The Macintosh Ice Cube

[LiquidNitrogen]

I took the extreme shortcut, and decided to use the Deep Freezer to "chill out" my Macintosh G4 Cube. It's a rare species to begin with, but this animal is even more unique in that it's a Dual Processor 500 MHz, dating from October 2000.

The 450 MHz models were available in abundance, the 500 MHz models only available from the online Apple Store, and the Dual Processors only if you knew somebody at Apple Computer (until the aftermarket upgrades came about in 2003 or 2004). Even those would not display "Dual Processor" in the About Box, since they were not factor installed.

So, I present the "Ice Cube" ....

http://www.**************************.com/images/gallery/ice_cube/deep_freeze_cube_01.jpg

In the foreground on the right, you can see one of my former spaghetti jars (which I always keep and serve drinks out of later). In this case, I filled it with ice tea (already refrigerated) and decided to time how long it would take to "flash freeze" in the Deep Freezer. The dang phone rang and I was chatting away, and just plain forgot about it, then ran over and pulled it out (by the lid), and it was frozen solid! My fingers were also frozen to the lid (not too smart). I'll retime how long it takes to freeze it later on. I know it was pretty damn fast.

http://www.**************************.com/images/gallery/ice_cube/ice_cube_02.jpg

Just from opening and closing it once, ice crystals were already forming all along the perimeter of the freezer.

http://www.**************************.com/images/gallery/ice_cube/temperature.jpg

It reached -27.2 F at it's coolest point. It's a little less than this in Celciius, but not by much.

[Buckeye]

Hey thats pretty good.

Can be a hazard tho due to ice forming and computers dont really like that all that much unless you insulate :)

But.. are you able to over clock the Mac at all ?

[LiquidNitrogen]

Hey thats pretty good.

Can be a hazard tho due to ice forming and computers dont really like that all that much unless you insulate :)

But.. are you able to over clock the Mac at all ?

Running the checkers test on it now. At 500 MHz the thing takes nearly 24 hours. So, with this overclocking, it might knock it down to 20 hours.

:)

There are not nearly the software overclocking tools available for Macs that are going on 10 years old, as compared to the current PC market. I'm not even 100% sure where the sensor is on the 3rd party "Temperature Lite" utility (I think it's not far from the HD chasis).

This was just an experiment to see how well the freezer seal would form around the cables (doing a darn good job) and whether or not my mounting bracket basket would hold the cube (it does).

Quick-n-Dirty, no fanfare deserved.

[LiquidNitrogen]

BTW, that compressor is really working hard now, thing is getting noisy. I can hear the circulation through the evaporation coils, and it's really putting out some serious heat at the back end.

Temp is at -37 F and holding (getting closer to the same temperature Celcius. -37 F = -38.3 C)

I just read in the manual that the computer should not be operated below 50 F, lol! So, I guess it will crash any minute now.

I can count the number of times this computer has crashed in the 9+ years I've had it on one hand. Probably 4 of those 5 were me writing bad code and crashing my own applications!

The poor cube does not deserve this abuse :)

[Kal-EL]

Yes it does, it deserves better and more devious abuse, its a shame that it wasn't abused sooner.

Kool temps man :thumbsup:

Just a suggestion so you don't bonker you're compressor, make sure you're getting extra airflow out the backside of you're freezer, all that heat/exchange has gotta be over the tuned spec of the fridge.

"Home Brew" always gets :thumbsup::good:

[Neuromancer]

I love ghetto mods so thups from me as well :)

It aint about what you can afford, it is about what you can afford to do :)

Gotta figure out a way to OC it, or efficiency should not improve much