3/6: Athlon fries an egg

How hot do AMD Athlon CPUs run? Hot enough to fry an egg, some might surmise, and so one gentleman tried it and was completely successful. He used British coins (copper ones, natch) as a heat sink, put a layer of aluminum foil on top, powered up his system, and in 11 minutes he had breakfast. And the CPU was none the worse afterwards!

The full story for those who are interested:

http://www.handyscripts.co.uk/trubador_egg.htm

They do run hot. If you are smart, you will design your system with an exceptional cooling capacity, such as I have done with my main box.

Thermalright SK6's are great heatsinks - 70 fins, all copper. My temperature doesn't rise above 38ºC. However, the fans are also important. Black label Delta's - 38CFM from a 6CM fan.

They are <b>loud</b>. But the system is <b>fast</b> and <b>cool</b>. It is worth it.

Just some things to keep in mind when building an Athlon.

cooling system

Looks like this guy has you beat. Notice the original copper heat sink off to the left side of the picture? He's got a liquid cooling system!

Yes, well... I try to keep liquid away from electrical devices whenever possible.

This comes at an appropriate time for me. My CPU fan started failing the other day and my machine was acting reallllly weird. I never thought to check the CPU temp -- I'm not an overclocker or modder -- and when I rebooted my BIOS check said "Whoa, buddy, something's wrong with you hardware. Check for details."

My CPU was at 101.1 degrees fahrenheit. I dunno about frying an egg, but I could have boiled water ...

sapienza

boiling point for water at sealevel is 212 F / 100 C. I'm assuming you made a typo... ?

Although it's not the only liquid cooling system I should probably supply at least one <a href=http://www.koolance.com>link</a>

dham', the boiling point of water depends on air pressure.

In college I knew a guy who could boil water in his bong. He blocked all the openings with his fingers, sucked all the air out by mouth, and just cupping his hands around the bong would provide enough heat for the water to boil.

Sounds crazy, but I actually witnessed this...

- 03#

dham, you're right, I'm an idiot.

101.1 degrees Celsius.

Whatever it was, it was bloody HOT!!!

sapienza

Sap, I thought maybe you were computing somewhere in the himalayas.

He's pretty serious about this system

Ha also has heat sinks on the RAM bank (the blue things just under the egg contraption).

As well as - what's that, dual power supplies, all rounded cables, and some sort of custom routing for those cables too. Pretty impressive for a setup that you're willing to cook breakfast with.

NBN -

I know. Hence me saying <b>at sea level</b>. While what your roommate did <b>is indeed</b> boiling (and I have witnessed similar experiments, but with a bell jar and a vacuum instead of a bong), we are talking about <b>boiling induced by heat</b> here. In normal conditions, in regular pressure at sea level, water will boil at 100ºC/212ºF.