lots of other coolants which are non-conductive... I once saw a supercomputer which was built inside a plexiglass tank and actually was submerged in an electrically non-conductive liquid bath.

    • water is non-conductive. It's all the contaminants in the water that make it conductive. By processing the water you can create "De-Ionized" water that is *gasp* non-conductive.
  • You can get laptops with via C3 processors too. or transmeta crusoe. They dont run as hot because they don't burn that much batteries.
    That means you can keep you laptop running for a whole working day and just do the stuff you need to do instead of marveling at the fantastic speed (with wich your laptop that drains the batteries).

    Probably being humble and satisfied with little is not good for the economy (the manufacturer's economy that is).
  • The ability to make a laptop smaller and cooler is all fine and good, but they have to make it usable as well.

    After going through a long line of laptops for my wife (love that Circuit City return policy), we finally settled on an IBM ThinkPad T40. No water cooling, but it does not run hot (1.3GHz Centrino). The main thing it had going for it was that you could actually touch type on the keyboard. At 4.5lbs and less than 1 inch thick, I'm not sure you could get much smaller and still have it be usable fo

  • Why does my laptop need to throw off so much heat, eg. have such high power consumption to begin with?

    All that heat was generated by your battery which of course is ticking down several multiples faster than it should as a result. Cooler laptop = longer battery.

  • Heatpipes etc. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TeknoHog ( 164938 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @08:42AM (#6399420) Homepage Journal
    The Toshiba that's mentioned in the other link has in fact a heat pipe, which is kind of different from water cooling. Heatpipes have no moving parts, which is why I'd prefer one to anything where a fluid is mechanically pushed around.

    On the other hand, the heat still has to go somewhere, and these devices will only help move it around. In a laptop there isn't much real estate where the heat could be dumped, though it helps if these technologies are used to spread the heat into a larger area to reduce the temperature.

    But the conventional systems are a bit strange in having the CPU in the middle of everything, while the heat needs to be moved to the edges. Can you imagine a motherboard with the CPU on the 'wrong side' so that it could be directly against the case?

  • nice, now you can boil your legs at 80W (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Urd ( 198177 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @09:21AM (#6399649)
    What I would like to see in laptop: heat radiated from the panel top and not the base.

    'nuf said.
  • Since at least the mid-1980's my Advanced Projects Reasearch Team has been trying to build computers that will produce espresso coffee. We have managed to build an espresso coffee machine that can compute, but that is not enough. Besides, it gets depressed and decided to make tea instead. Now we can simultaneously cool the mobile computing platform _and_ generate the 100 bars of pressurized steam required to produce a foamy, rich espresso.
    I just hope HP and Lexmark do not sell the coffee capsules, or they will end up costing more than luxury champagne.
  • I work on laptops at my job and I see alot of mistreated laptops. Most people, but not all, don't seem to realize that just because it's portable doesn't mean you can toss it around like a pillow. Is it really smart to put something this fragile in a machine and sell it to the general public? I've seen screens ripped off, hinges broken and hard drive failures from shock because truck drivers like to velcro them down in the truck, and anything else you can think of from them being treated roughly. All we ne

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