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June
27, 2000 - By Dave
Altavilla
The
first time you open up the Vapochill
kit, you think to yourself "wow,
there are so many pieces"! The
Vapochill is not for the novice
user. It is a fairly complex system
that requires attention to detail when you
assemble it. We setup and tore down
two motherboards and 4 CPUs with the
Vapochill. The first time took
serious effort to get things tweaked and
running correctly. However, once you
have done it the first time, you will
become comfortable with the subtle nuances
that bring the Vapochill together for peak
performance.
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| Installation
/ Setup with the Vapochill |
| NOT
for the novice... |
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These
are shots of the Vapochill CPU kit for an
FCPGA/Slotket setup. The CPU is
mounted inside of a foam insulated plastic
"clamshell" case or boot.
The Copper Cold Plate, that is connected
to the Compressor, is then clamped on top
of the CPU (with a fair amount of thermal
paste as you can see in the picture below)
much like a standard heatsink. We
also attached two Thermistor Probes
directly to the Copper Plate for accurate
measurement of Cold Plate temperatures,
one for the motherboard and one for the
"Chill Control Unit".
Click
all images for full view
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FCPGA
and Slotket Kit
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FCPGA
and Cold Plate mounted
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P3/Athlon
Kit
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"Chill
Control" PCB
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Also visible in the top left shot, are the
ends of the heating element (protruding
just below the card edge fingers of the
Slotket) that is lined inside the
boot but on the outside of the foam
insulation. Believe it or not, this
element gets hot and eliminates the build
up of condensation inside the CPU
Kit. The Copper Cold Plate gets VERY
cold and will develop frost on its surface
when exposed to the air. Once full
assembled, the processor is insulated from
the outside air and the heating element
keeps condensation from building up on the
outside of the boot. The bottom left
is a P3/Athlon Kit spread out so you can
see all of the parts. As you can
see, there is also a different retention
clip used for the P3 or Athlon Kit.
Finally,
in the bottom right shot, the "Chill
Control" unit is a Circuit Board
that you mount inside your case with
double sided tape that is included.
This is basically a temperature sensor
that is connected to one of the Thermistor
probes that you attach to the Cold Plate
and another wire that you attach to the
"Reset Header" on your
motherboard. The Chill Control PCB,
upon power-up, then holds your motherboard
and system in "reset" mode until
the correct temperature is reached at the
Cold Plate. You can set the desired
temperature with jumpers all the way down
to -17C. The Chill Control unit
prevents "hot starts" which will
obviously keep your system from booting
when extremely over-clocked. The
Chill Control unit performed very well for
us and was very accurate. The
system, when set to start at -10C, took
only 2-3 minutes to cool down before it
booted. All told, this is a very
elegant and effective solution. Once
the system is on, the Cold Plate continues
to chill the CPU down even further.
More on this later.
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Here is a shot
of what an Athlon mounted inside the P3/Athlon
kit looks like. The same basic setup
applies here. The Cold Plate is
mounted directly to the CPU with a
retention clip and the entire assembly is
insulated in foam padding (see bottom
shot) and buttoned up tight.
click
for full view
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Athlon
Mounted in kit
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Athlon
GFD provided
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Athlon
with Cold Plate and Clip
| The
Athlon Gold Finger Device, that Asetek
includes, is enclosed inside the CPU kit
as well. This is a very tight
squeeze and once you close the kit, the
GFD is not accessible for changes
easily. We are hoping Asetek comes
up with some alternative solutions for the
GFD setup. Perhaps a ribbon cable
with a connector on the end and the
switches mounted on the other end, OUTSIDE
the CPU kit, will do the trick.
Something tells us that it is not that
easy though.
Let's
take a look at some fully assembled CPU
Kits. (click for full view)
The
top two shots show you the full assembly
and the bottom shot shows you the power
supply mounted in its position.
Again, not the most optimal location but
at least you can still get at the AGP and
PCI slots. If you are the type of
person that is switching out a CPU every
month or two, taking out the P.S. and
breaking down the CPU Kit, will be a fair
amount of work before you have access to
the CPU. On the other hand, there
aren't many folks (other than those crazy
people in the Hot Hardware Labs) that will
be changing processors that often.
Finally, notice our little Chill Control
PCB is mounted in the lower right hand
side of the case.
Let's
show you the other important component in
this Over-Clocked Monster Rig, the Abit
CX6.
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