From the Archive - LD Cooling PC-V10 Phase Change Case Unboxing
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
2,796 words · ~13 min read
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Welcome to a new segment that we're calling from the
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archive where basically I don't know if
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we'll ever do this again, but like we found a video that we made a long time
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ago and never released. So, here it is.
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It's not often that I do an unboxing anymore. And the reason for that is
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actually a good one because, you know, I think there's more value to other parts
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of the experience with a review or a build guide or a build log or whatever
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else. But this product, I actually
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started opening it up and I realized how
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fun the experience was and I went, "Nah, let's put the few things we've taken out
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back in." And let's just start over. Welcome to my unboxing of the LD
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Cooling. They used to go by Little Devil. I think that's sort of unofficially what they still go as. PC
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V10 phase change cooled case. This puppy
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is going to hold your CPU, a 300 watt CPU, at
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minus30
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degrees. GFuel is the sugar-free alternative energy beverage to maintain
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focus and endurance in long days and gaming sessions. Use offer code Linus at
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the link in the video description to save some money. So, let's open it up
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and have a look at what comes inside first, shall we? You get a couple of
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boxes, each of which has, I'm assuming,
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some kind of accessories or something like that. As soon as we take out the
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foam on the top, we've got the top of
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the case that is able to house a quad 120 mm radiator. The OEM for this case
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is Lean Lee, so you'll probably recognize a lot of the design elements
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of their PC V10 case. Also in here, we
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get a a neoprene insulation boot that
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there's going to be instructions. Oh, I seem to have misplaced the instructions.
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Well, there are instructions for how to put on the phase change cooler as well
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as some looks like adhesive neoprene
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material for insulation. Yes, when you are cooling below ambient temperatures,
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you have to insulate the cold stuff in
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order to keep condensation from forming and uh getting water on your hardware.
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Now, I don't think they include the needed eraser for most people, but they
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threw that in for me. I'm actually not 100% sure about that. And then the same
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with the PCI covers. Uh they sent those for me. Those are actually an additional
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purchase. Uh this, no idea, but it's a 3 and 12 to 2 and 1/2 in drive mount. So,
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I'm not sure if that's normally included. This all is though. This is a
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bunch of mounting hardware for your phase change cooler. It's compatible
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with pretty much any socket. So, you can see they've got your AMD holes, your
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Intel holes, your other more different Intel holes, some different Intel holes,
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and then this is a piece that goes on the back to keep the back plate itself
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from frosting up and then just dripping down the back of your motherboard. Then
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we've got another one of those puppies as well. Some more screws. And then this
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looks like uh I'm not sure. I know that there's a USB module that it includes
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that monitors the temperature so that you know you don't uh boot up before
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it's working and something something whatever it's in the instructions. All
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right, so now we got to take out these pieces of
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foam. Honestly, it's kind of a miracle
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that this thing arrived in one piece because this is pretty much the worst
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kind of foam. It only has about 2 in of
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it on either on every side. So, it weighs about 50
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lb. 50 lbs without a system in
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it. All right. Which means getting out
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of getting it out of here is going to be a challenge because I'm not actually
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100% sure if this applies to all uh
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systems with a condenser and an evaporator, all phase change systems
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like refrigerators for example. I know you shouldn't flip them on their sides
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if you intend to use them anytime in the next I don't know what it is, 48 hours
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or something like that. So, I don't want to flip this baby over cuz I want to try
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it out pretty quick. And I've had it sitting upright for a while. So, I actually have to lift this straight out.
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So, let's hope this goes okay. Let's clear some space. Let's put it up
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here.
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Okay. Nothing to hold on
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to. Oh, man. That's heavy. Yeah, I'm
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going to need a hand. Kill the camera. Okay, got it.
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So, I've clearly I'm clearly out of practice at this whole unboxing thing.
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My wife's like, "Why don't you just cut the box open?" Like, I I I don't know.
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Cuz I didn't think of it. What's up, little girl? Sorry about that. Little
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Missy was getting fussy over there. So, uh on the side that we had actually left
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off on, you can see that there's a very, very large window. I think there's
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actually a larger window option as well, but then the bottom part is just
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reserved for cooling. On the back, you can see we've got 10 PCI slots, uh,
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single 120 mm fan, power supply, and wa,
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there's already a a power plug there. I guess we can start opening it, right? I
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mean, that's how this works. Unboxing. There we go. We've got another plug
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there. That's for the Oo, there's our first glimpse of the uh phase change
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cooling inside. All right, let's go ahead and come around to this side where
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we've got all just plain white here. We
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should stay over on this side so we have light. Where we've got all just plain
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white as well as another fan vent there
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that looks like an exhaust. Wow, they included a Noctua industrial fan. These
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guys are serious about, you know, quality here. I mean, I guess if you're
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going to charge €1,200 for a case, it better be nothing
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but the finest. And then finally, that brings us around to the front where
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we've got four 5 and 1/4 in bays, two
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large intakes, the USB module thing, as
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well as our front switches. All right, so let's unveil
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her. Look at that. Now, it's all
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aluminum except for the bottom plate, which is steel to hold the weight of the
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compressor unit that is installed, pre-installed in the bottom. This is
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made in Slovenia. Check that out. And I guess
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all that's left now is for us to open it up. And oh, right. No, there's one thing
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that we can definitely check out. So, that's the thing that we heard banging
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around inside the case uh before we were
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able to open it. So, it's bubble wrapped. And that is the evaporator unit
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that is going to sit directly on top of the CPU, cooling it. And then let's go
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ahead and get the bottom opened up as well, so you guys can check this out.
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All right. So, this is curious. It looks like the case comes apart completely
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with Allen keys, like like with hex
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heads. All right, here we go.
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left side panel off. So, there's our window. In spite of no protective
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covering, it's in pristine condition. It looks like they're using a
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very different It's not glass, but uh it
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seems like a seems like a better acrylic. And then they've just got it
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adhered with adhesive strips and then it
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is slightly indented so it sits just almost flush with the side panel.
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Actually quite nice. It's a very DIY, but like in a good way. Uh, in this
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case, does seem to be a crack in the corner, though, actually. Oh, there's a
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crack in the corner. Yeah, there's definitely a crack
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there. So, this case is available without the the white out option. So,
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you can see the case is painted white and
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then the actual Here we go. Everything but the
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hold down plate and the boot here is
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actually uh white as well. So this is the lines here are insulated underneath
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this white sleing. And then there's more
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insulation here. And then this piece right here is for insulating the bottom
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right here. So you're actually going to have to cut that to size. You can see
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that nice shiny copper base there.
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Absolutely beautiful. I mean, you see a lot of DIY phase builds on forums like
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extremesystems.org or wherever else, but I've never actually seen like a
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commercial grade one like a like a like a professionally done one for for
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resale. So, that is pretty that is
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pretty incredible. So, we can Oh, okay.
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I'll take this baby. Thank you. So, what else we got in here? So, behind this
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plate, we've got five of Lean Lee's
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usual sort of you put rubber grommets into the drive on either side, put them
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down, and slide them in. 3 and 1/4 in bays. Uh 3 and 1/2 in bays, excuse me.
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We've got those uh four 5 and 1/4 in bays up here. I don't see any dedicated
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SSD mounting. Although it seems like if you got even remotely creative at all,
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you could drill a hole here or there, put some double-sided Velcro here or
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there, and make SSDs happen pretty much all over the place. We got a nice big
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cutout for CPU coolers, like say for
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example, this one. Getting those mounted with the motherboard installed. Um, I've
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kind of, this is kind of funny, even though they sent me the five pack of PCI
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covers, it didn't even occur to me at the time that I was ordering that I have 10 of these and I'm not putting in two
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graphics cards and something else. So, I'm probably going to have to figure out
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another solution for that. Anyway, this is an extremely roomy chassis. So, you
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can see that an ATX motherboard is only going to go up to here with like
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mounting holes going like way the heck off to who knows what the heck. You can
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put pretty much absolutely whatever you want in here. You can mount a 140 mm fan
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between the basement and the um No, you
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can't. That Oh, that's weird. So, you could Yes, you could screw through this
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side and mount a fan on this side blowing up at a graphics card or
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something like that, but actually that's going to be for your power supply if you
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wanted to have it um have it have top
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intake or something for some reason. So, let's go ahead and open up the basement
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and get a better look at the compressor. All right, here we go. Last screw.
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And there it is. Oh, that Noctua. Okay,
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so I'm not a phase change expert by any
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stretch of the imagination. The closest I've ever been to anything like this was
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the one time I did sub-zero cooling, and that was with chilled liquids. So, I
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bought a window AC unit and then basically submerged the uh the
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evaporator in liquid and then pumped
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that liquid around to my CPU. and I believe my GPU at the time. No, it might
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have been just GPU. Anyway, the point is um this is a totally other ball of wax.
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So, the evap head is up here. We know this. So, this is all insulated very
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nicely, very professionally glued together, lippity bloop. This is the
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condenser. So this is where the Okay, so the liquid basically boils on the CPU.
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Then it gets brought back around and then this is where it has to go from a
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vapor back to a liquid. So this is the condenser. So it's a 140 mm fan on there
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that is a pressure optimized fan. The manufacturer does recommend cleaning out
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the front very frequently because this is going to do all the cooling. This is
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what does all the cooling. So then once it turns back into a liquid, it comes
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back over here and then around and bippity boop, around and around we go.
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So this is that USB control board that I was talking about before. So this is
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where we've got it looks like a K-type temp probe that goes presumably right up
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to the evaporator head. So that's going to tell it how cold things are running
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and going to tell all these other things what to do. And then over here we've
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just got general ventilation for all this down here. Now, I don't know much
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about the individual models, but I do know that Danfos is well regarded as far
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as compact compressors go. This is what it's going to make the bulk of the noise
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of this system. It should be noted that phase change cooling, especially a
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compact unit like this, like I mean, I was using a window-mounted AC unit in
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order to get similar CPU temps, actually not even as good. Whereas, this has this
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tiny little condenser, like 16 the size.
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this tiny little evaporator, this tiny little compressor. So, it tries to make
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everything really compact. So, you're gonna have to make some compromises and
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noise is definitely one of
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them. Speaking of which, Ting, the
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mobile carrier that's focused on customer service and satisfaction first,
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which shouldn't be unusual, but it really feels like it is. And the one key
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difference, well, not the one, but one key difference is that when you call
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them, you do not speak to a robot. you actually get put through directly to a
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person. I mean, sure, the person says, "Press one for billing. Press two for
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sales." No, I'm just kidding. They don't say that at all. They just pick up and they're like, "Hello." Like, your mind
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is so blown, you forget what you were calling them about. But it's okay. You can call them back and talk to them
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again once you've recovered. The other great thing about TING is that they've
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got a pay only for what you use type of
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plan. So, the average TING bill is actually only $24 per month per device.
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So, all you got to do is head over to Linus.ing.com, which we've got linked in
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the video description, and try out the savings calculator. If you enter your
13:53
last few bills and how much your actual usage was, and it turns out that you
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will save money with TING, they'll actually cover 25% of your cancellation
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fee in your existing contract, up to 75 bucks. And if you use our link, you'll
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get $25 in service credit or towards a new device. So, check it out over at
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Linus.ing.com. Mommy's little sunshine here is getting
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kind of grumpy. So, uh, thank you guys for watching this
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unboxing of what is definitely the
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coolest thing that I feel like for me I've unboxed in quite some time. Like
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the video if you liked it. Dislike it if you thought it stunk. Leave a comment at
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one of the places linked in the video description. Uh, either the forum or
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this. It's also linked in the video description. We have a place you can buy cool t-shirts with Linus Tech Tips logos
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