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Question concerning Peltier coolers

A

Adn4n

Golden Member
My current chemistry teacher demonstrated a small peltier cooler that runs on batteries. It is capable of creating very cool temperatures, and the plate is just the size of my processor. Now I was wondering, could this be used to cool a cpu? Would it be adequate to have this immensely cold surface touching the cpu, or would I have to vent heat from the cpu via a heatsink.

Also, aren't peltier coolers really hot on one side, and extremely cold on the other?
 
Hot one side icy the other.

The only effective way to use a peltier is to get one thats rated at 45w or so, buy a cold plate, some neopreme insulation, and some form or non-conductive grease.

Pull your PCU, spread the grease over the pins and then reseat it. Next you have to cut the neopreme insulation to fix EXACTLY around the CPU, if you don't you will have a wet CPU soon enough and thats not a good idea. After the neopreme is cut you sit the cold plate on top of it and then the cold side of the peltier on top of that. There are some ideas and products you can use to seat them on that use heatsink clicks to keep them in place, just google around. You also have to place a fan over the hot side of the peltier to cool it.
 
You could also use a peltier in a water cooling system via mounting it to the radiator to help it cool more effeciently. That would probably be the safest way to use a peltier. That being said though, peltier are extremely reliable, reaching up to 20 years in working order.
 
There have been some peltier air hsfs on the market but they were worse than a similar hsf without a peltier. The problem with peltiers is that they almost double the heat that the heatsink needs to get rid off.
 
i definatly wouldn't use a peltier with air cooling. i've also heard that the peltier wattage should be more than your cpu output, which is <89watts for the 3200, probably 100 with a good peltier overclock. yes a peltier pretty much doubles the heat of the cpu so you need a good water cooling system. there is an equation to tell you the temperature of the cold side given the hot side temp, peltier ratings, and cpu heat output, but basically it is proportional to the temp difference between the hot and cold sides so if you don't cool the hot side well, it won't help.

here's some good peltier browsing...link
 
Originally posted by: LifeStealer
You could also use a peltier in a water cooling system via mounting it to the radiator to help it cool more effeciently. That would probably be the safest way to use a peltier. That being said though, peltier are extremely reliable, reaching up to 20 years in working order.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately this still doesn't solve the problem of condensation - possibly makes it worse. The peltier will make the water rather cold which could then cause condensation to form along the tubes. If any of this falls onto exposed PCBs, like the video card sitting below the processor (assuming ATX tower case), then that condensation could destroy parts in the system.

Many people get peltier systems to work well, however they certainly are not for the faint hearted. I'd suggest doing a lot of research on peltier computer cooling before you go ahead with this. Even water cooling on its own can be risky, but at least you don't worry about condensation. Personally, I'd stick away from any sub-room temperature cooling. You won't get a whole lot of advantage for peltier cooling over water cooling, and it is a lot more tricky and risky.
 
i doubt you'd have condensation problems with a pelt cooling the water cause you are cooling down the already heated water and it needs a lot of peltier wattage to make significant differences in water temperature. even then the actual cpu temperature is not much less
 
also to cool a modern cpu you would need a peltier with 112W at least. a 45w like mentioned above wouldn't work and would cook you procesor because it doesn't have the capacity. also you need to have a dedicated 12V PSU for the peltier
 
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