peltier help......please!

[dogmir]

well i am at an impass.....i bought a air cooled peltier it is a hsf with three fans on it....it has a 72 watt peltier on it.....i have heard from everywhere to use a cold plate or i will have a condensation nightmare on my hands....i have heard to use 1/8" copper cold plate and neoprine.......i am open to suggestions....i am not going to implement this new toy till i am sure that i am gonna be safe....i have had some people tell me that an air-cooled pelt is a bad idea... this is my first adventure in this whole thing so i want some honest feedback before i attempt anything because i dont want to kill by tbird....if anybody has a link to good tutorial on makin a cold plate i would be most appreciative.....i have found quite a few that haven't been so good....i am really not looking to move to a water-cooling system at this time and would like to reamin air cooled if at all possible.....so any help is good help at this point....i am calling on my fellow anandtechers to let me know if i am about to make a big mistake or not......thanks for any help in andvance....have a good day....

 

[J.Zorg]

Well, an aircooled peltier is definatly a bad idea...

If you have for example an XP2000+ which generates 70W heat and add the 72W peltier you will have problems with the ammount of heat. It means that your heatsink and fan have to cool 142W. This is definatly to much for an aircooled solution because it will heat up your case pretty much. Second problem ist that you need approximatly twice as much peltier power to cool your cpu. Otherwise you won´t get the cpu below air temperatur. The problem ist that a peltier only transports heat from one side to the other side (this is not physically right but it better to explain it that way. They can only reach a certain temperature difference between both side. (mostly around 60-70° Celcius under no load). Under load of an cpu you might get 40° or less(with 2x much power of the peltier compared the cpu, with your setup the best result you could theoraticallly have would be ambient temperature if you heatsink would be therotically perfect and cool the heat at once) . In order to cool your cpu below ambient the hot side must be cooled pretty much. But an Aircooled heatsink like aphas or swiftechs won´t be running below 50°Celcius with an XP2000+ under full load. If you add another 72w of your peltier the cooler will have a temperature of maybe 65°Celcius (i´m just guessing here). At that temperature your heatsink would cool away all the heat and your cpu would be at the same temerature. This would mean running your cpu a 65°Celcius. Thats worse than having an simple aircooled solution.
Peltier require that you cool the hot side down to almost ambient temperature (with good water cooling maybee 30°) then you can get to temperature below ambient.

If you want to run a peltier:
1. get peltier with twice as much power as your cpu
2. get a huge powersupply wich meets your peltier specs (pretty expensive)
3. buy a huge waterblock (small waterblocks can´t handle that much heat....if you want to overclock you maybe need to cool more then 200W)
4.get huge radiator
5. isolate your cpu to prevent condensation (even the backside of your mobo
6.take youreself time or you will ruin you system

 

[GoldMember]

If you want some professional help with this. Like someone to do it for you or sell you a kit with everything you need. PM me.