Looks up with binoculars.

Yeah you guys are WAY over my head.

I do agree solid chunk drilled out should be better. I love DIY though :)

Mass = better, thats what I read. and the F1 pot Kal let me borrow got rid of that nasty 40C swing Dicing wPrime... trick is MASS alone is not enough. Need to get surface area, or you "cold substance" is not removing enough heat. Too small (say fins in the bottom) would be a problem because they would get brittle and also clug up with condensate.

Rods like an old ram sink might work decent, but too hard to mill unless its a two piece...for DIYer though... its an option ;) especially with 3" diameter to work with ;)

Use some thermal tape a bunch of copper ram sinks (old style 1-2" high kind) torch it to melt the tape and get to freezing :) Just an idea...

difference between a dice pot and ln2, mass. A pot good for dice has less, a pot better for ln2 has more. Why? It's the temp swing mentioned above, if you have a pot with a ton of mass (like say.. 5+ lbs) that is one piece temp swing becomes much easier to control with a very cold liquid (ln2) but with dry ice you don't have to worry about cold bug generally speaking, so if you had a ton of mass you get too much for the dry ice to cool, let alone keep cold with cpu heating it up. You need less mass because of the conduction of heat.
With dice you also want a lot of easy to access surface area (think of the f1ee extension piece) because the more area the dice has to contact the more ability it has to cool, but it's not as nice an easy to make contact with as ln2. Also since no cold bug you want that thing full of dice the entire time, as much dice as possible. Think of how elaborate patch's base is, it wouldn't work that great with dice because dice isn't gonna flow through that small of holes well, the acetone may, but it's not at the same temp as the dice, slightly warmer. So a good dice pot has a medium amount of mass, a lot of surface area, and lot of area for the dice.

And yeah, my pot is fuggin huge (about 3" diameter), and i had to cut into the insulation to get the pot to mount to 775.

That Otter pot is a beast.... If I had one, I wouldn't want to use it! I would cuddle with it instead (and try not to drop it on my foot). :ohcrap:

I have almost no experience with POTs... I do know that an alum light weight pot was not as good for dicing as Kal's F1 EE he let me borrow :)

40C temp swings in wprime on AMD chips is redonkulous.

However, tests showed the Koolance V2 is a better DIce pot than the F1.. (or course it is not much better and when LN2 is added the F1 is much beter...)

They both have similar styled bases drill a bunch of holes in the bottom... just the koolance is lighter and nickel plated...

I was also told NOT to fill up the pot with DIce. So I did not with the F1... that might have been the difference too.

Indeed... DIce should be used sparingly. It is easier to stir, and allows the acetone to do its thing better and not all over the place i.e. the board, gpu, your face, whatever. Plus it lasts a LOt longer. You can make 25lbs of Dice last all night, baby!

I personally have only used an f1ee pot, and found my best results with DIce temps being very little acetone (not quite filling the holes) and 1/4 to 1/2 cup of powdered/SMALL chunks of DIce. Yeah, I used a measuring cup... just like Martha freaking Stewart... :laughing: As long as that mixture is kept the same, the amount really shouldn't matter. Temps wouldn't change any though, as I was holding temps below -68 no matter what the load was, and had min. temps @ idle. The only downside is you end up scooping a lot, but the control you have is amazing. :thumbsup:

ln2... well, I'll get around to that one of these days. ;)

The key to dice IMO is crushing the dice before you start benching.
Little tiny pieces (think coarse corn meal, or standard aquarium gravel at the largest) to snow is best, by far.

I like to put about 3oz of acetone in my koolance v2, that way if i can see the middle bit i know i need more dice.
The dice/acetone mixture should be just starting to feel thickish when you stir it, like a 75% melted McD's milkshake with some sand in it. If it stirs like water you don't have enough, and if it stirs like mud you have too much.

The big chunks you see people use are an excellent example of doing it wrong.



Bonus tip: Boot warm with the pot attached, then put powdered dice in till the temp sensors bug, then put a tiny bit of acetone in, more dice, tiny acetone, more dice, then acetone till you have as much as you want.
If you put acetone in first then dice, or throw a lot of acetone on the dry dice, you'll get an acetone/dice volcano. Not good, the acetone'll eat your keyboard, face, eyes(!!) and probably motherboard, and dice in the eye is a fairly major problem as well. Personally i stay way the hell away from the pot when i put the first acetone in.


Oh yeah, if you want to add mass to a dice pot, get a .25" thick copper coldplate from anybody that'll sell one to you and put it under the pot. Presto! More mass. Also helps fat bottomed pots (like the koolance v2) clear tall caps near the socket.

You forgot to add "Expensive wooden office furniture finishes" :laughing:

Not to mention your lungs. Have a fan nearby and blowing at a window fan drawing the fumes out of the room. Its bad, very bad.

So, it can ruin everything you love and is definitely not good for you... no wonder it's so fun!

Again this statement is totally untrue it will not add mass and will not help temps all that much. It may even hurt temps.