First mini-PC with solid-state active cooling system launches | Hacker News Reader

First mini-PC with solid-state active cooling system launches

newatlas.com

44 pointsdabinat30 comments

> that vibrate at ultrasonic frequency > the active cooling modules can only be heard if the user places an ear against the Zbox's housing.

Tangential question, but is this going to annoy dogs?

If anyone wants a video of it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdD0yMS40a0 [Linus Tech Tips]

Interesting. So it's not actually solid state. It uses piezo vibration to create airflow. It's still got moving parts. But it's much thinner than a traditional fan.

Really solid state active cooling would be something like a peltier element which are really inefficient and could cause condensation. I don't think they have been used in off the shelf PCs for those reasons though hobbyists have certainly made builds with them.

Piezo actuators are solid state devices, though the definition can get hazy. The biggest issue with heat pumps like TECs is that you’re always paying the entropy price so you need more energy to move energy. But you also need a thermal sink somewhere to remove the generated heat. Ends up being a vicious loop for electronics.

The actuator perhaps but the wiggling thing attached to it that moves the air? I don't think that's solid state? If it were you could even call a fan solid state.

On a macro scale it is solid state. Ultimately everything is vibrating when you look close enough.

The piezo is a single piece while a fan has at least two.

Even SSD's have electrons in them that really do move.

Gotta draw the line somewhere.

Surprised it is commercially available already. Feels fast.

Must admit the fact that it still moves air and thus accumulates dust kills the key benefit of fanless for me - set and forget

And it's going to be much harder to get the dust back out than with a traditional fan due to the tight tolerances and enclosed design.

They seem to have forseen that problem: the air intake has a filter over it.

Even with a filter some dust is going to get in.

I believe the filter is incredibly fine because it can generate very high suction. I think they claim its dust proof.

And how does this filter not clog?

I don't know, but the filtration media that goes into consumer products that filter dust from indoor air last about 5 years before they need to be replaced. Many of those products use HEPA filters, which get all of the dust out of the air that passes through them, and even those last 5 years.

I have once serviced a PC that had been running for about 9 years as a fax receiver. The inside was literally like a block of dust. Every available space had dust in it with the consistency of a pillow.

I serviced it because the PC refused to boot :') Once I removed all the dust and reseated all the boards it worked fine for several more years :)

This. Sysadmins have air compressors for agood reason. A surprising proportion of the job is janitorial. Remember the famous bug that caused an error? Dust and cat hair are a much bigger problem than insects. Airflow obstructions are the number one killer of PCs and servers.

Those have massively greater surface area than this one. Have you seen how dusty it gets inside a laptop? This looks like it could choke in a month.

I've used earlier versons of this kind of thing from Zotac that were not bad but the Asus PN 5X series (entirely passively cooled) is enough better that I wouldn't go back. This new line would have to be somewhere south of $200 to make me think of using it in future builds.

I have two PN5x and I’m quite happy with it. I only opened it twice. Once to assemble and 1 year later to check how much dust accumulated inside. Surprisingly not much.

This build uses a i3-N300, which is evidently a 7W chip.

Is there a sense on how much cooling this provides? Could you strap it to a 30/45/65W CPU and otherwise be fanless?

The manufacturer claims 4.25W of net cooling (5.25W cooling, 1W power consumption) for the Airjet Mini, and 8.75W (10.5W cooling, 1.75W power consumption) for the Airjet Pro.

Nuts. 5W of cooling might as well use a standard heat sink.

A heat sink of the same weight as this device might not be able to remove 5W of heat.

Why is the weight important here?

I buy mini PCs, and I've rejected mini PCs in the past for being too heavy, particularly, the Akasa fanless cases for Intel NUCs where the entire case is made of aluminum and functions as a heat sink.

(The weight matters because I commute with my mini PC.)

It's shocking how hot 5 watts can get a hunk of metal. As the airflow lowers more metal is needed.

The LTT link in another comment here goes into details. Iirc it's about 5w of cooling per unit in its current state

They need two coolers for a 7W chip?

This in gaming phones when?

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