Stop your computer from overheating by stacking copper coins

[Deleted]

Source: http://www.sciencealert.com/stop-you...s&limitstart=1

Japanese Twitter user akinori_suzuki decided to start stacking 10-yen coins, which are primarily made out of copper, on top of his laptop.

That's pretty brilliant, seeing as copper has much greater thermal conductivity than aluminium or plastic - which most laptops are made out of. Because of the laws of thermodynamics, this means that, as long as the copper coins are cooler than your computer, they'll 'soak up' the heat that would otherwise be causing issues for your central processing unit.
...
As tends to happen online, the internet took his idea and ran with it, with other Twitter users sharing images of their own setups - and it turns out it's not just for laptops, it can also cool down your desktop tower:
...
And for those of you feeling upset that you're not living in Japan - the land of the copper coin - don't worry. In Australia, every coin contains more than 50 percent copper, and in the UK, the pennies are all made mostly of the metal.

But the bad news for the US is that pennies haven't contained more than 2.5 percent of copper since 1981, so while any coins before that are going to cool your system down, the more recent zinc-based coins aren't going to be hugely helpful (zinc is less thermally conductive than aluminium).

In case you need another reason to give it a try (or invest in some copper of your own), research has also shown that copper kills the superbug MRSA on contact, so if you're working in or around a hospital that might be another handy benefit.

We're totally trying this one at home.

[Deleted]

Internet fails at physics. Again. News at 11.

(Those copper coins will do virtually nothing, as they only touch in the tiniest of points. The air in between is roughly 1 million times worse at conducting the heat, compared to the solid copper. Watch this space for horror stories about people, who fried their motherboard or other system components due to creating short circuits with loose copper coins.)

[Lathais]

Internet fails at physics. Again. News at 11.

(Those copper coins will do virtually nothing, as they only touch in the tiniest of points. The air in between is roughly 1 million times worse at conducting the heat, compared to the solid copper. Watch this space for horror stories about people, who fried their motherboard or other system components due to creating short circuits with loose copper coins.)

I dunno, for MacBooks made of Aluminum, if you can remove the heat from the aluminum, the aluminum could then absorb more heat from the components. It clearly does make a difference, as it prevents the fans from spinning up when they normally would, meaning it is certainly cooler inside the laptop than it would be otherwise.

Now as to how practical it is, that is another matter entirely. The whole point of a laptop is portability and this makes it much more of a pain to pick it up and go, and set up each time you wish to use it like this. Plus it just looks ugly and is very distracting.

[the boar]

the price of copper in the UK was so high a couple years ago, that old 1p and 2p coins that contained copper were actually worth more as scrap.

anyway, the copper content of 'copper' coins these days is.. almost nothing. i think they are nickel or something, but whatever they are now, they ain't copper.

[Lathais]

the price of copper in the UK was so high a couple years ago, that old 1p and 2p coins that contained copper were actually worth more as scrap.

anyway, the copper content of 'copper' coins these days is.. almost nothing. i think they are nickel or something, but whatever they are now, they ain't copper.

In the U.S. they are mostly zinc, but in other countries, notably Japan where the guy that was doing this is from, their 10-yen coins are primarily made of copper. The article does a good job of explaining this if you had read it:

And for those of you feeling upset that you're not living in Japan - the land of the copper coin - don't worry. In Australia, every coin contains more than 50 percent copper, and in the UK, the pennies are all made mostly of the metal.

But the bad news for the US is that pennies haven't contained more than 2.5 percent of copper since 1981, so while any coins before that are going to cool your system down, the more recent zinc-based coins aren't going to be hugely helpful (zinc is less thermally conductive than aluminium).

[chazus]

1) Love the fact that they gave a thermal image of a laptop... But not an after image showing any evidence. I know they say "To be clear, this is an unproven idea from the internet", but that's like saying "We're assuming everything on the internet is true" and "We don't care if it's not true, lol like and subscribe plz"

2) Most of the heat is inside, in the CPU, and the heat spreader and vent around it. Not the outside body. Especially on the top. This does nothing. It's like putting flame stickers on your car and saying it will go faster. Even on the aluminum Macbooks, minimal heat actually reaches the outer body, except for the bottom where that stuff is within a few mm of contact. Certainly not the top.

3) Even if it WAS effective... somehow... The actual contact between them is minimal, providing no thermal transfer.

4) Even if THAT was effective... All you'd have is hot copper pennies on top of your laptop (and probably damaging your screen by proximity). They don't magically make heat go away.

For something from a site called "Science Alert", this is pretty much garbage journalism.

[chazus]

This reminds me of the video Linus Tech tips did on baking your graphics card in the oven to revive it.

At some point, I think when people resort to things like this, the product's reached its end of life or was just developed poorly.

The difference is... One method actually works. Another does not.

[Ciddy]

3) Even if it WAS effective... somehow... The actual contact between them is minimal, providing no thermal transfer.

Yeah, this was the first thing that popped into my head when I read that article. Kinda like how a heatsink wouldn't effectively do its job if you just sat it on top of your CPU without clamping it down, using thermal paste, or attaching a fan to it.

Aside from that...the pennies are sitting on top of plastic. I just can't see this making a difference at all.

[Denpepe]

Shame the show is cancelled otherwise I could say take it to the mythbusters.

[the boar]

oh i didn't even see that link hidden at the top

but regarding the contact points, would a strip of thermal pad along the macbook would take care of that?

[chazus]

Shame the show is cancelled otherwise I could say take it to the mythbusters.

Eh. Common sense. That's like going to mythbusters and giving them a potato and asking them to determine if it's a potato.

but regarding the contact points, would a strip of thermal pad along the macbook would take care of that?

Not really. Thermal pads need to have the thing held against them.. And they're not very good either in the first place.

[Denpepe]

Eh. Common sense. That's like going to mythbusters and giving them a potato and asking them to determine if it's a potato.

While that's true, they might find a way to make it work in some other form.

[Lathais]

Obviously, it will not remove and dissipate heat nearly as fast as a CPU cooler, but just making contact will remove some heat, as long as whatever you are using has better thermal conductivity than what it is touching. More surface area and higher pressure will of course speed that process, but some will transfer as long as there is at least some contact.

[qw4]

If you stack enough of them up, you can buy a real computer!

[Vash The Stampede]

Obviously, it will not remove and dissipate heat nearly as fast as a CPU cooler, but just making contact will remove some heat, as long as whatever you are using has better thermal conductivity than what it is touching. More surface area and higher pressure will of course speed that process, but some will transfer as long as there is at least some contact.

Forgetting that the amount of contact to the coins is almost nothing. There's a reason why you use thermal paste for the heatsink, cause without it you'd conduct very little heat. On top of that the coins are not flat, as they have a ridge going around it. Plus, the coins are likely oxidized, and have a thin layer of not very conductive material.

There are so many better ways to cool a laptop, that don't turn your laptop into an ugly stationary desktop. If you need to put your laptop on top of a fan cooler, and stack coins on top to cool it down, then you need a destkop. Cause that setup is no longer portable anymore. You could replace the thermal compound and thermal pads in the laptop, cause it's not like Apple puts quality compound like any other manufacturer does.

[DeltrusDisc]

This reminds me of the video Linus Tech tips did on baking your graphics card in the oven to revive it.

At some point, I think when people resort to things like this, the product's reached its end of life or was just developed poorly.

Except, he's not the only one who showed that that could work.

If you're poor and can't afford a new GPU, then that might be the next-best solution.

[oplawlz]

If you stack enough of them up, you can buy a real computer!

Alright, I wasn't going to comment on this thread because the premise is ludicrous and other people have pointed out why, but this made me chuckle. Kudos, Sir.

[Lathais]

Forgetting that the amount of contact to the coins is almost nothing. There's a reason why you use thermal paste for the heatsink, cause without it you'd conduct very little heat. On top of that the coins are not flat, as they have a ridge going around it. Plus, the coins are likely oxidized, and have a thin layer of not very conductive material.

There are so many better ways to cool a laptop, that don't turn your laptop into an ugly stationary desktop. If you need to put your laptop on top of a fan cooler, and stack coins on top to cool it down, then you need a destkop. Cause that setup is no longer portable anymore. You could replace the thermal compound and thermal pads in the laptop, cause it's not like Apple puts quality compound like any other manufacturer does.

when two metals touch, heat will transfer, period. How much of them touch simply determines how fast the heat will transfer. More surface area, more heat transfer. With CPUs, you need as much contact as possible because of how hot they get, and how quickly they get hot. That's why you need thermal paste there. However, even a slight bit of contact is enough for some heat transfer.

Try it out yourself, get a paperclip and bend it outwards leaving part of it on a table and the other part hanging off then put a copper coin or some other piece of copper on it. Hold a lighter to the paperclip and see if the copper gets hot. It will, because the metal is touching and heat will transfer. It will not transfer very fast, not fast enough to keep a cpu cool, but fast enough to remove some heat from the aluminum cases on MacBooks to allot that aluminum to absorb more heat from inside the laptop.

Several people have reported success with this. It's pretty simple to understand. Not all applications of heat transfer need the same speed and efficiency in which CPUs need heat removed from them. Sure, it's not going to cool anywhere near as well as a heatsink attacked to a CPU with thermal paste, but it will remove heat.

Also I totally agree that it is impractical and kinda stupid, but it would make some difference. Is the difference worth the hassle? Probably not. Does it make you look stupid if you were doing this out in public? Probably. If you laptop is stationary enough that you can leave a bunch of coins stacked on it would you be better off with a desktop? Of course. That doesn't change the fact that heat will trasfer, albeit slowly, and it will make some sort of difference. It obviously has made enough of a difference for many people to notice their fans not spinning up as loud.

[alucardtnuoc]

This reminds me of people saying if your room gets too hot, switch to water cooling.

Silly ideas from people who don't know better.

[Vash The Stampede]

Try it out yourself, get a paperclip and bend it outwards leaving part of it on a table and the other part hanging off then put a copper coin or some other piece of copper on it. Hold a lighter to the paperclip and see if the copper gets hot. It will, because the metal is touching and heat will transfer. It will not transfer very fast, not fast enough to keep a cpu cool, but fast enough to remove some heat from the aluminum cases on MacBooks to allot that aluminum to absorb more heat from inside the laptop.

Assuming the coins don't get heat saturated and just act like a heat battery, cause that's all I can see them doing. While more metal might help, it won't help a lot. Think of it like this, why use heatpipe technology instead of a solid copper pipe? Cause you need a more active method to pull heat away than just the conductivity of metal.

Another example, cause this just happened to me, if a water cooling systems pump fails, won't the fan on the radiator be enough to keep the system from overheating? Water does conduct heat.

Several people have reported success with this. It's pretty simple to understand. Not all applications of heat transfer need the same speed and efficiency in which CPUs need heat removed from them. Sure, it's not going to cool anywhere near as well as a heatsink attacked to a CPU with thermal paste, but it will remove heat.

Just cause some people reacted and claim success, doesn't mean it works. Keep in mind the aluminum housing is not a heatsink for the CPU. The housing gets hot due to the residual heat from the heated air flow. Sure absorbing the heat would cool the air flow, and therefore the CPU, but once the coins reach a certain temperature, you're right back to before. And cause the coins are not finned like a heatsink, and have a layer of oxidation, they won't dissipate heat easily either.

Also I totally agree that it is impractical and kinda stupid, but it would make some difference. Is the difference worth the hassle? Probably not. Does it make you look stupid if you were doing this out in public? Probably. If you laptop is stationary enough that you can leave a bunch of coins stacked on it would you be better off with a desktop? Of course. That doesn't change the fact that heat will trasfer, albeit slowly, and it will make some sort of difference. It obviously has made enough of a difference for many people to notice their fans not spinning up as loud.

It goes to show that some people are actively trying to find solutions to the throttling issues with the Macs. They're designed to throttle, but it certainly doesn't seem to sit well with people.