A refrigerated case???

I'm considering putting a very hot PC into a sealed refrigerated case. PC heat generation seems to be measured in watts rather than BTUs. The PC sucks approximately ~ 500 watts from the battery according to the APC software. Are these watts the same as power consumption watts? Does anyone know if the APC software is accurate? According to my information 1 Watt = 3.4129 Btu/hr. So I'm looking for a thermal solution that can handle somewhere around 2k BTU/hr. The goal is to make the unit very quiet and pipe the heat generated outdoors via flexible duct from the cooling unit (whatever that is).

Can Peltiers cool that much?

Is there anything obvious I'm overlooking?

How are you going to deal with condensation that will be created in the refrigerator??

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Originally posted by commanderkeen
How are you going to deal with condensation that will be created in the refrigerator??

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thats the first thing that came to my mind... using just an A/C unit, the condensation fried my cpu, motherboard and psu

That's why the case is sealed from the humidity. Silicon gel packs should reduce the humidity to non-condensing levels. Most of the moisture will accumulate on the cooling plate/coil and diverted.

In addition I do not anticipate eliminating the HSF units. The idea of the case is to channel the heat to the out of doors and reduce the sound levels.

I don't really know what kind of system you are trying to cool, but my first suggestion would have to water cooling. It will give you everything that you have said you are looking for, not to mention that it has been sucessfully in thousands of systems. If you really need sub-ambient temps you could opt for a waterblock that accepts a peltier, but I've never come across a system that needs more cooling than plain water can provide.

Don't forget that not ALL of that 500w is going directly to heat. Your hard disks and removable storage drives draw a considerable amount of power while not producing much heat.

UA I don't think what you are shooting for is going to work...

You would probably be better off going with a some good ducted fan work and some water cooling and/or pelts. Run of the mill 126watt pelt should work just fine for your processor. Companies like Swiftech and Danger Den will have kits ready to run this preassembled (and components for sale).

Extreme cooling in low humidity enviornments is REALLY work intensive because your lack of humidity makes it harder to keep air cool (think of it as a particulate density in a volume of air). Depending on how much energy you are actually exposing a quantity of low humidity air to, dictates how quickly you have to turn that air over. Don't know the specifics, but a case is very limited and volume and computer temps can get pretty high.

I'm trying to cool my main desktop workstation - dual Xeon procs, 4GB ram, 7 Cheetah drives, plus a few add-in cards.

I have not found any water cooling for Xeon procs, let alone multiple procs. Right now the room this system is in has a temperature that is at least 10°F warmer than the other rooms in the house. That is after I doubled the AC airflow to the room.

I've even thought about buying a freezer and putting the system in it. The noise from the 9 "silent" case fans is driving me crazy.

I just need a way to pipe the heat outside. If I don't my wife will never let me upgrade. :(

Check this out ua...

http://216.247.67.106/products/MCW462.asp

Thanks for the link.

Don't forget that you can make a water cooling system as big as you need it. For piping the heat out of the room all you'd have to do is make a duct from the radiator to outside, or even better, locate the radiator inside an existing air duct that has already has moving air.

As for noise, as long as you get a good pump the whole system will be near silent.

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Originally posted by kpxgq
thats the first thing that came to my mind... using just an A/C unit, the condensation fried my cpu, motherboard and psu

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What kind of A/C unit were you using? A swampy?

A refridgerated AC would make the air drier so you shouldnt have had any condensation at all.
Condenstion should form on the eveaporator as the warm room air is cooled.
After the evap the air is drier than your room air and at lower temp so unlesss you have even cooler parts in your PC than the Evap coil there can be no condensation.

The only way i can see condensation happining here is if hot air is also allowed to enter the case and its hot and wet enough to condensate on parts already cooled below the hot air's saturation point by the AC air. Eliminate this warm air intake and problem solved.

Asetek do a Vapochill case cooler that may interest you. Sounds just like what you're after. :)

that or a prommy :)

i would just go with a wc setup you can customize it and you can make it as big or as small as possible.

its weird to see ua549 not knowing something its kinda scary. (oh and im looking for someone to decode your pics)

Can you give us some pics of the inside of the case and the area around it? I've got some idea that might work, and I'm sure we'll be able to help you better if we know what you're up against.

I'll try to get some pics. It will take a few days - this week is committed to the MS Office 2003 Launch Event.

This looks REAL good, if you got he $$$ to buy it. http://www.asetek.com/default.asp?sh...n=2&menuID=309

750W heat removal capacity + it recirculates the air so you don't get any dust in there. Now, all you gotta do is duct the air from the cooler unit to outside your house and voila.

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Originally posted by talldude
This looks REAL good, if you got he $$$ to buy it. http://www.asetek.com/default.asp?sh...n=2&menuID=309

750W heat removal capacity + it recirculates the air so you don't get any dust in there. Now, all you gotta do is duct the air from the cooler unit to outside your house and voila.

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Wow, I've never seen anything like that. That looks like one sweet system.

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Originally posted by talldude
This looks REAL good, if you got he $$$ to buy it. http://www.asetek.com/default.asp?sh...n=2&menuID=309

750W heat removal capacity + it recirculates the air so you don't get any dust in there. Now, all you gotta do is duct the air from the cooler unit to outside your house and voila.

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Indeed, that's the one I was talking about. ;)

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Originally posted by V5500-StillGoing
Indeed, that's the one I was talking about. ;)

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Yeah...you just linked to asetek's main site. A lot of people could miss the case you were talking about (or not understand exactly what you were pointing at) so I put up that link directly to the unit you were talking about. :)

I would think a unit like that would be worse than sealing the whole case in a refrigerated box. Since it isn't completely self-contained, you may still have a condensation problem - most likely on the outside of the case, but you don't even want condensation there.

A refrigerator might not be bad, but I'd also be wary of temperatures too low - you don't want thermal shock, nor do you want humidity too low - you get static electricity and material degredation problems.

My solution would be a sealed box with a small room A/C unit: you generally get 55F supply temperature and 55F wet bulb temp.

Also, common misconception:

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Don't forget that not ALL of that 500w is going directly to heat. Your hard disks and removable storage drives draw a considerable amount of power while not producing much heat.

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By the 1st law of thermodynamics, absolutely every bit of power/work has to be accounted for. Since there aren't any chemical reactions going on and no mechanical changes in potential energy, every last watt of juice your computer uses gets dissipated as heat. Friction (in bearings on the hd, and in air flowing across a fan, etc) is a bigger impact than most people realize.

FYI, I'm an HVAC engineer and I've designed computer rooms. Generally they are kept slightly below normal room temp (65F or so) at 50% humidity. Most need active humidity control - they are more often too dry than too humid.

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Since there aren't any chemical reactions going on and no mechanical changes in potential energy

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While you might be an HVAC engineer, you seem to have failed this little bit of thermodynamics.

If a system has a 0% thermal effeciency it isn't doing anything other then being hot. Which a computer most certainly is not doing. Pushing electrons across the surface of semiconductor IS a chemical reaction and requires the use of energy that ISN'T all expended as heat. Similar to spinning disks up/down AND moving actuator arms on optical drives and HDD. Samething goes for fans. You might not be counteracting gravity mechanically (unless your HDD is stowed vertically) but your most definately moving an object that was at rest.