How safe is it to use a Peltier?

[Newguy123]

Hello

I have a asus a7v and a tbird 800 oced to 1000 i put alot of extra fans in my case but it just isent good enough. So i bought a Peltier off my friend a Melcore peltier. Now my question is how safe are the peltiers to use?? What damage can it cause? And how can i make it safe?

Can you use any size peltier on a AMD tbird? or does it have to be a certain size?

Thanks

 

[Rob Cork]

I've never peltier cooled my self, so this isn't first hand experience - but this is what I do know: condensation will be a problem. The whole point of peltier cooling is to get very low temps, definitely below ambient. Water will condense out of the air onto any surface at a lower temp than the air itself, so you need to thouroughly insulate the socket, cpu and mobo behind the socket in order to prevent drops of water magically appearing all over your electronic goodies - which would not be good. The most common method of insulation is to use dielectric grease to fill the socket and coat the base of the cpu, with silicone sealant all around the edge of the socket and over the cpu/pelt/hsf assembly. It's complicated.

Plus many people have found supercooling AMD chips doesn't help a whole lot, and they pump out so much heat you need high powered pelts (118W plus really) to get 'decent' temps for a peltier setup - and that sort of power requires watercooling on the peltier. Try if you like, but research more about insulation methods first and talk to some people who have done this.

By the way, what temps are you getting? It may be possible to lower temps by a fair bit more without resorting to peltier cooling - better aircooling perhaps or watercooling on its own.

 

[Rob Cork]

Rob Cork (Jan 21, 2001 09:46 a.m.):
I've never peltier cooled my self...

Of course I mean I don't have firsthand experience of peltier cooling - not that I've never tried to peltier cool me (I don't think I produce enough heat to warrant peltier cooling, and condensation would be embarrasing ;P )

 

[Richard]

TECs (peltiers) generate rather large amounts of heat by themselves, and if no form of active cooling is used will overwhelm themselves and literally go up in smoke. The hotside of the peltier must be cooled in order for the coldside to remain cold. Adding a hot CPU to the mix increases the amount of load on the heatsink. Not to mention that peltiers are not perfect. They can only pump so much heat away before they will become ineffective. REGARDLESS of the amount of cooling applied to the hotside. In fact, after a certain point peltiers lose effectiveness when cooled too much.

So you see the dilemma?

large heatsink can only move so much heat.
large peltier can move large amounts of heat.
large peltier generates large amounts of heat.
1 + GHz AMD CPUs generate large amounts of heat.

water necessary for efficient use of large peltier + AMD CPU

The inherent problems we see when dealing with peltiers and AMD CPUs is that their (peltiers) usage requires cooling ability beyond the realm of conventional fan/heatsinks. Since it is rather hard for an inexperienced person to replicate the performance of one water cooling rig to another it is difficult to gauge how effective your setup will be.

In all likelihood you will end up with a watercooling rig that will be marginally better than a top-of-the-line Fan/Heatsink.

Even with your best efforts, you'll probably end up with a marginal overclock to boot! As has been identified by myself and various others the key in overclocking AMD CPUs is voltage! Sure, cooling is necessary as we crank up the voltage, but anything in the 50-60 degree celsius range is acceptable. (Under overclocked conditions.)

In conclusion, an Alpha PEP66 with good thermal paste is more than adequate to get the most from you AMD CPU.

Newguy123 (Jan 20, 2001 11:22 p.m.):
Hello

I have a asus a7v and a tbird 800 oced to 1000 i put alot of extra fans in my case but it just isent good enough. So i bought a Peltier off my friend a Melcore peltier. Now my question is how safe are the peltiers to use?? What damage can it cause? And how can i make it safe?

Can you use any size peltier on a AMD tbird? or does it have to be a certain size?

Thanks

 

[Newguy123]

Thanks for the advice

My case setup now is i have 5 fans 1 80mm fan blowing air in. another 80mm fan on the back blowing the air out. 2 90mm fans on the side of the case blowing the air into the case over the CPU. Should i make the 2 90mm fans blow the air out??

My temps are pretty high CPU idle is 48C. Motherboard idle is 31C

Any advice on how i can get lower temps with all these fans i have?

Thanks again for the advice