WTF!!! Thermalright Heat pipes not containing any fluid?

[VinDSL]

You be the judge...

Investigation on Phoronix

Thank God for Tuniq Tower 120s!

[Vapor]

No liquid and they're still performing the best...go figure.

Wonder how much better they'd do with liquid.

Important quote from the end of the article that I've been lightly harping on for awhile:

Clearly, not all heatpipes are made equal.

[zanzabar]

it could have had some mercury or something that vaporizes and stays that way after a certain temp vaporizes it or something that stays solid and affixes to the bottom until a certain temp

[VinDSL]

Dude, this guy just blew the whole scam wide open! It's pure genius!

This is NOT going to be accepted well...

This guy is gonna be burned at the stake!

[VinDSL]

Important quote from the end of the article that I've been lightly harping on for awhile:

No kidding!

Ppl are either paying big bucks for a sponge with a couple of drops of water on it - or nothing at all - that's the difference!

Bwahahaha! I'm sure vendors never expected somebody to cut a heatpipe open.

Hell, Thermalright could have said their heatpipes contained plutonium and ppl would have believed it, until this guy came along!

[cabbspapp]

As long as my heatsink performs good, I don't care.

[Movieman]

As long as my heatsink performs good, I don't care.

Agreed, BUT could this be the reason why some people get good results and some don't?
Could it be as simple a thing as lack of quality control on the liquid?
Next we'll get HS with gauges on the side showing the liquid levels..

[apexracing]

This means the majority of heatsinks out there with heatpipes, shouldn't work at all. Yet we continue to see improved performance with the addition of these "dry" heatpipes. I wonder if they have some proprietary fluid in them, similar to Coolabs Liquid Metal or whatever that stuff is called, but in reverse. It turns fluid when you heat it up, in effect.

I want to see what happens when you use the cooler again, after the heatpipes are cut, if that's possible, of course.

[metro.cl]

i'll say imposible, air sucks for heat transfer and this new heatpipe coolers do a much better job that earlier heatsinks with full Cu parts.

Maybe as said above bad quality control or a small hole in the pipe and the gas / liquid evaporated

[Movieman]

This means the majority of heatsinks out there with heatpipes, shouldn't work at all. Yet we continue to see improved performance with the addition of these "dry" heatpipes. I wonder if they have some proprietary fluid in them, similar to Coolabs Liquid Metal or whatever that stuff is called, but in reverse. It turns fluid when you heat it up, in effect.

I want to see what happens when you use the cooler again, after the heatpipes are cut, if that's possible, of course.

I'm thinking this is pure quality control.
Remember our friend here on the forum who was a fanatic about passive cooling and cut up 2 heatpipe coolers and put them into one unit?
You clearly saw the fluid from those heatpipes when he opened them.

[STEvil]

Huh.. dont remember any fluid coming out of the heatpipe for the GPU end of the heatsink in my Alienware M5750 when I tore it apart either now that I think of it.

[Origin_Unknown]

right, im gona chop my TRUE / Hr-03-plus / hr-05-ifx appart and check


also, that dudes no exactly tested the most modern heatsinks in that review either

[kemo]

right, im gona chop my TRUE / Hr-03-plus / hr-05-ifx appart and check


also, that dudes no exactly tested the most modern heatsinks in that review either

leave them in your freezer for couple of hours before chopping them

[jimmyz]

This is silly. the fluid is in the wicking material. which you can clearly see in the photo's. the tubing Is lined with this material when the tube is manufactured. they then saturate the wick with whatever concoction they determine is suitable. since different companies choose different substances and pressure/ vacuum ranges, there will be differences in how much you would see if you were to cut it open.
I got this from wikpedia: Water, for instance, expands 1600 times when it vaporizes at 1 atmosphere. If 1/1600 of the volume of a heat pipe is filled with water, when all the fluid is just vaporized, the pressure will be one atmosphere. If the safe working pressure of the pipe in question is, say, 5 atmospheres, one could use a quantity of water equal to 5/1600 of the total volume.


I doubt if you woud notice a fluid volume of 5/1600 of the total volume of the tube since it is suspended in the wick.........MYTH..BUSTED

[Airbrushkid]

Just think the Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme beats the Tuniq Tower.

You be the judge...

Thank God for Tuniq Tower 120s!

[largon]

The original article reeks of sensation seeking.

If they had multiples of the same HSF each tested for temp variances then cut to pieces and had they found some individuals had fluid and some didn't, the article would have been interesting.

[64dragon]

as long as my heatsink does its job and cools my proc i dont care if theres no substance inside the pipes. they should test the ones on asus boards

[GrimReaperGuy]

Lol.
When investigating heatpipes, it helps if you know the subject matter.

they should test the ones on asus boards

Examining the heat-pipe I have from a P5N32-E, there is no liquid inside that I can see. A heat-pipe from a P5W-DH contains some greyish, metallic substance in the capillaries.

[rosco]

A poor article from people who don't know anything about what they are talking about, just sensationalism BS...

Jimmyz is alright. It's not like a thermosiphon with a lot a liquid inside to flood the evaporation chamber, no need tons of fluid to be efficient here ! On the contrary, too much fluid will be counterproductive... In heatpipes, you won't see any liquid inside (or very very few if you destroy/sponge the wicking part) because it's filled with only some drops of water, acetone, methanol, R134a or other liquid under pressure or in a vaccum (depends of application range, fluid boiling point and heatpipes brand). Liquid is contained inside the copper wicking part attached to the wall if heatpipe contains one (there's several types of capillary return into heatpipes, not necessary using the inside wall). But this don't mean they are empty just because the guy can't see it !! If heatpipes were really empty of fluid, they won't work at all and thermal performance will be catastrophic eh... Ridiculous.

[freeloader]

I'd find it hard to believe that the companies are "stimping" on water in their heatpipes.

[Vapor]

Dude, this guy just blew the whole scam wide open! It's pure genius!

This is NOT going to be accepted well...

This guy is gonna be burned at the stake!

There's no scam...higher quality parts don't necessarily have a deluge of liquid pouring out of them. Neither do lower quality parts. The design is the design...chances are we're not seeing much liquid for a reason (lowers load? harder to manufacture with lotsa liquid for minuscule/zero gain? could be any number of reasons).

Though I still wonder how performance varies with the amount/type/placement of different liquids.

[[XC] Lead Head]

A fluid can be either a liquid OR a gas. That pressure relief they heard was whatever gas that was filled in the tubes escaping.

[Kobalt]

. It turns fluid when you heat it up, in effect.

That's impossible. Liquids have less energy than gases at the same pressure, so heating up a gas is not going to turn it into a liquid.

[krogen]

From Phoronix:

"The heat transfer tube is an advanced technique adopted on electronic devices. It is made from pure oxygen-free copper tubes and copper meshes filled with pure water or acetone as working fluid. The fluid at the heat receiving end is vaporized to a cooling end to be cooled and condensed to the fluid phase again." The word "fluid" is mentioned seven times just on the sixth page of this patent. Where's the fluid inside our OTES heatpipe though? We hadn't found any traces of water or acetone in the first one we opened.

Acetone is a fluid that evaporates really, really quickly at room temperature. If there were small amounts of acetone in the heatpipes that were tested in the following "investigation", I'm sure they wouldn't have been noticed because the acetone evaporated almost instantaneously.

[tsuehpsyde]

I remember when I was visiting a friend in Vegas, he had some Asus Professional board for his "at the time ES" Kentsfield Q6600. The motherboard was impressive, but we couldn't figure out why the NB was so hot and limiting our FSB clock. When we looked under the heatsink where the heat pipe connected, it wasn't even soldered on. It was literally glued on. I don't think the pipes were even sealed shut, they were literally for show. And we touched the heatsink that the chipset was on (very hot) and the pipe was literally cold. Sad really.

I'm all for true heat pipes, but the fakers need dealt with.