Too cool.

[mkacal]

Forgive me if physics have changed, but I believe that electrons SLOW down when they are too cold. The cooling system might actually drop the temperature below the threshold of what keeps the electrons moving in a speed that gives the CPU its' full potential.

You can probably win a Nobel prize for a frozen workhorse.

Thanks

 

[4Ryan6]

Well I guess they need to give up superconductor experiments eh Dude, I'm glad you straightened us all out on that one, I guess its safe for me to take my PC out of the Fridg, it was getting kind of inconvenient closing the door on the wires and all. You are posting in the Overclocking section and overclocking means hotter but I don't think any of us have moved up to cooling with liquid nitrogen yet, but some of us will try any new cooling concepts.

You never know what you can do until you try.

 

[4Ryan6]

Oh and by the way the available user friendly cooling concepts today don't drop temps to the range you're talking about anyway.

You never know what you can do until you try.

 

[sacklinger]

The problem is not the electrons movement, is the resitance(do you call it like that?) of the electons to move in a specified medium, the resistance is lower at lower temps, superconductors work at temps way below 0ºC, and no electrons freeze and cease moving 😉.
also I m not sure at this one, but I think that what is slower at low temperatures is the molecular movement, not electrons, anyway in this cases we are talking about temperatures near the 0ºKelvin..wich is like -232ºC
I dont think someone will freeze his cpu near the 0ºK
yet..😉

 

[sacklinger]

BTW : someone used liquid nitrogen to overclock his athlon here : <A HREF="http://www.overclockers.com/tips422/" target="_new"> Liquid Nitrogen Meets AMD</A> look that its true tellme if not.

 

[cakecake]

Certainly is true. Liquid nitrogen works...

I'm not sure if electrons do slow down. I've understood it like this.

Computers run on electrical signals, essentially determined by these electrons you are talking about. The problem with computers is that the specific electrons they move around (the ones in the circuit) have a secondary and unwanted side effect: heat. What cooling does is try to reverse this heat. It is true that once things get colder and colder they move more slowly so I don't know if this has an effect on anything. My guess is that we've never been able to empirically test this out because no computers can run at low temperatures without developing condensation or weird thermal anomalies.

This little cathode light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine!

 

[4Ryan6]

I stand corrected very interesting article sacklinger!

You never know what you can do until you try.

 

[grassapa]

"also I m not sure at this one, but I think that what is slower at low temperatures is the molecular movement, not electrons, anyway in this cases we are talking about temperatures near the 0ºKelvin..wich is like -232ºC
"

sacklinger, absolute zero, or zero kelvin is -273 celcius. keep it cool

the worst failure is not trying........so go ahead and TRY to overclock your cpu to 5ghz

 

[Bardic]

lowering the temp reduces the resistance of Electron flow. There is a piece of medical equipment that uses liquid nitrogen to cool it.

Once the Inductor is cold, they put a current to it, and then when they take the current off, the coil keeps the charge flowing almost indeffinately as long as they keep it cooled.

That is also probably why hot processors get blue screens, the heat causes higher resistance, and that drops some voltage over the heated wires rather than the gates in the CPU. Hence, when you overclock, you up the Core voltage some to compensate for the added heat, and the ripple effect.

 

[n8x2]

OK, i used to work for a MEG (magnetoencephalography, brain mapping via magnetic field detection) company as a student engineer. One of the devices we used was called a SQUID (Superconducting QUantum Interference Device, measures magnetic flux). Anyway, that's just my background so you know I've been in the industry, and, without quoting large, confusing 'chunks' of physics, here's superconductivity:

"Leon Cooper contributed to the development of the theory of superconductivity by discovering what are now called "Cooper pairs", that is, two electrons that form an attraction rather than repelling.
These pairs then accumulate and move in the same direction; the result is no resistance to the flow of electricity through the material and hence superconduction. "

Of course, this only happens at extremely low (Low Tc)temp's 0 - 10 deg K. But there are now some ceramics (High Tc) that are superconductive at higher temps: 10 - 85 deg K.

Hope this helps
N8

If it's not broken, fix it 'til it is!