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How to Cool your PC with Dry Ice

Howto by Jort @ 2005-05-08

A complete guide by on working with Dry Ice so you can reach sub zero temperatures with your CPU and graphics card. Details on building containers, where to buy Dry Ice and important tips and tricks.

What/Where/Why

The goal of this article is to provide you with an extensive howto on cooling your PC with Dry Ice, including info on where to obtain it and how to build cooling-containers to mount on your CPU and/or GPU (graphics card).

First a little bit of background information on Dry Ice:

is frozen carbon dioxide

has a surface temperature of -109F/-78.5C

has the advantage of sublimation, as it turns directly from solid state to carbon dioxide gas, skipping the liquid phase. This is really good as you don’t need a bleeding valve!

can be obtained in the form of pellets or big blocks which can be easily broken into smaller pieces with a hammer.

Why use Dry Ice?

For overclocking only, pure and simple. It is not usable for daily 24/7 cooling, it’s mostly used by those people who like to push their PC to a higher speed. By using subzero cooling you can obtain impressive overclocks. Dry Ice will provide you better performance than air- and water-cooling, as well as single stage phase change cooling setups.

Due to its low cost and lower risk than LN2 it can be used easily in a wide variety of environments, cascaded phase change setups are more expensive and require a higher technical barrier as they are not available off-the-shelve.

Where to get Dry Ice?

Here in Belgium it's not that easy to get Dry ice, there are 2 places I know of, if you know places where they sell Dry Ice, be it in Europe or elsewhere, please do share them in our forums and I’ll update the list here.

Belgium
- ijsblokjes.be: A supplier which delivers Pellets at your doorstep.
- Praxair: A large company located near Antwerp (Schoten), which sells Dry Ice in blocks.
- Praxair Dep. KEMPEN / Nijverheidsstraat 4 / 2260 OEVEL / 014/25.06.03

USA / Canada
- A complete list of resellers

Dry Ice Obligatory Warning
Madshrimps (c)

Before we proceed I would like to tell dry ice can be dangerous. The super-cold surface temperature can easily damage your skin if you touch it directly. For the same reason you never want to taste or swallow dry ice either. So wear hand gloves if you touch Dry Ice

Another important concern with dry ice is ventilation. You want to make sure the area is well-ventilated.

Carbon dioxide is heavier than air and it can concentrate in low areas or in enclosed spaces (like a car or a room where dry ice is sublimating). Normal air is 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen and only 0.035% Carbon Dioxide. If the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air rises above 5%, carbon dioxide can become toxic.

Be sure to ventilate any area that contains dry ice, and do not transport it in a closed vehicle.

Now that you know a bit more about Dry Ice it’s time to get started ->

Comment from jmke @ 2005/05/08

you can read more about Jort's Dry Ice and LN² adventures over here: http://www.madshrimps.be/forums/show...threadid=12169

Comment from kristos @ 2005/05/08

PRAXAIR, Nijverheidsstraat 4, 2260 OEVEL
their truck rides out to pick it up on friday, they store it over weekend and make the necessary deliveries first thing monday morning. So, friday and monday is your best bet but since most people will be doing this in the weekend, it's best to call them and have them keep some aside for you to pick up on friday.
I have the phone number here somewhere, if I find it, I'll post it.

normally I don't read a whole review/howto but for jort's article, I've made an exception

Comment from kristos @ 2005/05/08

Praxair Dep. KEMPEN
Nijverheidsstraat 4
2260 OEVEL 014/25 06 03

Comment from jort @ 2005/05/08

way to go to the editor

and tnx kristos for reading it and correcting a bit

Comment from jort @ 2005/05/08

the material that i am now using is ertalite or hd-1000 named.

this is something nobody know's, when tim was on the way to here i tested the plexi with ln² and a hammer. it was not breaking.

i think because the plexi was in direct contact with the container and the pressure due the screws it cracks.

so if you use plexi for holddown you should see the plexi doesn't make contact with the baseplate or tube and it w'll be oke

greetz

Comment from Kirmeo @ 2005/05/09

Why didn't you just solder the copper?

Comment from jort @ 2005/05/09

due the extreme temps the solder can crack.
some people do solder it because they don't have the equipment to do, but i DONT recommend soldering

Comment from jort @ 2005/05/18

http://www.xbitlabs.com/web/display/20050517142116.html

Comment from jort @ 2005/05/18

Quote:

Originally posted by kristos
Praxair Dep. KEMPEN
Nijverheidsstraat 4
2260 OEVEL 014/25 06 03

here is another one

http://www.hoekloos.be/International...oc_antwerpen02

Comment from petervandamned @ 2005/05/18

for the dutchies

www.droogijs.nl

for the English

http://www.droogijs.nl/engels/index.html

20 of may i will be talking with that compagie to get some reduction and make a MADreview

Not into depth but just going like mad :grin:
only results will count
just warming up my hardware for the coming cascade rig

Comment from jort @ 2005/05/18

http://media2.big-boys.com/bbmedia/dryicebomb.wmv

haha stupit guys^^

i was lucky i guess

Comment from jort @ 2005/05/18

Quote:

Originally posted by petervandamned
for the dutchies

www.droogijs.nl

for the English

http://www.droogijs.nl/engels/index.html

20 of may i will be talking with that compagie to get some reduction and make a MADreview

Not into depth but just going like mad :grin:
only results will count
just warming up my hardware for the coming cascade rig

cool

Comment from jort @ 2005/05/18

where you going to get your container

Comment from jort @ 2005/05/23

http://www.ysfab.be/nl/contact.asp

dry ice availeble here too

Quote:

7.5 euro voor 10 kilo, Blokken, pellets of slices.

Comment from easypanic @ 2005/06/08

Got me some dry ice from ijsblokjes.be, hopefully everything will turn out alright

Comment from easypanic @ 2005/06/08

Ok, going good here

Comment from jort @ 2005/06/08

-37:grr:

got some mhz result?

good luck

Comment from easypanic @ 2005/06/08

Can't get past 3120 MHz :grum:

Comment from jmke @ 2005/06/08

-37°C looks nice, pics of HW setup?

Comment from easypanic @ 2005/06/08

Tonight

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