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Cool idea, maybe.

F

frosty3907

n00b
Joined
Mar 2, 2011
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Yeah sorry if that pun's been done before.

So I've been sitting here bemoaning my GTX480 (stock cooler) temps for awhile (90c under load) because I use it for rendering and also lately for bitcoin mining.
And when you're running this almost 24/7 it adds up to a lot of heat and a lot of electricity, especially if I were to get 1-2 more cards for SLI.

So I started thinking about the most efficient (read, low power consumption) methods of cooling, I was thinking of unusual solutions, as I normally do, to my detriment, like using it to heat water pipes.. powering a 12v rail from a solar cell and batteries, basically anything that will work for not a huge outlay of $$$ and without a whole bunch of noise.

And then I started thinking, what about turning all this heat into electricity instead of vice versa?

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/question136.htm

Which is where I'm leaving it for now since I've got to get some actual work done.

What do you think?
 
yeah very cool, now if i could only find a chunk of u235 or plutonium and attach a couple of thermocouples... ;)
 
I don't really understand what you're getting at. 90C =/= boiling, nor would you be able to transfer that heat efficiently to the water you want to boil. Plus it's only 200W at the most, which in the grand scheme of things is nothing, haha.
 
Look up laws of thermodynamics(laws 0 to 2), and carnot engine concepts

Tl:dr version
Thermocouples work by moving heat from one place to another, the "work" done in the process minus entropy related effects is your power out. Entropy is a bastard like that. In other words much like carnot cycle you need to maintain a high delta t, a previous poster hinted upon this jokingly. your idea isn't new. practical versions of it was used in probes and satelites. One side of the thermocouple would be extremely hot, other side extremely cold
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator


Best use of heat I have seen is a dude who using heat exchangers heated his pool with all the pcs in his house
 
ryuji said:
....Best use of heat I have seen is a dude who using heat exchangers heated his pool with all the pcs in his house
Click to expand...

that is a very cool example of using the side product (waste heat) to your advantage. what would be even cooler way to improve efficiency is to pop a couple of photo voltaic panels on the roof. power your house, dump excess current into the power grid (get credit from utility company), use excess heat from pc's to heat pool. very environmentally friendly.

yeah 'entropy' kinda like law of diminishing returns (you can tell i didn't study physics, did study enonomics tho).
 
aphasia said:
that is a very cool example of using the side product (waste heat) to your advantage. what would be even cooler way to improve efficiency is to pop a couple of photo voltaic panels on the roof. power your house, dump excess current into the power grid (get credit from utility company), use excess heat from pc's to heat pool. very environmentally friendly.

yeah 'entropy' kinda like law of diminishing returns (you can tell i didn't study physics, did study enonomics tho).
Click to expand...

Better to have a battery bank or supercapacitor bank, for when the sun isnt out. Potentially living completely off the grid
 
There are lots of ways to recycle waste heat for useful purposes, but the problem is that it's usually not practical to do so with things like computers. Of course, if you can keep your PC in a single spot and make sure it never moves, it's a lot easier to build it into some kind of system that heats your house, generates a bit of electricity, etc., although it won't be particularly efficient.
 
The GTX 480 you need a good thermal compound Personally I use IC diamond, get some high flow brackets or just mod your own. Backplates can cut down temps by 1-5c but most of the time just helps wiht looks. But my Tri sli setup didnt break 70-75C But Tim, airflow, sometimes other things are key. I am pretty much an airflow natzi when it comes to air cooling and keeping my gpus cool but then again my gpus that I keep normally last years due to taking care of them. You need a custom fan profile or need to run your gpu fans at 100% I would slam mine up to about 100% after 60-65C to get the heat out of them fast enough so I would not touch the crazy temps you are. They are hot cards granted and they will heat up a room if you can get rid of the heat as well as I can it has to go someplace, ended up with 2x GTX 460 EE's selling those got a GTX 580 Black Ops Edition for 370 was a steal really, at least for now... But yeah just think about airflow and you can get temps down... so you are trying to power them via a solar panel or what? I would not run a GTX 480 on a battery... would suck up the juice too fast.
 
donta1979 said:
The GTX 480 you need a good thermal compound Personally I use IC diamond, get some high flow brackets or just mod your own. Backplates can cut down temps by 1-5c but most of the time just helps wiht looks. But my Tri sli setup didnt break 70-75C But Tim, airflow, sometimes other things are key. I am pretty much an airflow natzi when it comes to air cooling and keeping my gpus cool but then again my gpus that I keep normally last years due to taking care of them.
Click to expand...
The OP is talking about recycling waste heat from his hardware, not reducing temperatures (which doesn't reduce the heat output anyway).
 
*looks above* yeah just seems alot of effort, personally I would change out gpus. You can get a vanilla 580 for 300-350 if your patient and look around enough.
 
Yeah I keep getting that thought (just change the GPU) but I only just bought the damn thing a few months ago.

And I don't have a pool :(
 
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