Newbie idea

[Chewie]

I've never had the money to put together a cooling system myself, but I was wondering if anyone here had tried a two stage system. By that I mean air-to-water heat transfer. It occurs to me that water has a great specific heat capacity, but it can't get any colder than 0 C. OTOH, if the air circulating through the case is passed through a radiator equipped with peltiers and submerged in ice water, then the air can be cooled to nearly -20 C. If the CPU, GPU etc are also peltier equipped, you might be able to get near -40 C component temps. You want it colder, just add more air-to-air stages between the case and the water stage. Since peltiers provide a 20 C temp differential, it shouldn't take to much to find the low point in their temp range.

 

[scottchen]

You do realize you'll need to cool all the peltier with watercooling as well? Let's say you use some strong peltiers, 226watt for the CPU and GPU, that's 452watt of power from 12V rail already, and the amount of heat it's going to dissipate is going to be already 600watts+. To cool the water that you're going to use to chill the case, let's say you use another 2 226watt peltiers, and you have to insulate it perfectly, so with that it's going to be dissipating another 500watt+ heat. You're going to need a power supply stack, You'll need in total about 80A on the 12V rail, the best power supply out there can provide about 35A constant, so you'll need 3 600-800 watt power supplies.

So let's say you somehow insulate properly and no hot air gets inside the case, you'd better have a good way to cool your room because your computer is going to be dissipating over 1200watts of heat. Plus your power bill is going to jump.

And no peltiers can't cool CPU/GPU to negative temperatures, they can chill them to max of about 15C under ambient temperatures, depending on how well it is cooled. Now the radiator you mentioned that's going to cool the case may reach 5-10C, but the fresh air in the room isn't, so the temp is going to increase. Since your cpu and gpu is already being peltier cooled, then having a case with slightly lower temperature really isn't going to make much of a difference, but that'll be good for the motherboard and other components.

Don't bother with this, this is too inefficient, expensive and simply a bad idea. Best idea for extreme cooling is to simply use Freon cooling, then you can actually have your CPU in the -40C's zone.

 

[Chewie]

I can see I didn't explain myself very well. Firstly, here in NZ I can get peltiers for $15 each (I don't have $15, but what the hell, I'm just curious to know if it would work). These peltiers need 15 volts, so I wasn't planning on running them from a PC PSU.
Now, the stage furthest from the PC involves a bunch of 2nd hand radiators placed outside, preferably higher than the stuff inside. The hot water from inside travels through the radiator/s from top to bottom, and in series (need I mention the radiators should be sheilded from the sun?)then back inside.
Inside we have a longish(how much room do you have?), square cross-sectioned tube through which the case air recirculates. On the outside of this tube we have as many peltiers as we can afford, with heatsinks on their hot sides. The water from outside passes over these heatsinks _in_parallel_, and if there is a decent height involved, the heat should move this water up to the outside radiators in a nice convection cycle.
If the radiator shades are in the form of some kind of ducting, then the heat dissapated should also create a bit of a draft, further helping the cooling effect.
Granted, it all sounds kind of complex, but I've seen some pretty complex pc refridgeration systems out there. I reckon solid state heat pumps like peltiers are more efficient than freon systems, and cooling the air going into the pc case is better than trying to fill the case itself with heatsinks and fans.
Of course, if you can get enough peltiers, you'll have condensation on the outside of the case, but that's a whole 'nother story.

 

[scottchen]

i'm sorry but did you say peltiers are efficient?! if you did you must be high on something that i've never heard of. 15 dollars each for 226watt ones? if you're talking about 80 watts well don't bother with them.

Why do you desparately want to cool the case itself? if you have good freshair going through the case it's more than enough, we focus the cooling on the CPU and GPU, i've got waterblock on GPU cooling it to just a few degree above ambient, and with Prometeia Mach 2 on the CPU my CPU is frozen at -30ish celcius temperatures, and the coleplate is at just under -40C. That is all i need to achieve huge overclocks.

 

[scottchen]

Your parents are from taiwan right?

 

[mozzartusm]

What about me? I told that guy in the OTHER that I was Asian. What does this have to do with anything? Im losing my mind :tongue:

Intel P4 550(3.4)@<font color=green>5Ghz</font color=green>
Asus P5AD2-E-Premium
Crucial Ballistix PC2 5300 2X256
TT 680W PSU

 

[shawnlizzle =]]

im an asian living in america.. and i get more benefits ;D

(bay area... my classes are like 80% asian)

<font color=red>One Lowe</font color=red>

 

[scottchen]

So i'm the only true half asian, my dad's from china, and my mom's from canada.

 

[shawnlizzle =]]

LOL WHATS YOUR FLAG LOOK LIKE?

A MAPLE LEAF WITH A SICKLE ACROSS IT?!

<font color=red>One Lowe</font color=red>

 

[scottchen]

Huh? the chinese flag is actually 5 stars on a red background, not the soviet union flag.

 

[scottchen]

I guess you support the separation of taiwan from china?

 

[scottchen]

BTW, i hate the canadian flag, i think it's kinda gay, the national anthem also blows, i've studied music since i was 3, so i know when a piece of music is good or bad, from the music point of view canadian national anthem is fine, but it just isn't a national anthem, no sense of pride or glory in it.
And honestly the Canadian government and most members of the EU is more close to the communism ideal than China. China is just corrupt capitalism.

 

[scottchen]

BTW i also hate the name Canada, maybe it's because i'm sorta discriminative, because Canada is a native word, so i just don't like that.

 

[scottchen]

LOL get passed that already, not gonna happen, brainwash in China starts at age 4.

 

[shawnlizzle =]]

i went to school there from 1-3rd grade... and the brainwashing stuff is pretty intense

"serve your country!!! thats all you need!!!"

<font color=red>One Lowe</font color=red>

 

[scottchen]

You're from china? how was the painful school? I heard they make you memorize the multiplication table in like grade 1.

 

[scottchen]

BTW isn't it "always sacrifice yourself for the greater good, even if it means to end your own life"?

 

[scottchen]

Ahh shitty... lol i knew that in i think grade 3, even though kids here still had trouble with it in grade 8, which is really pathetic. My parents never really forced me to study anything, just used beat me when i screw up on report cards.

 

[scottchen]

Yeah seriously, kids needs to be beaten more. When they get arrested for drugs and alcohol, you don't reward them by giving them an xbox, you beat the crap out of them.

BTW that's a true story, a kid in my grade was arrested, and 2 months later, he got a Xbox from his parents for christmas.

 

[shawnlizzle =]]

beating to the foot is the best, you can beat the [-peep-] out of the foot, and it'll hurt like hell, but no bruises =D

so the kid doesn't have evidence for child aid

any of you watch russow peters?
"i'll call child support"
"ohhh go ahead a call, because i know, it takes them 20 minutes to come... and in the mean time... somebody is going to be reaaaaal hurt"

<font color=red>One Lowe</font color=red>

 

[scottchen]

I think there's one that's even better, i heard it from a standup on comedy central.

go ahead and call, oh yeah and call an ambulance as well and tell them that there is a dead kid in my house.