The Problem

In 1927, the British Earl of Seagrave proposed a law by which he wanted to reduce the number of accidents at traffic intersections. The proposal was based on probability, that is, by keeping the presence of each traffic participant within the actual intersection at the absolute minimum time required, he argued that the likelyhood of two vehicles meeting in the same spot would decrease with increasing speed. He therefore proposed that the minimum speed at intersections should be raised to about 50 mph.

Heat is energy that is stored within mass and causes the electron shell to spin faster. Faster spinning of the electrons also reduces the probability of their being able to meet the "window of opportunity" and jump onto the next atom, a process that is most commonly referred to as electrical current. Therefore any heat increases the resistance of conducting media such as traces or wires.

The operation of a computer can be described in the simplest form as passing currents from one place to another and therefore, the conductivity of all connecting media must be kept at the highest possible value. The optimal temperature for any computer, of course, would be close to absolute Zero, however, it is unrealistic to propose such a solution. More within reach is bathing the entire computer in liquid nitrogen to achieve temperatures of about -195 centigrades. This practice is employed in quite a few mainframe machines and leads, among other things to about doubling of the performance as well as a substantial increase of system stability.

For the average home machine, this extreme kind of cooling is still not a practical approach. Alternatively, using a small freezer box can lower the system temperature quite dramatically, but the costs for acquisition and modification of such systems are in the same range as what one might have to pay for an "off the rack" system from Kryotech.

So what are the alternatives for home cooling. There are quite a few possibilities and one just needs to grab them. There is the Harvey Rubens approach of plugging in a toaster the wrong way and make it produce cold but we'll leave that one to the electrical engineers who know what they are doing.

Seriously, the most cost effective way of cooling is in the form of air-cooling. Air cooling can be extremely effective, that is, if the parameters are set the right way. Sometimes the most obvious solution is not the best way and sometimes it takes a little bit of thinking backwards to achieve the best results.

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