Exploring Below Ambient Water Cooling

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No I don't have any peltier experience at all.

I think rubix_1011 supplied you a link to check out others using peltiers.
 
I like the idea of Peltiers/TECs. You do have to deal with condensation but its not a huge thing. The "ultimate" in 24/7 low temps would be a powerful TEC that is water cooled. But this idea is nearly as good.
 


This cooler with ice blocks solution for the CPU, totally depends on the platform that's being run, and the overclocking goals of that platform, with these newer platforms that are so hard to keep cool for any descent overclocking values, it's a great advantage, but for some platforms a traditional water cooling loop is more than sufficient.

What started this venture was trying to get my 2500K to 5,000mhz 24/7 stable, and once getting there be running load temperatures no higher than 60c, I really had no idea I would actually get beyond my goals. Then it became a base for experimentation to share with others and attempt to pass as much information discovered to anyone that was considering going this cooling route.

This is more than likely an excellent cooling solution for those overclocking the new hot IB, and even though it is very versatile regarding the 2500K, the 2500K has it's own limitations as unless a game is CPU intensive there is literally no reason to clock the 2500K past 4500mhz, if there's no significant gain fully across the board, there's no reason to clock to 5ghz.

So under those circumstances this cooling allows much cooler daily running temperatures as my actual water temperature is easily maintained to 15c, 8c below my ambient room temperature, and 11c below a traditional water cooling closed loop, running in a completely condensation free range.

This is pretty remarkable coming from someone that swore he would never water cool again after 3 Asetek pump failures, getting so mad I sledge hammered all 3 pumps in the beginning of 2006 and completely destroyed them, I was sick of RMAing forget the freaking money the total hassle was worth the satisfaction of smashing them.

After that I swore I would never water cool again, well I've eaten those words now!

However there are no Asetek products in this cooling solution except the 360 radiator in the Rad Box, but Asetek did not actually make that radiator. :)

Yeah, I know I'm crazy for destroying the perfectly good failed pumps that I could have spent the rest of the year RMAing!

Had to throw that in, as my friend ArthurH loves to remind me of it! :)

Back to now.

The biggest unexpected gain I've discovered is water cooling the GPUs with the Rad Box, even with it being a closed loop traditional cooling, 40c lower load temperatures are great, and they do bring the increased gaming to the mixture.

Has anyone to your knowledge mounted Peltiers on GPUs?
 
The only bad thing I see with your is you can't get sub 0 temps all the time, and you have to change the ice all the time. It's great for what it is. And if I was going to go water I would try this. But if you want the really cold temps this won't do it 24/7.
 
True, but it is not a sub zero cooling solution in the first place, and never labeled as such, it's a very effective below ambient cooling solution, and changing out the ice is a daily routine, much, much, much, less trouble than simply cleaning out our cat box everyday! :)

Or taking out the garbage, or washing clothes, or grilling out, or for that matter taking a poop, which everyone has to do, (I think), it's only as much trouble as one makes it out to be.

Actually my morning routine is simple, start the computer check the water temperature if it's below 15c, I don't do anything but wait for my AV Internet Security to finish it's pre-scanning and for that I would be waiting anyway, if the water temperature is above 15c, I change out the ice, and by the time I'm back in the office my machine is ready to rock.

Simple actually, for me, but not for everyone.

 
A TEC cooled water loop won't have any of those issues. I thought you said something about changing them every 6 or 8 hrs? I wouldn't want to be in the middle of a game and have to go change the ice. Not that it takes a long time but...
 
TEC's aren't as mainstream as they once were 5-6 years ago...and I don't know why...maybe the need for a dedicated power source that will provide the requirements needed to run Peltier's. I was very close to picking up a couple of TEC-MCW60's a long time ago, but didn't mainly due to cost. I've seen a lot of places where you can find TEC pads on Ebay and other sources- if you wired them up cold/hot and ran a waterblock, you would have yourself a great little cooler.

Just thinking about this- not sure if this applies to the TEC's from the past, but many I have seen are in only a few varieties- ~75W, ~130W and ~175W. THe 175W versions (just approximating from memory) were harder to find...most of them were sub 100W or a little over 100W. Consider that most mainstream and enthusiast GPUs easily hit close to 200W TDP, this might be one reason you don't see them around much.
 


Things have changed significantly since the GPUs are now cooled by the Rad Box are are not tied all together in a single loop.
Changing out the blocks are only required to maintain a certain water temperature range with me running a 4500mhz clock I can game all day if I want to, if I allow my water temperatures to reach 26c, 3c above ambient I'm at a standard water cooling loops capabilities, check the temp results in the OP.

If I was concerned about non interrupted gaming I'd just drop 2 jugs in at the beginning!

What do you do when you're in the middle of a game and you have to pee?

If you want to go that TEC cooling route yourself please post your pictures and results here, that should be a good addition to this Exploring Below Ambient thread.
 


Now that brings some interesting power consumption thoughts to the table, it definitely would not be power saving friendly for sure adding a TEC.

Even though I've added the Rad Box with it's fan controller and 6 fans, it's drawing the same load that the stock GPUs did, with their on board cooling fans? Go Figure?

My present setup idles at 202w in WinXP Pro 32bit with the 2500K OCd to 4500mhz running 2 580GTX in SLI.

Win7 64bit idles at 138w with the 2500K OCd to 4500mhz running 2 580GTX in SLI.

3DM Vantage highest load 590W.

3DM11 highest load 611W.

Not bad for the way I'm overclocking my CPU, maintaining all 4 cores running a fixed voltage at 4500mhz.
 


How about completely wireless and play sitting on the toilet, and hang an IV for all the drinking needs, and a snack shelf, and never stop playing, pee and poop covered!

Then after 3 days call EMS to remove you from the toilet, and transport your hemorrhoids to the hospital! :lol:

@ 4745454b We're just joking, no offense to you at all, so please do not get offended. Ry
 
I just discovered the best copper cleaner you could ask for, a 50/50 solution of Lemon Juice and Table Salt, rinses clean with water, makes copper look brand new.

Works really good, really fast, so you don't leave it on a long time as Lemon Juice is a mild acid.
 
chloric acid?

I figured as much, it cleaned so fast I was concerned about leaving it on too long, but it did a great job!

I lapped the heck out of my Danger Den MC-TDX today, and reinstalled it, lapped it to a mirror finish perfectly flat, had to take quite a bit off to get it like I wanted it, but it's now performing about the same as the XSPC Rasa.

It had a descent finish but was not flat all the way across, I started with 400 grit hoping I could get by at that cutting level but it wasn't cutting deep enough so I dropped to 320 grit and it cut like a bush hog on hay.

Worked from 320, 400, 600, 800, 1,000, and finished it off with 1,500 grit, let the copper build up on the 1,500 grit sheet and went to the polish stage metal to metal with the copper buildup.

Creates a beautiful finish all done dry, no chemical polish.

I like the DD clear acrylic top, it's really convenient to be able to see if there is any trash inside the block, I lapped it because I just knew in my heart I could get better performance from it, and did.

So what's your next project Moto?

Got one in the works, or just going to cruise and enjoy your labors for a while?
 
Theres a nicelooking deskproject I'm helping with, member called Woox if you've seen it?
Check it out because its an unusual (right up my street) design, I'll link from Pc when I get home if you can't find him,
Got a few laptop jacks to solder/replace and some general O/s tidying to do as well as a ton of gear to throw on Egay so busy trying to make money lol, Gf may get a 2500k build soon if I can make enough, if not then just a chip/gfx upgrade should hold her for a bit
I do have plans for a fire extinguisher res mod, but that would probably be sold on Egay as well, I can't see it on my build unfortunately 🙂
Moto
 
Moto, Send me a link to the woox project when you can?

I just realized I'm about 20 days away from 1 year of this initial project being put into operation, man it's amazing how fast time goes by!

Ry
 
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