sp3 is water cooled?!

[onysi]

According to this tear down, it has a waterfilled pipe around the fan.

First Look (Inside and Out): Microsoft Surface Pro 3

Has this ever been done on tablets??

 

[Jas00555]

*spits out Dr. Pepper* ..... Dayum

 

[onysi]

its the horseshoe shape copper pipe.

 

[liquidphantom]

Heat Phase Change cooler. It's fairly standard on air coolers for PCs these days especially the non stock coolers.

 

[xandros9]

Heat Phase Change cooler. It's fairly standard on air coolers for PCs these days especially the non stock coolers.

I thought it must've been more mundane since I haven't seen much mention of it. You would think MS would be trumpeting water cooling if it was a full-blown water setup.

I first saw pictures, i thought it wasn't anything cool since I've seen flattened pipes in other air cooled devices.
Thanks

 

[sahib lopez]

o.o wow that is legit. I didn't think I would see the day were a tablet form factor would have a water cooled system. this really is engineering at its finest

 

[Jan Tomsic]

It's not water cooling exactly, it's a heatpipe, something that's been used in laptops since always really.
I'm just amazed how they managed to squeeze this in such a thin chassis!

 

[falconeight]

Its an amazing looking internal.

 

[jojoe42]

Its an amazing looking internal.

Agreed. Now that's what you call engineering

 

[Karthik Naik]

*gets ready to switch to surface pro 3 and ditch the sad android tabs and ok-ok ipad*

 

[N_LaRUE]

I thought it must've been more mundane since I haven't seen much mention of it. You would think MS would be trumpeting water cooling if it was a full-blown water setup.

I first saw pictures, i thought it wasn't anything cool since I've seen flattened pipes in other air cooled devices.
Thanks

Thing is, unless you're a computer geek and into building your own kit you wouldn't care one bit about this setup. The only thing that matters is that it keeps things cool while using it.

 

[N_LaRUE]

I've looked at the pictures and I'm having a hard time believing it's water cooled and what advantage it would have. I understand the way heat exchangers work (water cooling in PCs and other industries) and I can't see what benefit having water in such a small quantity would do for the overall cooling effect. Also saying the water evaporates means you'd create condensation on the pipes. Not something you'd want to happen.

Until I see proof that there is water in there or some other form of liquid cooling agent I'm going to remain skeptical.

 

[carlos12001]

I doubt there's any water in them, all laptops have that in them. It transfers heat from the inside to the fan for expulsion.

 

[Alex Mason86]

Those are heat pipes.... Heat pipes are not a cooling method per se, they are a heat transfer tool. Inside the pipe is usually a wick material, often metal and a fluid. You can use many different fluids, but water is a common one thanks to high heat capacity. In essence the water is heated and transformed to vapor through the wick. It then travels up the center of the pipe from the hot end to the cool end where it cools and changes phase back to liquid. The liquid then travels back down on the outside of the wick to repeat the process.

Its convection and the wicking effect.

Heat pipes are great because they are extremely efficient heat transfer devices. This allows you to place the cooling fins and fan quite a distance away from where the actual heat is generated. Additionally they are not especially new devices. They have been used in laptops for years. I remember my old MBP had two heat pipes which laid across all 3 of the main chips (CPU, GPU, Bridge) and punted heat out to small copper heat-sink-fan arrangements at the extremities of the chassis.

Their heat transfer can be termed adiabatic which means there is no external heat transfer to the outside world. Its all kept inside and dumped in the right location.

I have to say though, those pipes do look rather wide and flat. Normally they are rounder and narrower. Perhaps that is the innovation here.

This page has a nice animation

How a Heat Pipe Works - heat sinks