Peltier For Northbridge

[Chris Stolworthy]

Question, anyone seen a peltier that can easily fit a northbridge chipset?
and one that fits a Gpu chipset? Or would I be better off buying a peltier,
clocking it to just above freezing and putting it on a water cooler
radiator? Oh Btw I am planning to water cool all the peltiers. Not sure of
the disadvantegs on this tho. Input much appreciated,

TIA
Chris

 

[kony]

Question, anyone seen a peltier that can easily fit a northbridge chipset?
and one that fits a Gpu chipset?

It's not hard to find one, a 30mm square size should be fine, but it's
more than just excessive, it's completely unnecessary to use a peltier
on a northbridge unless you had a very extreme environment, someplace
inhospitable to humans.

Or would I be better off buying a peltier,
clocking it to just above freezing and putting it on a water cooler
radiator?

You'd be better off avoiding peltiers completely. I seriously doubt
you'd have any problem with a peltier freezing a whole radiator, not
in a running system that have even the slightest need for a peltier.
It would take hundreds of watts of power for the peltier array to do
that, but it's not the easiest thing to put a peltier on a radiator
anyway, perhaps you meant the water reservoir?

How many peltiers and power supplies were you planning on using?
What's the total budget for the project?

Oh Btw I am planning to water cool all the peltiers. Not sure of
the disadvantegs on this tho. Input much appreciated,

It's arguably of benefit to use a peltier on a CPU, but considering
your basic questions, it might be a bit beyond your skill level, a
project better tackled after you have more peltier experience.

You might water-cool the CPU, and video card, but it's still prudent
to have a fan, airflow over the motherboard, this airflow being enough
to cool the northbridge in addition to the power regulation circuits.

 

[Chris Stolworthy]

Well I am pretty experienced at building Pc's I just have never used a
peltier on a system. I have built several water cooled systems. The idea
here is to get to a "near" silent pc. I was going to get vibration
dampeners on the drives, I found a way to water cool a PSU. I was still
planning on four low-rpm fans though. One on the side of the case to push
air in, one on the front and two as exaust

The total budget for the system is upwards of 6k. I am looking to build an
Uber-Gaming machine. I want it as stable as possible, and running qute
cool. I have quite a few friends who work as welders, smelters, and metal
workers. So building custom mounts, custom coolers ets...is no problem. I
am a little concerned about condensation though and am not entirely sure on
how to get around this problem.

-Chris

 

[JT]

Well I am pretty experienced at building Pc's I just have never used a
peltier on a system. I have built several water cooled systems. The idea
here is to get to a "near" silent pc. I was going to get vibration
dampeners on the drives, I found a way to water cool a PSU. I was still
planning on four low-rpm fans though. One on the side of the case to push
air in, one on the front and two as exaust

The total budget for the system is upwards of 6k. I am looking to build an
Uber-Gaming machine. I want it as stable as possible, and running qute
cool. I have quite a few friends who work as welders, smelters, and metal
workers. So building custom mounts, custom coolers ets...is no problem. I
am a little concerned about condensation though and am not entirely sure on
how to get around this problem.

-Chris

Thing to consider: Peltiers use power to cool off what ever they are
cooling. That powe ends up as heat on the hot side, and must be dealt with.
If they are inside the case, that is just that much more that must be move
outside the case by water cooling or forced air or what ever means you use.
If the inside of the case is a standard water/air cooled system with the
peltiers outside helping keep the water resovoir cool, there will be less
heat that needs to be removed from the case. Also remember that if a
peltier fails, which some will, they are, by design, lousy conducter of
heat, so a failed peltier will let what it is cooling fry unless you have
other thermal shutdown protection.

JT

 

[Noozer]

Well I am pretty experienced at building Pc's I just have never used a
peltier on a system. I have built several water cooled systems. The idea
here is to get to a "near" silent pc. I was going to get vibration
dampeners on the drives, I found a way to water cool a PSU. I was still
planning on four low-rpm fans though. One on the side of the case to push
air in, one on the front and two as exaust

The total budget for the system is upwards of 6k. I am looking to build an
Uber-Gaming machine. I want it as stable as possible, and running qute
cool. I have quite a few friends who work as welders, smelters, and metal
workers. So building custom mounts, custom coolers ets...is no problem. I
am a little concerned about condensation though and am not entirely sure on
how to get around this problem.

Just remember, for every watt of heat that a Peltier removes from your
chip/block, it will pump 10 watts of heat out the other side.

 

[kony]

Well I am pretty experienced at building Pc's I just have never used a
peltier on a system. I have built several water cooled systems. The idea
here is to get to a "near" silent pc.

That's exactly why you don't want peltiers. Peltiers do not make it
easier to reduce noise, they make it easier to get lowest possible
temps on isolated components, with the result of far HIGHER total heat
production, making it manditory to use more and/or higher RPM fans.
The key to lowest noise is not overdoing cooling, going in the
opposite direction of what you're doing, to focus dedicated (but
minimal) airflow in critical locations with largest, lowest RPM fans
possible.

I was going to get vibration
dampeners on the drives, I found a way to water cool a PSU.

Most decent power supplies do not have enough room inside for
water-cooling blocks. Starting out with a poor power supply so you
have excess room seems a bad trade-off, though perhaps you have a
unique plan or power supply.

I was still
planning on four low-rpm fans though. One on the side of the case to push
air in, one on the front and two as exaust

What's going to be in the system?
Odds are that you can take one of the rear fans, use it as a CPU
heatsink fan, and have no water cooling, no peltier, needed. That
eliminates a huge radiator (or fan for radiator) and pump noise,
system complexity, etc. Only thing that doesn't resolve is the video
card cooling, but a good oversized 'sink with low-RPM fan will handle
that too. I had thought you were trying for maximum overclock, which
is a different story, would make peltiers & water cooling more
beneficial.

The total budget for the system is upwards of 6k. I am looking to build an
Uber-Gaming machine. I want it as stable as possible, and running qute
cool. I have quite a few friends who work as welders, smelters, and metal
workers. So building custom mounts, custom coolers ets...is no problem. I
am a little concerned about condensation though and am not entirely sure on
how to get around this problem.

-Chris

I suggest you have your friends fab a nice tall passive northbridge
'sink, a CPU 'sink that takes a low-RPM 92mmX25mm fan, and use
something like a Zalman cooler on the video card, with the PCI slot
bracket below it, removed. Your exotic ideas may result in cooler
temps, but after a certain point the temp is "low enough".

If condensation worries you, then consider a custom peltier setup.
Perhaps a temp sensor as input to a SCR-controlling the voltage on the
peltiers. I'm not trying to encourage the peltiers, I don't think
they're a good idea for the quiestest system possible, but if you
really want to go all out, voltage-variable peltiers is the way to go,
and peltiers become more efficient when operating below max capacity,
driven at lower voltage, waste less heat... it is not a linear heat
movement vs heat created situation. Also condensation is tackled by
using liberal amounts of insulation, and using a conformal coating on
the board, to waterproof it... just be sure to complete cover any
contacts so they're not coated.

 

[Chris Stolworthy]

Ok here is another question then, do you think I should splurge and go for
a Athlon 64 Fx? I have noticed the benchmarks are better, but I am
wondering how realistically it will do performance wise. I have also read
some reports that state some probs with memory suppport.

As far as the PSU goes we are going to get something on the high end, (antec
550?). Pull the casing apart and put it in a new shell so it can be water
cooled. THe idea behind this whole project is that we want the whole thing
to be as custom as possible. For instance, we are taking a radiator off a
car, (a sprint) and are mounting it to the top of the case. that is going
to act as our radiator. I don't think I will put peltiers on the radiator,
but maybe on the resivoir. Don't know yet.

-Chris

 

[kony]

Ok here is another question then, do you think I should splurge and go for
a Athlon 64 Fx? I have noticed the benchmarks are better, but I am
wondering how realistically it will do performance wise. I have also read
some reports that state some probs with memory suppport.

I'd go with the A64 before any extra $ gets spent on peltiers or
water-cooling, yes. As for gaming, there's only so much effort
required to get reasonable performance... spend too much time or $ and
it's just a waste, better to get it "done", use it, then rebuild when
the next greatest video card comes out.

It wouldn't surprise me if you do have memory issues... With any
high-end box, pushing the limits you'll find flaws. Buy from
someplace with a good return policy, or even better a guarantee.

As far as the PSU goes we are going to get something on the high end, (antec
550?).

It's a good power supply, though of course there are several choices.
Delta, Antec, Sparkle/Fortron, PC Power & Cooling, etc. Most
important might be the internal design, which one yields itself best
to the cooling design and casing you want. With most of them you may
find the regulators packed pretty tightly inbetween other components,
simply removing the innards and recasing them may not provide as much
clearance as you'd hope to have. I suppose you could fab custom
'sinks though, with the water passages starting right above the top of
the regulators. Also consider that even though there are only two
large heatsinks, the other components may still need a certain amount
of active airflow, the only reason they didn't have some additional
cooling measures taken was because the design implemented a fan. I
would keep a fan in it, or rather, in the new casing... even an
inaudible fan @ ~5V is a lot better than nothing.

Pull the casing apart and put it in a new shell so it can be water
cooled.

With a new casing there are lots of opportunities... if you were to
implement 2 x 92mm fans @ 5V, it would be quiet, plenty of airflow, no
water cooling necessary. That would also help move air through the
chassis with minimal additional structural changes to it.

THe idea behind this whole project is that we want the whole thing
to be as custom as possible. For instance, we are taking a radiator off a
car, (a sprint) and are mounting it to the top of the case. that is going
to act as our radiator. I don't think I will put peltiers on the radiator,
but maybe on the resivoir. Don't know yet.

-Chris

No fan on the radiator? I'm not familiar with a Sprint radiator, but
if it's small enough to fit atop a case I'd expect it to work a lot
better with a fan. Again, inaudible fans @ 5V are a lot better than
nothing. If you're looking to have a lot of custom metalwork then
you might have a nice casing made for the radiator, or if the system
is to be placed under a desk rather than on top, put the radiator on
the bottom of the case and add a metal skirt around it, though the
closer the fan is to the floor, the more likely it'll suck in dust
stirred up by walking or foot shuffling, etc.