PELTIER TEST = 72W

 

Air Cooler = Global Win FOP38

CPU = 566FC-pga celeron

Well this is the 3rd time ive played with peltiers, and by golly this time ive got it right. I have not been able to find any step by step HOW TO articles out there on air cooling peltiers. The what not to do's and the what you must do to get it right. So this will be part test and part what to do guide OK. First off , you must use a copper cold plate at least 3mm thick , ok. Dont use aluminum like i did. Use copper. Second, use lots of thermal paste, then lap the parts together , so that the thermal paste is distributed evenly and no obvious air pockets are left. Make sure that the thermal paste is covering the entire cold plate and peltier. This is a must , or an air pocket will be left. You must do the same with the peltier and heatsink. This is messy work and will take some time. If you dont do this properly , your peltier wont work properly, and it will perform poorly. Im using a 200w AT power supply to power the peltier, at 12volts its putting out 8amps. This would appear to be more than enough to do the job. Im using a copper shim on my cpu, so that the cooler will sit nice and evenly on the cpu. Again use lots of thermal compound , this will ensure good contact between the cpu and copper cold plate. Again do what you can to minimize air space, this time to avoid moisture build up. I had to make a second custom clip from piano wire , so as to fit the cold plate and peltier under the fop38. Dont and i mean dont ever try to use the original clip from the cooler when trying to run a peltier. The extra distance will create serious tension , and you will most likely rip out the mounting points on your socket, if it can physically fit in the first place. The piano wire that I used is about 52thou thick, so make a new clip OK.

So with everything fitted correctly , lets see what the 72w peltier can really do.

Playing Quake at 807mhz 1.65v the temp maxed out at 10Deg Celsius. yes finally success. At 850mhz 1.7v the temp maxed out at 14Deg Celsius, and at 875mhz 1.7v , it maxed out at 16Deg Celsius. For the record my celeron has been able to run at 875mhz 1.7v before , but it has always locked up doing anything strenuous, like playing Quake.  Not this time , I was actually able to play an entire game of Quake with no problems. Unfortunately I was still unable to cleanly boot my system at 892mhz, I was hoping though.

The temp range at 807mhz was -10 at idle, and +10 at load. Now this is more like it, and these are the sort of results that come from doing it properly . Now as to condensation, there was none, using all that thermal compound and making certain that there were no air pockets left anywhere , would seem to have protected the system somewhat . For a long term solution , use foam and grease to seal of the cpu and peltier from the outside air.

The fop38 seemed to handle the heat load just fine , if anything it was cool to the touch, and should be able to handle much more powerful peltiers. So in conclusion, there is absolutely no reason why you would have to go with water cooling when using a 72w peltier. Just dont make the mistakes I made, use a copper cold plate, by using aluminum, I stuffed up, dont substitute the copper, use copper. 2 make the time, to make a new clip, so that everything will fit correctly, this was the original cause for my stuff up, being in a hurry, swapping materials so as to avoid making a new clip. These are no no's. And now you are armed with enough information to do some proactive cooling, just dont make the mistakes I did.

Sponsored by: