Re: [PCWorks] What's a heatsink? (Was Re: Thanks to list members, and KEEP the posts coming!)
- From: David Grossman <dgrossman@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: pcworks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 01:13:43 +0300
Good point, Hugh.
I was thinking of cooling as in the activity of an air conditioner or the
freon in a fridge/freezer. They bring in fresh, cool air.
The devices in a computer remove or dissipate heat or hot air, but they do
not bring in cool air.
However, I agree with your point. After all, the computer is cooler with a
heat sink than it would have been without one.
David Grossman
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pcworks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:pcworks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Hugh Vandervoort
> Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 1:08 AM
> To: pcworks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [PCWorks] What's a heatsink? (Was Re: Thanks to list
> members, and KEEP the posts coming!)
>
>
> I'd have to quibble with the idea that fans and heat sinks don't "cool".
> A heat exchanger does exactly that, and a fan moves hot air from one
> place to another, which sounds like cooling to me.
> Only a quibble, not to be confused with Quidditch.
>
>
> David Grossman wrote:
> > Sue,
> >
> > In ye olde days, back when people like me had hair, serious
> computers were
> > maintained in big rooms with air conditioners. I recall working
> on a PDP-11,
> > and some of the senior members of this group may remember even bigger
> > monstrosities.
> >
> > Yes, smaller and relatively pathetic computers did not need air
> > conditioners, but any business or academic computer (that only had a
> > fraction of the oomph and storage of today's computers) needed big,
> > expensive air conditioners. Even so, the rooms were quite warm.
> Those air
> > conditioners were rarely serious competition for the heat emitted by the
> > computers.
> >
> > Today's computers (and especially parts such as the
> microprocessor) still
> > emit a great deal of heat, even though they no longer use
> vacuum tubes. As a
> > computer teacher, I work in an air-conditioned computer lab, but it
> > sometimes gets uncomfortably hot in the summertime.
> >
> > Put your hand behind your computer, and you'll feel hot air from the
> > computer fan. That's one way of making the computer cooler.
> Another way is
> > the heat sink that Clint described. The fan and the heat sink
> do not cool
> > the computer, but they make it usable.
> >
> > This information is not to be confused with those computers that REALLY
> > heated up a few summers ago. Their Sony batteries actually caught fire.
> > However, that's material for another thread.
> >
> > David Grossman
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