A couple of years back (4or5). Digital was selling an alpha based system that had active cooling of the cpu. They were getting about 700+ mhz speeds at the time. Doesn't seem like much now but it was double what everyone else had at the time.

Those systems shipped with a UPS. But the SysA's didnt bother installing them until a couple of cpu's came up dead. Seems like if the power to the cooler was interupped the cpu temperature would spike. This happened when the entire system was switched off at the power strip. The residual heat would be enough to kill the chip. When the vendor asked about the ups's, they were found stacked in the server room. Unopened.

I also heard that when the cooling system was deisgned, the big problem wasn't getting the cpu cool. But what to do about the condensation. Seems it could get down in among the chips pins and cause trouble.

I wonder what could be done if I had one of those chassies today.