The Testsystem

Processor:	Intel Pentium 4 1,6A (Northwood)
Cooling:	Chip-Con Prometeia
Motherboard:	Abit TH7-II (Custom DCRGs, VCore Mod, VRimm Mod)
Memory:	2x 256MB Samsung PC800, 2x 256MB Kingston PC1066
Harddisks:	Fujitsu 40GB
Video-card:	Asus GeForce 4 Ti-4600
PSU:	Enermax 350W

First Impressions

Having installed all the cables, following the elaborate instructions in the manual, and powering up the system, the controlling unit of the Prometeia keeps holding the reset-signal to the mainboard until the compressor has reached the proper amount of pressure and the evaporator is cooled down to a preset temperature. Chip-Con has this temperature set to -33°C, we changed the setting to -40°C. Also the second temperature value is very important (set by Chip-Con to -28°C): when reaching this temperature level the control unit asserts the reset-signal to prevent CPU operation with a potentially unstable overclocked CPU.

The start-up can last for several minutes, especially if the Prometeia has not been used for some time. During the start-up process, the temperature rises at first before it starts to drop. When rebooting the system, you don't have to wait much, because the pressure of the compressor is maintained for a longer period of time.


Operating State

At a VCore of 1,7V and about 2,6GHz CPU speed, the system kept our P4 1,6A at chilly -15°C during POST, at full power they climbed up to -2°C. This is quite near to the 0°C, so we tried reinstalling the Microfreezer, fiddling with the pressure and using Arctic Silver 3 instead of the supplied Arctic Alumina. Each of these measures helped to reduce the temperature, but only about 2°C.

Pushing the limits...

Thanks to CPU, RIMM Voltage Mod and custom DCRGs the Abit TH7-II and P4 1,6A were the perfect base for pushing the Prometeia to the limits. We reached 3207MHz - though not fully stable, presumably due to the RAMs, but enough for a WCPUID screenshot - thus performing a 100% Overclock. The CPU was operated at 2,2 Volts though; that makes the CPU blast about +130 Watts into the Cooling System. Still, temperatures were merely below zero (about -2°C). Running Prime95 and SuperPI they climbed up to between +7 and +11°C. This made the Prometeia lose the battle against the point of 0°C, but keeping in mind that the CPU yielded more heat than a huge soldering iron, the results are nevertheless impressive.


Disassembling

Disassembling the Microfreezer is simple: loosen both screws and pull off the cooling head. We considered the high pulling force that is necessary for this process; it's seems not really recommendable for fragile AMD CPUs. On the other hand Chip-Con includes a special copper-spacer shim-plate with the system, to keep risks at bay. We recommend to let the Prometeia defrost completely before disassembling. To our great dismay, a plastic plate fell off the downside of the cooling head. For all further tests we just put it back in place and had no more troubles with this part.