What is the limit? (was RE: multi-homing fixes)

Thu Aug 30 17:00:20 UTC 2001

On Thu, 30 Aug 2001, Larry Sheldon wrote:

>
> > > I have proposed to various router vendors the possibility of giving
> > > them a chilled water feed instead of lots of cool air.  At the
> > > moment they seem to not need it, but I would not be surprized to
> > > find something like this needed at some point.
> >
> > Err. Water and electricvity make a dangerous mix.
>
> That sounds a bit FUDish--lots of electricity is generated using water
> (most of it is, actually, given that steam is part of the cycle even in
> most nukes).

yeah, although in steam or hydro turbines or expansion engines the
generator is connected via a drive-staft not immersed... water isn't as
decent an insulator as an air gap which has to be taken into account when
generating a few hundred thousand volts.

This is completely removed from the issue of immersing your computer in
it. any cooling system in a router or computer is going to be a balance
between complexity, thermal efficiency, and cost. we've hardly exhausted
to possibilities of air cooling at this point, that will occur when the
energy density of the individual componts is to high to be cooled by
airflow and reasonable sized heatsinks, not when the box collectivly draws
more power...

> And we have used water-cooled CPU's for a lot of years.
>
> (And as a point of interest, distilled water at neutral ph is a
> reasonably good insulator, if I recall correctly.)
>

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