Q: How Does a Peltier Cascade, or "Stacking" work?

Q: Antifreeze? Worth it in my H2O setup?

A: Depends. Are you going to be running below Freezing? or just cooling the hot side of a pelt?  If you are going to be doing some 0F - 32F+ Deg Cooling ( hanging it out your window in winter)  Try using some of the LowTox Antifreeze but in a very mind dilution.  The reason I don't say just dump it in is cause the heat transfer properties of Glycol and Antifreeze is much lower then Water alone. So Adding some to water wont hurt it much, but adding a lot may.  Also Water Wetter has a mild version of antifreeze in it, just add some of that to your coolant and that should protect ya to around 10 - 15 Deg F.

Q: Copper Shims??? I am worried about cracking my Core!

A: Ok.. I have a sort of militant view on this. It is - If you cant seat a freak'n HSF straight and not crack your core, WHY ARE YOU OPENING YOUR CASE?!   Shims do one of 3 things for you:

1. They obstruct your HSF/Block from sitting on the core correctly, and then you Burn up CPUs faster then Kyle @ HardOCP with a box of TBirds,and an 8 footed HSF
2. Short or Damage components on the CPU
3. Give you a FALSE sense of safety, when the chance they actually help you is slim to none.

LOOSE THE FREAK'n TRAINING WHEELS PEOPLE!  This is JUST like learning to ride a bike.. you don't know you can do it without the training wheels till you take em off and found that you prolly never needed them. You Center the HSF on yer CPU, hold it with one hand to keep it solid, and clip the clips onto the socket... Ohh that was hard.
A few FALSE claims that these things do that I have heard:

1. "They Improve heat transfer" - BS.  If anything they help aid in condensation on the ceramic CPU parts by transferring the cold to the CPU plate.
2. Extend the life of your CPU  - HA!   Dunno if you get a CPU with a Core a slightly different height, or a mal formed Shim.. yer Core wont be long for this world, either it will crack, burn, or chip.
3. "It Cant hurt to use one" - please see above statements.

Welcome to the world of cooling folks, Keep the Retail HSF on the CPU if you want the training wheels, if you want to do it the right way and honestly, the SAFER way, just take it slow, watch what you are doing and BE CAREFUL, No amount of copper under yer HSF can make up for that.

Q: Can I water Cool my Notebook?

A: Sure!  Just get some small lines, an itty bitty pump, a small radiator, and a small fan. all set. Oh and a small water block :)  If you do, I wanna see it!  Already tried to get someone to water cool his PlayStation 2 for us :)

Q: Thermal Paste Removal, That cleaner paste out there any good?

A: Thermal paste is SIMPLE to remove, and MUCH cheaper then the "Specialty" or special  "Silver Removal Pastes" out there.  OK, Go to Walgreens, pick up a bottle of unscented nail polish remover that contains Acetone for like 2$. Or go to an Ace hardware wear and for like 10$ get a 1 gallon jug of pure acetone.  Put it on a Q-Tip and there you have it, a nice clean core!  No Gimmicks, it just works! ( I know that's pretty important to me.  Functionality before useless Frills.)

In MOST cases if you take a strong paper towel and your finger you can get rid of the majority of all the paste off the core, then just touch up with the Acetone.

Q: Orbage - Good Cooling for my 900Mhz AMD Space Heater?

A: Sure!, They are made to handle a Ghz TBird+ CPU.  If you are doing some insane or high end OC'n then maybe you should look at the Supper ORB but the Chrome one will work just Jim Dandy for your cpu!

Q: Air Flow in My Case? Do I need more coming in then I do going out?

A: You don't need MORE, but you should get close to even. Count up all the fans Blowing into your case ( normally in the front, or a blow hole or something)... find the CFM rating for each fan and add it up. Now take your Exhaust fans and add them up the same way. Subtract them from each other and what's ever left is your "Extra" or "Lack" of CFM. If your case has a big difference ( 50 - 100 CFM) then you are creating a negative/positive static pressure in your case.  If its Negative then that means your PS fan or something is performing FAR worse then it normally would. its actually having air sucked IN around the edges of the fan instead of all blowing out. It will also suck air through your CD/DVD ROM, Tape Drives Floppy's,  etc... contaminating them with dust more then normal. Running at a positive static pressure is a good thing, or better then the other way around. This way the hot air in the case is looking to escape any way it can..  But this will also contribute to Fan performance being less then it should blowing into the case. I would try and get it to within +/- 10 - 15 CFM. To keep the air flow true and your fans running at peak performance.  I am battle'n this beast with DH3 right now actually it had 290CFM coming in, and 350 Going out, so to keep everything running as good as it should I am reversing some fans and maybe increasing the size of a few.

Q: Which is better the lil Black hayden Radiators, or the Copper tube with many fins forced path setup? ( Not a real question.. I have been asked it before.. but I thought I would inject something I noticed over the past week on DH3)

A: All I have to say is "What are you using it for?"  For 99% of all uses I can think of the Lil Black radiators are by far better. BUT I found a flaw in them ( first one I have!). I found it this week when thinking about the coolant flow setup in DH3, and how I ran one of the radiators.   One of the Radiators is Facing DOWN, so the inlet and exit are toward the floor.  In Forced path it wouldn't matter at all.   But these radiators are multi path/Parallel setups where the water doesn't HAVE to travel to the top or all the fins if it doesn't need to.  The problem I saw was this :

If the Radiator is full of air before you fill it, and you pump water into it with it upside down, it will get SOME of the air out, but I would venture to say 1/3 of the radiator will remain air filled.  In the sort term you could just tilt it up while its filling for the first time, but that's not what I wanted to do. What I came up with was this - Tap a hole in the top of the radiator, and have a valve, then when you are filling, pinch the exit hose a bit, and open the valve.  The Water will rise and fill the entire radiator rapidly pushing the air our the top valve.  Once you see coolant, close the valve and leave it closed and sealed. release the exit hose and you are all set. Every 2 or 3 weeks you may want to just crack the valve quick to let any air that collects in the radiator to escape.

I have gone one step further and moved the exhaust fitting to the top of the radiator to make it so that the coolant MUST low through the entire radiator and out the top. More on all this in the DH3 write up in a week or so. Just wanting to give that FYI for anyone running one of these radiators UPSIDE DOWN ( so the nozzles are pointed at the floor.).

That's all for this issue, I'm bout to fall asleep :), Remember send in your questions to CoolTalk@ProCooling.com and get some answers! A Quick thanks to Chip at OCWC for some info on some of the stuff here.

Take Care,

Joe

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