Do heat pipes work horizontally?

Monkey Puzzle · 3 Sep 2006 at 16:43

Was Just wondering, the big tower type cpu heatsinks have heat pipes that are supposed to work as cheap basic condensers, with the propyl alcohol or whatever inside getting heated by the cpu, evaporating and condensing higher up and dripping back down to the cpu. But in tower cases the pipes sit horizontally. So do they still work?

TaKeN · 3 Sep 2006 at 16:45

My Ninja works fine on its side

Monkey Puzzle · 3 Sep 2006 at 17:00

I'm not doubting that they still cool really well, only whether the heat pipes are actually doing what they're supposed to!

OzyOly · 4 Sep 2006 at 11:49

Yeah, I have the miné and it keeps my conroe E6700 at 40C on load in a tower.

FreeStream · 4 Sep 2006 at 11:54

I think they are designed to work horizontally.

In 95% of cases they are in that position.

Do all heat pipes have this liquid in? Some could just be solid metal :confused:

Chris Beard · 4 Sep 2006 at 12:37

Heatpipes do have liquid in, and gass (while they're being used). The heatpipes that work horrisontally (and would probably work upside down too) use capillery action. Put simply (because it's the only way I understand it) if you put water in a really really thin tube it gets sucked up without any applied force. So, all they have is some really thin straws running accross the heatpipe that suck the liquid back to the heat source...

Does that make sense?

samcat · 4 Sep 2006 at 13:06

Not all heatpipes use wicks (or capillary action), but MOST do... so will work fine horizontally.

Cya,
Sam C