folks, fyi, they demo these embedded boards sitting in boiling water all the time. They're pretty rugged. A little ice cube on a heat sink will do little if at all. I'm surprised at how much email this trivial note is causing :-)
If your water is completely deionized, you can submerge your electronics in it worry free. Search for deonized water immersion cooling There's a bit of urban legend surrounding water. yes, you don't want to make a habit of immersing your laptop in it, but if you've ever accidentally poured a hot cup of coffee into the top of a thinkpad, while it was running, had it drain out the bottom, then flushed it all out with distilled water, and had the thinkpad for for 4 more years, you start to appreciate that water can happen and electronics remain unharmed. Pro tip: coffee cups with lids are nice. if you want to heat your pi up, allocate lots of memory and run the streams benchmark for a few hours. Get one of those $20 TempPro Digital Infrared Thermometer from ACE hardware, and watch it for a while. For the AMD Geode, it got hot within a few minutes. Really hot. Burn your finger hot. Using an old tip from John Degood, I got a 12V PC fan, ran it at 5V (an old trick, keeps it quiet), and directed it at a stack of 4 geodes. That very small amount of air flow left it running at room temp. It's amazing how little air flow it takes to keep things cool -- and how hot they can get, when there is no air moving. On Thu, Oct 8, 2026 at 1:52 PM C <[email protected]> wrote: > If you're really worried, flip the board upside down and put the chip on > the ice. You could also use an ice pad, and if you're worried about > condensation. Lay down a cloth over the ice pad. I have a pi 4 that gets > "buggy" and slows down when running all day in 90+ degree fahrenheit > weather. > > On Thu, Oct 8, 2026, 10:38 AM ron minnich <[email protected]> wrote: > >> you'd be surprised how tolerant boards like the pi are of water. >> >> >> >> On Wed, Oct 7, 2026 at 11:09 PM <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On Tuesday, October 06, 2026, at 2:41 PM, ron minnich wrote: >>> >>> I used to use a simple test, but an ice cube on it and see how long it >>> takes to melt. >>> >>> You sound very confident. I think if you were here with me, I would let >>> you do the test. As it is, I have consulted with another colleague, and he >>> agrees that if water goes in the wrong place, it will likely destroy the >>> board. Beyond that, for the test to be meaningful, I would have to >>> estimate the volume of the ice-cube, it's geometry, and the pressure with >>> which I applied it to the board, assuming that I hold it against the board >>> with my finger from underneath. All this while watching a clock on my >>> computer screen to measure the passage of time. Maybe not so hard that >>> last one. All that effort, for uncertain results, for a problem that >>> occurred once when doing a whole bunch of random operations with the pi >>> that I would never expect the os developers to anticipate, and hasn't >>> showed up since. And the chance that the pi will get damaged. Certainly, >>> if I kept getting that error, if the pi was unusable, the whole equation >>> would change, there would be nothing to loose. >>> >> *9fans <https://9fans.topicbox.com/latest>* / 9fans / see discussions > <https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans> + participants > <https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/members> + delivery options > <https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription> Permalink > <https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/Tc322db746dabdc8f-Mde684404d43eb71a2faafedb> > ------------------------------------------ 9fans: 9fans Permalink: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/Tc322db746dabdc8f-Mf990acfde31e9ad63cbd571e Delivery options: https://9fans.topicbox.com/groups/9fans/subscription
