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USB CPU cooler mod

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USB CPU cooler mod
By Justin Robinson
Oct 8, 2008 | 10 Comments
Tags: cooling | USB | colddrinks

Justin Robinson gets bored, tech gets taken apart and repurposed.

The Atomic labs can be an amazing place - full of heatsinks, watercooling and sometimes even the roar of the phase change. But the one thing that we’ve never looked at – the USB powered drink cooler gathering dust in the corner.

We have had the Coolit USB Beverage Chiller lying around, not chilling anything. In between reviews for the next issue, we thought that some delicate modding was in order. Grabbing the nearest screwdriver, we pulled the device out of the plastic housing, and slapped it onto a Phenom X4 9350e CPU using copious amounts of cable ties:

click to view full size image


Things got a little toasty, due to the peltier (the main driving technology behind the chiller, read more here) only running at a measly 5V, supplied through the USB cable. So, naturally, we overclocked the peltier by modding a molex cable to pump 12V through instead:

click to view full size image


This achieved an idle temp of 30 degrees, so naturally our next step was to stress it, using the OCCT. Sadly, the small peltier could not handle the heat load, with temps jumping to over 65 degrees in less than a minute. In true Atomic spirit, pictures were taken first before shutting it down to prevent damage:

click to view full size image


While not stable for a long period of time, it would run superPI and wPrime just fine, so we decided to push how far we could get them . We hit a wall at 230, or 2.3GHz over 2GHz stock, which is bloody amazing for a device intended to cool cans of drink!

This isn’t really a sensible idea (as the peltier’s lifespan would be shortened significantly), but it definitely is far from horrible, and actually idles at lower than the stock cooler. Here are a few more pics, just to give you an idea of how we mounted it:

click to view full size image


click to view full size image


click to view full size image


 
 
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10 Comments
Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.
Shikimaru
Oct 8, 2008 11:48 AM
Go you good thing Justin :).

Next thing is to pop it into the loop of some water cooling :)
TheFrunj
Oct 8, 2008 11:55 AM
Uhh, water and electricity mix a little too well for that.

The good news is that it's handy for cooling both beer and your CPU ;)
battlefield_gir
Oct 8, 2008 12:41 PM
I neverh ad much success with peiltier cooling, personaly i think you would have better sucess if you managed to isolate the cold side of the TEC so you keep it from interacting with the air around it, you would also get better temps because the now cold air/metal ect is not interacting with other warm components the TEC is also underpowered so swap it around from one from ebay that has much more power. e.g.http://cgi.ebay.com/158W-TEC-Thermoelectric-Cooler-Cooling-Peltier-Plate_W0QQitemZ200259770031QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item200259770031&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
however you would have problems with heat generation from a TEC like that so keeping the hot heatsynk isolated from t5he area thats being coold is imperative.

would look somthing like this.

http://www.rmcybernetics.com/images/users/diy_supercoolerFDowL5.jpg
I only managed to get this working on the small scale before cracking all five peiltier because my mounting system was crappy. i figured out my problem with the insulation, though when i implemented it i cracked 5 peiltiers trying to mount it.
Fat_Bodybuilder
Oct 8, 2008 2:12 PM
In fact, they mix so well that you can see the sparks fly! ;-)

Gir, next time think before hand and please use tinyurl or something similar, my browser on this 19" is nearly double the width of the screen.
moofactory
Oct 8, 2008 2:13 PM
Gir... one word.
Tinyurl.
You Broke it... the whole thing!
battlefield_gir
Oct 8, 2008 2:28 PM
i would but the fact is that im using free hotel internet monitored by a nazi net nanny, e.g. i cant go to endgadget, type sugar in to google, go to jalopnik or tinyurl.
emccat
Oct 8, 2008 3:53 PM
lol peltier are funny they cool and heat stuff. i bought a USB noodle warmer from the markets for like $3 and it uses a pielter ill turn it into a usb CPU HEATER lol
Shikimaru
Oct 8, 2008 5:21 PM
Or change the polarity or something to reverse it!!
greycat
Oct 8, 2008 5:26 PM
BFG's ebay link made tiny: http://tinyurl.com/5x83xl.

Also the link to Overclockers in the article is broken. :(
battlefield_gir
Oct 8, 2008 7:49 PM
shikimaru from my experience on peiltiers you cant reverse the polarity for some weird reason. Eat the flag can back up my claim.
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