SETI w waterblock/peltier setup

[Burning Phoenix]

I don't mine running seti right now 24 hours with a stock heatsink and fan on my P4 but when i get hooked up with my peltier/waterblock i'm kinda of worried about runnning it 24/7. Does anyone here run seti 24/7 with a waterblock/peltier setup?
I think i can get WU's under or around 3 hours consistantly with a overclocked P4 once my water system is going. Right now i finish Wu's around 3:50 to 4:10. I Don't about you guys but since i started seti a few weeks ago i tend to watch certain names on our team and try to set my self in passing them. One is pulling away from me and the other is staying right in front by a few WU's. So I hope i can trust a waterblock/peltier to run all the time without problems to catch up.

[TC]

Well it all depends on how well you insulate it from condensation. It's difficult to do a perfect job. Even the Vapochill unit didn't work for me, and they've got quite an elaborate setup. including heating elements on the outside of the insulation. I had a peltier setup on one of my athlons, and it was pretty well insulated with closed-cell foam gaskets cut to fit perfectly (from Swiftech) and I used silicone spray and caulk. It ran 24/7 for about 3 months and finally quit when condensation apparently corroded a pin away.

[Burning Phoenix]

I was going to address this thread to you because i figured with your setups you were probably the one who had done this. I ran my last computer P3 700 @ 1022 for a few months with waterblock/peltier and the only corrosion i received was on the bolts holding the unit together. I hope i can insulate this one better. I'm more afraid of the parts quitting ; peltier or water pump. I don't know how many hours of continuous use they can survive. There is no life expectancy rating for these parts that i know of.

[TC]

Originally posted by Burning Phoenix
I was going to address this thread to you because i figured with your setups you were probably the one who had done this. I ran my last computer P3 700 @ 1022 for a few months with waterblock/peltier and the only corrosion i received was on the bolts holding the unit together. I hope i can insulate this one better. I'm more afraid of the parts quitting ; peltier or water pump. I don't know how many hours of continuous use they can survive. There is no life expectancy rating for these parts that i know of.

My advice would be to come up with some method of switching the peltier off when the computer shuts down. This would allow you to use a program like shutdown now! (think that's the name) in conjunction with mbm so if something failed and the temp started to rise you could cut the whole setup off automatically. I almost had an accident one time when the computer shutdown for some reason, and the fans I was using to cool the radiator were wired up to the power supply. The pump was plugged into the wall, along with the pelier. So they both kept running, but the fans were no longer cooling the water - and it just about burned up before I found it.

As for insulation you gotta go all out. Fill the center of the socket with silicone. Force non-conductive grease into the pin holes. Spray the front and back of the board with a silicone conforming spray such as Konform. Mask off the pins and spray those resistors on the cpu with silicone. Don't leave any air gaps, and make sure every bit of exposed metal is insulated from water so it can't do any damage.

[Mictlan]

For the peltier/waterblock setup you have two problems:

1.-Condensation is not an issue. If some condensation appears it means you are running below the water saturation of the air. In dry-normal places this will be happening near the frezzing point of water. So the condensation will turn to ice. When the setup warms, this will turn into water and maybe cause a short. But if the setup stop it usually means that your rig has already bought the farm. Also some water over your board wont be a problem if there is no electricity running.

2.- If for some reson you stop cooling the pelt, you'll fry your CPU.

As I'm thinking in using some watercooling in the near future I have come with the next idea:

You need a pressure swith. This is like a manometer but can mecannically activate a relay. The trick will be the following:
At the pump's outlet install the pressure swith.
Rig the pump feed to the inlet of the PSU.
Connect the relay of the pressure switch to the common feed of electricity.

With this setup, if the pump discharge pressure drops the electricity is cut from all the box, and save your CPU from self inmolation.