Practical application of a sterling engine.

I didn't see this anywhere:

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=newsdesc&news_no=591



It is a mini sterling engine powering a heatsink fan on a motherboard.

A better title would be "Impractical application of a sterling engine."

A cool concept to be sure (no pun intended), and probably has some PR value, but I don't see the practical value of this. Their research budget would be better spent developing a fully integrated liquid cooling solution using the computer case itself as radiator. Saving computer geeks everywhere from noise-related stress.

Zalman makes those. The heatsink fan here uses no power saving a watt or two and it appears to be on the NorthBridge.

Why impractical? It works and requires no electrical connection. Seems like a win win to me.

James

A fan is a fan, and the fans typically used on chipset coolers use less than 1 watt, which is negligible in comparison to the amount of energy the chips themselves use. They are also mass-produced and therefore inexpensive.

By using a slightly bigger heat sink, the fan is rendered completely unnecessary. A heat sink is also inexpensive. Passive cooling is silent and much more durable than active cooling.

Even though, it's a good tech demo of how an sterling engine works, and that was probably the primary idea.

Just putting a heatsink on a CPU without a fan is asking for trouble. The heatsink would need to be very large to dissipate the watts put out by a modern CPU - which is why some schemes propose using the case as a sink (some laptops use passive cooling using a large heatsink on the base of the case but still have cooling fans for when they still get too hot)

And remember, if each stirling engined cooler replaces a 1/2watt fan, multipled by the number of PC's out there - that's a LOT of watts saved, production costs/energy use notwithstanding. There is also the effect that it costs more than 1/2watt in the internal power supply to produce that 1/2watt which powers the fan due to conversion losses (and having to power another fan to cool the supply!), so any gain is slightly more than the wattage of the old fan.

James

This is a northbridge cooler, not a cpu cooler. Modern power supplies have efficiencies of 70% to 80% so for a 500 mW fan, you need about 600 to 700 mW of wall power.

Might the practical application listed have a meaning for the proximity to the sun a CPU might be applied at yet without cooling shields or other protections against solar warmth or heat?



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

It is possible - even on intel CPU's - you do not have to use the biggest available... However - I'd recommend an ARM9/11