The IBM 308x and 309x series mainframes were water cooled. They did have Thermal Conduction Modules which had a helium-filled metal cap, which contains one piston per chip; the piston presses against the back of each chip to provide a heat conduction path from the chip to the cap. The cap was connected to the chilled water supply. On 10/13/2017 10:51 AM, Chris Adams wrote:
Also, the IBM 3090 at least, was cooled via helium-filled pipes kind of like today's liquid cooled systems. It was full of plumbing. If you opened it up some chips were right on copper junction boxes (maybe they were just sensors but it looked cool.) Cray supercomputers had Freon lines through them for cooling, up until
Once upon a time, bzs@theworld.com <bzs@theworld.com> said: the last generation of the "old school" supercomputer. That was not sufficient to keep it cool, so they sealed the chassis (which was huge) and pumped it full of 4 tons of Fluorinert.