Thinking about a pelt....

So I have been reading up on these peltiers and I need a little more help before I begin to buy stuff. First thing is that will be able to bring more mhz out of this really hot clawhammer? Sig says 1.75v in the core and im running at around 31C idle to as high as 40C load and I was always under the impression that better cooling will push the threshold. Second thing I want to know is what wattage of a pelt will handle a BIPII. I will only have one pelt and it will be on the CPU.

You would probably want to go with one of those big 350 watt pelts from e-bay. At 12 volts it is rated for 270 watts or something like that.

If you keep the cold side cool enough, this should get you down to or maby a bit below ambient at load. You will probably get a bit more speed out of that chip, but nothing amazing. If you really want to push it, you should look into a phase change unit from chilly1, PC_ice, sandman, or any of the other good builders around. The innitial cost would be simmilar to a full blown pelt setup like the one you would need, but the running costs would be a lot lower and it would work a whole lot better too (think -40 loaded....mmmm...)

o ok. not sure if I am ready for phase yet, but thanks for the answer

I have a 250W TEC and the biggest bother in using it is that at idle, my CPU really freezes down, then at load it warms up considerably. Still cooler than high-end water, but surprisingly, not that much cooler. I sincerely believe the radical changes in temperature as the CPU constantly varies between working hard and idle is not good for the internal interconnects in it. If you can regulate the voltage running the TEC based upon a temperature sensor placed near the CPU core, to keep the core near the same temperature, then the TEC would be a great device to have. Several places sell TEC controllers based upon a temperature sensor, but the ones I've seen only source 10 Amps or less. Obviously, you could use it to drive a higher current rated pass transistor, but it sure would be nice to find one that delivered up to 20 Amps right out of the box and didn't cost a "King's Ransom".

Hoot

Hoot running SETi on your computer will reduce that idle temp drop and keep you out of cold bug trouble.

I've heard F@H works better for those sorts of things *wink wink*. But seriously I wouldn't consider it a bad thing to keep your CPU from idling and have the temps stay up.

speed bump said:

Hoot running SETi on your computer will reduce that idle temp drop and keep you out of cold bug trouble.

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Your computer wouldn't be idling....it would be running SETi LOL.....and yeah, I'd vote for F@H instead

That's all fine and well, but my altruism ends where my wallet begins. If Berkley or Stanford want to pay for my electricity, waterpump and fan wear, then I'll be happy to leave my machine running 24/7 as opposed to an hour or two each evening. I spent a lot of my hard earned money putting together a fast machine. Why would I intentionally take a performance hit even those few hours I spend using it each evening? For those members who chose to do that, more power to you, but I'll pass. My few work units won't be missed.

Hoot

Hoot said:

That's all fine and well, but my altruism ends where my wallet begins. If Berkley or Stanford want to pay for my electricity, waterpump and fan wear, then I'll be happy to leave my machine running 24/7 as opposed to an hour or two each evening. I spent a lot of my hard earned money putting together a fast machine. Why would I intentionally take a performance hit even those few hours I spend using it each evening? For those members who chose to do that, more power to you, but I'll pass. My few work units won't be missed.

Hoot

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Good point Hoot...but I'd just liek to add (and please take this as a drop of water...I'm just trying to provide clarification)...if what you mean when you said "take a performance hit" by a computing speed hit....F@H and SETI are used on a near idle (very low) priority level. Therefore, if another program wants resources...it gets resources. Basicly, F@H and SETI would be the last thing to get resources (hence any resources...CPU wise...goes to F@H or SETI)....basicly...there's no computing speed performance hit.

I fold to heat my room. Ironicaly in terms of btus per buck, it is almost the same as fuel oil heating. At night, I just heat my room instead of heating the whole house.