Peltiers and/or water cooling system

[Guest]

Hey guys. I'm planning on building a good cooling system and I'm wondering what is the most effictive way to cool down a processor. Is it a peltier cooler directly attached to the processor, cooled by a water cooling system or a water cooling system, attached to the processor where the water is cooled by a peltier?

 

[Guest]

Also, how powerful the waterpump should be? 200gph?

 

[yoda271828]

Cooling the processor directly with the peltier is a more efficient method. If you cool the water it will gain heat from the surroundings as it runs through the tubing, thus making it less efficient. A plus to cooling the water though is that if your peltier goes bad you won't fry your processor.

 

[Guest]

Right. I figured also that with the peltier directly on the processor, you have a chance to reach sub-zero temperatures, which you can't reach by cooling the water (because it will freeze 😉.

Though, you have to deal with condensation

 

[Guest]

big question is which cpu are you cooling? if it's an AMD thunderbird or duron, I wouldn't even worry about pelt cooling. Just more work for no gain. If it's an Intel cpu such as a celeron or P3, a pelt cooler and water cooling works well.

 

[Guest]

I forgot to mention this, but pelt cooling doesn't seem to offer much more room to overclock AMD cpus. The hard part about cooling an AMD cpu is that there is so much heat in such a small space. Concentrate on a method that pulls the heat off an AMD chip rather than brute force pelt/water cooling.

 

[Guest]

Is there a way to take out the heat more effciently on a small surface than a 156W peltier cooler?

 

[Guest]

Yea, btw, I'm going to use this cooling system on an Athlon.
Is there any other kind of cooling method that you suggest?

 

[Guest]

You seem to say that Athlon doesn't give any room to overclocking, why is that so?

Also, how would you manage a more efficient cooling system?

 

[Guest]

like i said, extreme cooling doesn't seem to net much out of the athlons. As far as efficiency goes, using the best heatsink available while keeping the case temperature low is probably the best way to go. Water cooling with a good copper block and a radiator is efficient. If only there was a way to be able to cool that little slug on the athlons better....

 

[Guest]

I believe that peltiers can offers a much more powerful cooling performance than a water cooler. It can get your CPU temp below zero.

 

[yoda271828]

Atlon's are very difficult to cool signicantly. An Athlon Thunderbird clocked at 1.2Ghz dumps about 65 watts of heat. You would need to run that 156 watt peltier full blast and maybe even two of them (running below their max) to cool that chip below zero. Also don't forget that the Athlon can have a max multiplier setting of 12.5x. After that you have to start on the FSB, and we all know how overclockable an Athlon's FSB is. Although I have often thought of a peltier/water cooled FSB...
I don't think you will be able to get the performance your looking for out of this supercooling (it is still cool to say that your computer is supercooled though), but if you do infact do it, I say "Hell yeah, good for you, we need more people like you."

 

[Guest]

Right! I forgot to mention though, that I plan using this sytem on the new athlons with the 133mhz FSB. It has more potential than it's older brother.

I'm going to build the whole system myself. I'll test it on my current K6-II, just for fun, then I'm going to install it on the new chip, when they will come out (and the prices will get down a little). I think I'll even make a website about how I did it..

I saw you talking about using 2 peltiers and was wondering how you would arrange them physically? Do you just put them one over the other? I can't figure out how that can be more effective..

 

[yoda271828]

There are two ways to arrange peltiers: on top of one another(in series, also called cascade), and next to one another (in parallel).

Putting peltiers in series can produce very low temperatures. Say the two peltiers have a max dT of 70C, by putting two in series you now have a max dT of 140C. Two peltiers in series pull the same amount of heat out they just lower the temperature more. The <b>big</b> downside to arranging your peltiers this way is that the one on top has to handle the heat from the processor <b>plus</b> the heat from the bottom peltier. The top Peltier has to be about twice as powerful as the bottom. I don't suggest trying this method, it is very difficult to balance your peltier's correctly.

A better way would be placing them in parallel. This arrangment has the normal max dT of 70C (or whatever), but doubles the heat pumping capacity (assuming they are the same peltier). It is better simply because it is more efficient. Niether peltier has to do any <i>extra</i> work.

Remember that the relationship between the actual temperature difference and the amount of heat that has to be removed is an inversly proportional relationship. Meaning that the more heat that has to be removed the lower the temperature difference. If your peltier has a max Q of 65 watts and your trying to overclock an Athlon, then the temp drop would probably be next to none because an overclocked Athlon produces about 65 watts. Likewise the only way that you will see the max temperature drop is if the peltier doesn't have to pump any heat away. Another thing to think about is that most peltiers have a max efficiency when they are run at about half power. I suggest you try to find the dT(temp difference) vs. Q(heat removal) graphs on the peltier manufactures website to determine what size peltiers you need, how many, their total current draw, etc...

It took me tens of hours on the internet and a semester of thermodynamics to understand this stuff. Good luck on your project

 

[Guest]

Thanks a lot for the very interesting information!
Now, my question is, how can you adjust the power of your peltier? Do you need to install some kind of dimmer?

Also, do you know any company that sells peltier on the internet? (Except than computer-cooling company because they seem to seel them for a very high price and they don't give any stats on them)

Thanks!

 

[yoda271828]

Try these places to buy thermoelectric modules:
<A HREF="http://www.tedist.com/" target="_new">http://www.tedist.com/</A>
<A HREF="http://www.tetech.com/" target="_new">http://www.tetech.com/</A>

These are Links to thermoelectric manufacturers websites:
<A HREF="http://www.kryotherm.spb.ru/" target="_new">http://www.kryotherm.spb.ru/</A>
<A HREF="http://www.melcor.com/" target="_new">http://www.melcor.com/</A>
<A HREF="http://www.tellurex.com/" target="_new">http://www.tellurex.com/</A>

These are good sites for information on thermoelectrics:
<A HREF="http://www.electronics-cooling.com/Resources/EC_Articles/SEP96/sep96_04.htm" target="_new">http://www.electronics-cooling.com/Resources/EC_Articles/SEP96/sep96_04.htm</A>
<A HREF="http://www.sirec-it.com/faq.htm" target="_new">http://www.sirec-it.com/faq.htm</A>

 

[Guest]

Thanks a lot!
This information was really useful to me!