I am wondering how many of you guys out there have played with Peltier coolers...I'm going to build a system that will exist more for technique in building than for actual function of cooling...just wondering if I could pick up a few tips about preventing condensation and such.

The system in question I'm planning will be an TBird 1.2 ghz, but if you have a suggestion of a better chip that could be overclocked with extreme cooling then please say so. (I heard stuff about the PIII 700e being better than the 800 once o/ced)

Thanks

Pelts are great. As long as you take a few simple steps they will last thousands of hours. As far as ugly condinsation is concerned the main thing is to make the pelt and processor air tight and to use an insulation that has a high melting point. I used a new product out that you use to wrap water pipes its has a very thick density but conforms to everything it touches. And to take preventitive measures if you use water cooling not air.
As far as the chip is concerned it sounds to me like you are doing this without bying things like the water block on line but to hand build it. If this is the case then I suggest the classic Athlon with the abit KA7-100 with pc133cas 2 quality ram you will not be disapointed. I know sounds nuts but there is so much you can do to be creative with a slot. Mine looks so damn cool. You may end up going for some serious case modding so the design is everything.
If you go for the t-bird 1.2 I have heard good and bad, basically luck, there are weeks better than others, so some investigation on locating a good week would help, but even then it still ends up luck of the draw. If you want to see a pict of my comp e-mail me and I will send you one. It is addictive.
Good luck and have fun.

quote:Originally posted by Colt:
If you want to see a pict of my comp e-mail me and I will send you one. It is addictive.
Good luck and have fun.

I've got an even better idea: You e-mail me, and I put the pic(s) upon my server, and you post it here in the forums...

Duckman

Sounds like a plan will e-mail them to you tomorrow evening. Thanks

mmm, water cooled pelts. sounds like extreme overkill to me

The problem is that I have to make the decision between a system I can screw around with and build on and a really fast system...basically the classic athlon vs the tbird...reading some random overclocking site, the peak for the t-bird is about 1284 mhz....which isn't exactly the stuff dreams are made of...but I'd like to try just water cooling anyways, quiet and power effeciant...the challenge is that I want to have it set up so that I don't have to have stuff hanging out of my case and without an open reserve of water...basically a closed system...I was thinking of epoxying the motor and something like a rubber bulb to the top of my case and have tubes running down to the water jacket and back to the motor, passing by a radiator in front of some fan. I was hoping to cut down on noise...

ah screw it, lets go for the ol' reliable easy peasy FOP 38

Maybe I'll work on my friend's celeron system...get his 400 to 800

Pelt elements sound pretty cool though...specially the 156 watt ones

I've been thinking long and hard about the cooling I'm going to use in my latest rig and I was going to do a pelt/water block combo but after doing the research I think I'm going to see how far I can oc the rig with just a fop. If the numbers don't climb high enough I might try a pelt/fop situation. A pelt/water setup would be the ultimate project and I may take that route after a while, but right now I don't want to put that much into it yet. A pelt is work enough, then adding water to the mix, making sure its not leaking, getting the resivoir and pump set up... that's a lot of work.

It is allot of work but the satisfaction from the final product is worth everything and then some. You do have to set your limits though or it will get too much. I was not looking for an outrages MHz # my goal was to use my talents and to do my own design and setup without purchaseing anything premade. The experimatation of building three water blocks then building the fourth from what I learned off the first three was what I did the project for, to learn through trial and error and your basic knowledge is what made my project fun. So yes if you are looking for speed and reliliability and ease of setup then go with stuff on line. If you just want a few more MHz's then fan setup will do it, as far as pelts are concerned they pump out some serious heat and if you dont want to have your comp sound like a plane taking off then you need the water. Just water will do fine also though you might get limited on your overclocking without the pelt. Dont be scared of water it is not that hard to do especially with the kits you can buy on line. But it can get expensive. Basically it is how deep you want to go in the in the depths of overclocking. Good Luck

Just remember that the price of a water cooling system alone will probably cost you more than a 1G AMD CPU.

Hmmm....If you have money to burn go for it, but if you just want a good system, spend your money on a good cpu and m/b.

Bugspit

quote:Originally posted by Doppelganger:
mmm, water cooled pelts. sounds like extreme overkill to me

My friend has a copper plate on his CPU, with two 170W Pelts (OVERkill) and water cooling... hes running the condenser from his mini-fridge to his computer to cool th CPU compartment... running at 166mhz FSB on a P3-600 = 996mhz. If we check the mobo probe for the CPU temp its at -60F... i dont know if thats right, but thats wut it says... all i know is that when u have to wrap the tubing from ur mini-fridge over to ur computer to keep from condensation & flooding ur CPU just so u can say that ur running a Ghz off a P3-600 thats a bit of overkill.... anyway, he wants to get an 800E cC0 fcpga CPU and take it as close to 2GHz as he can get it... i think he needs help.

has anyone touched the cold side of a peltier? how cold is it?
anyone ever touched the hot side? lol

quote:Originally posted by iamsostupid:
has anyone touched the cold side of a peltier? how cold is it?
anyone ever touched the hot side? lol

I have touched the cold side of a 72W peltier, and it was cold. It wasn't quite as cold as my freezer though - lol.
I have touched the hot side after two seconds, and it was bloody hot, I would never touch the hot side after a long time, and anyway, if you were able to touch the hot side, you would burn out the peltier, because it would not have any cooling on it !!

A