ProCooling - The last 3 years
A Look at the Articles and Events in the past 3 years that ProCooling has seen and been a part of.

ProCooling.com (V2.0) - (April 2000) The word spreads.

notch. ProCooling's Double Header II was the first sponsored project on the site. With companies like CoolChip, LuefkenTech, and PCNut pitching in to help the site and the project. This was also my first project where I spent a good deal of money on doing R+D to find new and interesting stuff to do on the project.  I also used info I gathered from many forums on the web, and discussed ideas with some of the more innovative folks around.

Project Double Header 2: ( DH2 Project Link )
Project DH2 was the first peltier cooled machine I built, and required a completely new cooling setup. I had 2 blocks made by CoolChip for S370 to mount on the BP6 I was using.  I took them to the metal shop at the company I worked for, I had the bottoms fly cut, and more coolant holes drilled in them.   I researched new materials to use when doing cooling like this such as conformal coatings, and RTV Silicone for this project which set some aspects of this project apart from others I had seen before..   This was by far one of the most fun projects I ever did and involved a few months of leg work to get done.  Here are some pics below of the setup: Also you can tell now I finally purchased a nice (at the time) digital camera for the site ;)

Shortly after DH2, I started doing some reviews on the site that were not cooling related. This included a fairly massive Matrox video card roundup that got the Matrox corporations attention. (mainly because I bought all the cards reviewed and returned all but 2 about 2 weeks later after the article :) hehehe.  Being a kid who was making not terribly good money and NOTHING off the web site then, I couldn't afford to buy 1000$ in video cards.  There is more of that going on with web sites than you may know about.

Hardware Hacking on ProCooling ( Franken Opener Article Link )
One of the next big projects I started on was in the hardware hacking scene. I bought one of the first shipment iOpeners and hacked it into a PC.   I took what many folks had done before me, and improved on it, took a 200Mhz iOpener, and turned it into a 400 Mhz iOpener PC.  That article attracted a good deal of attention, and helped to diversify the content we were offering.

New Blood
The DH2 Article, the reviews, and the other smaller articles that were posted around that time drove up traffic to the site by 200% ( when you have no traffic then get some.. its a big increase :) hehehe.   I decided to bring 2 new writers onto the site to help provide a different view and some other areas of expertise to the site.  RichW, and Unaclocker were the 2 I asked to come on. RichW is a rather brilliant geek, who is just too busy doing double masters degrees in college.  He impressed me to no end with his knowledge of cooling, and his ability to write.  Unfortunately only 2 articles by him have been wrote/published.   He's still a member of the staff, but inactive, and leave an open invitation for him to write for us if he finds time in his busy college schedule.

UnaClocker was also one who impressed me with his innovative and sort of balls to the wall cooling ideas.  His first article was written in June of 2000 and covered cooling an Athlon with pelts which, as you know from before, was a big thing I wanted to get into.  The project/article was rather small and was Una's first foray into writing for the site.

ProCooling takes a break.

In late May 2000 I left my job and took a bit of the summer off  to work on misc. stuff like certifications, and moving.  Because of my need to study for my certs, to move, and to look for a new job at a time when the Tech boom was crashing faster than anyone could have predicted, I put the site on hold so I could focus on my life cause it suddenly looked like job prospects were drying up fast..

This break lasted from June through early Sept. 2000 when I started a new job, and was all moved.  While I was getting the site ramped back up I implemented V2.5 of ProCooling.com

ProCooling.com (V2.5) - (Sept. 2000) New Job, New Writers, New site

the cooling scene. In the time span between June and Sept. 2000 there were many new advances in cooling, and many new companies coming  into the fold.  The first to really catch my attention was Overclock-Watercool (defunct), they were making products that broke all the rules that the other stores were carrying.  They were making blocks from milled lexan, and using the "tidal pool" internal designs.  For this reason I instantly worked with the owner of OCWC to get a partnership setup between them and ProCooling.com.  This relationship would play a critical role in the future projects ProCooling worked on for the rest of that year and into 2001.   We also started working with Case Etc, and a few other companies that we thought offered a good value to the ProCooling Readers.  ProCooling at that point had gotten attention from readers and companies as being one of the more progressive water cooling sites around.

Una Does it again ( Una's Article Link )
In a spite of brilliance, Una is one of the first people on the web to use the socket A holes on the AMD motherboards for a water block hold down.  Before this people were using the socketA tabs for everything.  In Una's writings around the web, he was also the one who discovered that pencils work for bridging the gaps on the athlon bridges. ( something that he doesn't get credit for often at all)

Kevins First Project, and DH3 is planned.  ( Kev's Article Link )

OnDa Makes his mark (Link to the Radaitor Article) - (Link to the Waterblock Article)

OnDaEdg who has earned the rep for making some of the best how 2 articles about cooling on the site, started by talking about how to mount a radiator to the top of a PC. He followed up to that with how to make your own copper water block only 7 days later. ( Pics below from his articles)

On the next page we will discuss DH3 and the other ground breaking projects that ProCooling unveiled in late 2000 and 2001.

ProCooling Moves into the 21st Century with a Bang.