Hi all

I was looking through the heap of old computers looking for usefull parts when i found a heat sink with 2 wires and no fan ontop of the mac processor (whatever it is). I pluges it into the 12v line on my pc and it works.

Does anyone know how i can test it to determine how usefull it is. Can i cool my OC'ed AMD 1800+ XP or my OC'ed gf3 Ti500 GPU or is it only man enough to cool my north bridge??? Any input would be apreciated as i have never used one of these for cooling. And it has no markings or information on it.

Dr_Hunter ;-)

Hunter, if it is as described with a peltier and a heatsink without a fan on top, and if that is all that is supposed to be there and it's complete. Then don't try and cool much with it.

It takes at least a 120watt or better peltier to cool an XP.
My 80mm needed an Alpha PAL8045 with an 80mm Delta high speed fan to keep it from burning itself up.

Your peltier is perhaps a 56watt, but no guarentees. You might could cool your GForce but there are some things you gotta know first.

Peltiers are rated in watts, my 80watt was designed for about 16V at no more then 8 Amps. Now that would give me a theoretical 16 X 8 = 128watts but that is only if both are maxed and then it burns up. The best I could do hooked up to my Antec303 300watt PSU was 12V X 5Amps = 60watts or so. But I was NOT directly cooling a chip. I was cooling a water block as a "Water Chiller".

You will have to play with it before you can trust it. If you just strap it on and power it up you might burn up that nice little GF3. I don't really wana read about that.

Thanks lcpiper.

I got a big copper heatsink with a 6800rpm fan on it ill see how it performs on that outside the computer.

It was just cool that i found one.

Are they better then a heatsink on its own i assume yes but am i roung.

After what you have said im not going to rip my gf3 apart. but i mite try and cool the northy with it.

Ive got active memory cooling comming and a faster 60mm fan comming for my coolermaster hhc 001. im putting the 8000rpm delta fan onto it. Then im going to put that monster 120mm delta fan with 190cfm as a side blow hole.

Dr_Hunter

Dr:

No offense but whats the point in cooling the Northy with a peltier? It doesn't get that hot. I would be safe to bet that the pelt you have although fun and nice to find a free on is almost useless to you in real world application on todays current systems. Lc was right. But it comes to mind that you are tryign to find things to cool with it. No need. go for the cleaned up look. An active cooler is more than enough for any Northy. Even ABIT uses a good heat sink and no fan. SO no need for the pelt. Think of some neat ways to use ot for something diff.
At least IMHO
DW

I saw a guy take a small piece of aluminum, attached a pelt on top, rounded the bottom, put straps on it, and used it as a beer cooler.

Hey now, don't be afraid to play with it. But learn some about them first so you don't trash your gear.

Next info for you, let's say you have a CPU that puts out 60watts, and you wana cool it with a peltier.
I don't really care why, you don't have to justify it to me. You wana do it, do it, but do it right

So your proc puts out 60watts worth of heat, and you have a 80watt TEC (Peltier). If you power that TEC with 12V @ 5 amps you get 60watts on the TEC, but that means you are creating 60watts with the TEC and passing 60watts from the CPU, 120watts is the load you have to cool with a (better be) kick a$$ HSF or a water cooling system, or else it's going to be a BarBQ

The TEC is just a heat pump, but it needs it's own power to create the effect, that power is also heat that needs to be cooled as well as the CPU heat or whatever else your trying to cool.

Most guys use a simple rule of thumb for selecting a TEC, you need 50% overhead so your 60watt CPU needs a 90+watt TEC.

Now let's talk about your Northy. Are we talking about the NorthBridge Chipset chip? I sorta figure that you are because you initial asked about an OC'd XP.
Remember that all the heat, the heat from what your cooling and the heat produced by the TEC is going to get dumped into your case and effect the case temperature which will effect all the other cooling action going on.

Peltiers are cool, and they are extreme. I used to think water cooling extreme, but not anymore. The quality and reliability of the kits and other components are just too good and the overall cooling is still above the ambient mark so I no longer think of it as extreme. But you do have to know what your doing.

I am not discouraging you I hope, instead I am hopeing to enlighten you and help you have fun fooling with the "edge" stuff and not ruin your gear.

Luck

Thanks for all the input.

I have felt the lil orange heat sink on my north bridge and it was hot. No ware nere as hot as the cpu or gpu but it was still hot. If this is just because of the hot air comming off the cpu cooler then im roung and wasting my time.

Yes the peltier was free and a bit of fun but if its no use then thers no harm done. But alot of new bords have an active cooler on the north bridge. And i thought that some sort of active cooling would help.

Im getting active cooling for my ram (i mentioned it someware elce i think) and acording to alot of places im reading that makes a diference.

I spose the real question im asking is "does active cooling on the northbridge help me at all with OC'ing?"

This pelt is a bit of fun. But if it can be usefull anywar thats a bonus.

Thanks again all


Dr_Hunter

Hey Dr. Hunter... you got a first name? We might be related if that's your actual last name (That would be friggin' trip). If you look at the pimprig drop-down and "Staff", you'll see what I mean ;-)

Like I said Dr. I am not trying to scare you or discourage you. It is tough because I don't know exactly what you have.

Sure, better cooling will help. If your aware of how different cooling technics work, there limitations, advantages, and even hazards. Then you are in good shape. I just wanted you to know that a Peltier can be very tricky to use correctly and that misuse can really cost you. I hate to see a Bro get hurt and it would bother me, and damage my already poor reputation if I said anything to make you hurt your gear. These guys have just about had enough of me and I think they are going to run me off soon because I cause so much trouble.

Go ahead and experiment, but read up on Peltiers here and make sure you got them figured out. Then have a blast, hell as long as you don't hurt anything, you can always swap it out for a good Crystal Orb.

Worse than the power draw is the condensation problem. When the hot side is properly cooled, the cold side gets absolutely FRIGID. Ice will form around, and even worse, below the CPU. What I did was fill the center of the CPU socket with silicone, sealed the edge of the socket with silicone, used electronic grease for the pin holes, and got a 2 inch tall closed foam block to fit around the outside of the CPU and heatsink. I also used a special gel on the bottom edges of the heatsink that prevents condensation. You will also need a shim and spacer for your cpu.

So, it's not just slap it on and turn it on. It requires research, planning, and preparation to do it correctly and to minimize any chances of trashing your system.

Funny thing is, the more I think about his little peltier the more curious I get. He said it was just the pelt and a heat sink without a fan.

That means it has to be a very low powered peltier because a heatsink without a fan is only going to get rid of a little bit of heat. And that is the pelt's heat, and the CPU's heat. This thing must have been for something really strange. If it is just missing the fan, or if it was ducted, then I can see maybe a 45watt peltier. But that is about it.

I got to build me a die simulator. I just have too, I can't keep swaping parts around in my rig just to test different setups and stuff. I think I will hurry up and build it so I can become the Cooling God and do all the HSF and water cooling reviews.

Hey Darksamurai, sorry mate but Dr_Hunter is just a nic. But it was a cool thought.

The pelt was in a powermac. It was on the cpu and there was a pasive heat sink glued to the top. And it was powered off the bored.

I got my active mem cooling last night and a Kickass new fan for my cpu heat sink. Its only a 60mm jobby but it the best delta 60mm one. I have seen adapters for putting an 80mm fan on a 60mm heatsink, but can i get an adapter to let me put a 120mm fan onto a 60mm heatsink???

And also i saw that beautiful crystel orb had anyone here played with one yet?

Thanks once again people.


Dr_Hunter

I hadn't seen any 120mm to 60mm adapters, most computers wouldn't have the room to mount a 120mm there. I've had plenty of crystal orbs, it worked pretty good for cooling the northbridge and I used one on a Geforce 256 card, but they are somewhat overhyped. They look cool, though. One of the problems with them is the top, it covers a lot of the airflow. I ended up popping the covers off to get better performance. I found that an old Pentium HS and fan works better than the Crystal Orb.

Problem with a 120mm on a 60mm heatsink is that the center dead zone from the fan hub covers all of the heatsink so you push a lot of air, just none of it onto the heatsink.

I moded my Radeon 8500 and put a crystal orb on it. They cool decent, but can be a little loud too.

Yes it IS useful for something ofcourse. I would be very cautious seeing just how well it works though because mac processors dont produce nearly as much heat as PC processors.

As I recall a couple years ago Apple made an attempt at a silent pc, which contained peltiers, They were quite expensive and only available to buy directly from apple. This happened before Steve Jobs returned. Might be interesting if this is one of those pc's as they didn't make very many of them.

(ok I know you wanna do it, but if you wanna bash me for anything I might as well make it good)

"Macs are the easiest computers to fix" next to O2 workstations

(ok, bash away)

Yes, it was the "cube" They were OK, but they all looked like plexiglass toasters.

Actually, a friend of mine modded the cd drive to eject the cd's with more force, so they ended up "popping" out. Except his first atempt, he put too much pressure on the spring and it shot into the ceiling!

Go here

You know, the Intel PIII Tulatin chips are very low heat producers. The earliest reviews said you could almost get away with a pasive heatsink and the Zallman "Flower job" was almost overkill. I would think that if this is a low power peltier that it could easily be used on a chip like that. Also a lower powered peltier is not a big condensation problem because it won't drop your temps below the dew point.

I would say that you could have a lot of fun with this by investigating exactly what you have and what it can do. And then you can build around it. I mean face it, a PIII at 1.3 Gig is probably just about as fast as a PIV at 1.8Gig.
Add DDR, and a GF4 Ti4200
Now OC the PIII

Actually the one I was referring to was a much older style mac, an old beige tower style made back in 96' which was completely silent. The cube (which was very interesting to play with) was unique in it's own right, but was not silent. I believe one of the biggest complaints was moisture would build up inside of it, add to that the heat the thing put out, and the plexi would begin to crack from it all. Interesting but flawed.

All macs are virtually silent, and have been for a couple years. I mean they do still have a humming noise, but they are much quieter than any PC you will buy of a shelf. The reason is the only fan they have in them is a very large (200mm+) fan that doesnt move all that quickly.