Air vs Immersion Cooling Paths on Korean ASIC Farms
Comparing how heat leaves hash boards in air-cooled and immersion deployments we inspect across South Korea.
South Korean mining halls increasingly mix air-cooled rows with immersion tanks in the same building. Each architecture carries heat through different paths — and failure modes rarely look alike on IR maps.
Air-cooled path
Heat moves: die → thermal interface → heat sink → shroud channel → fan → rack exhaust → hall plenum → facility outlet.
Common failures we document: shroud gaps, reversed fan orientation after maintenance, exhaust panels too close to walls, and ceiling recirculation loops.
Immersion path
Heat moves: die → thermal interface → bath fluid → heat exchanger → dry cooler or chiller → ambient.
Common failures we document: uneven flow across parallel dry cooler branches, pump head insufficient after filter clog, and vapor barrier gaps on tank lids pulling humid hall air into fluid.
Hybrid halls
Operators sometimes run air intake for control boards while boards sit in bath fluid. We trace both paths because control electronics often throttle before hash boards show stress on facility-level sensors.
Seasonal note
Korean summer humidity raises effective inlet temperature when hall dehumidifiers underserve intake volume. Immersion farms feel this on dry cooler fins; air farms feel it on filter loading and condensate paths.
Choosing an assessment type
- Cooling-path assessment — full trace for either architecture
- Thermal imaging survey — fastest hot-spot map for air-cooled rows
- Airflow consultation — before expanding air-cooled halls
Compare assessment packages or read our cooling-path guide.