What is a peltier?

Can someone tell me what a peltier is an what it actually does?

 

It's a piece of magic that when a voltage is applied, cools down to sub-zero temperature http://www.digit-life.com/articles/peltiercoolers/

 

now why hasn't any company taken advantage of that technology? ... seems to me a money maker **thinks about cashing in** it seems better than water cooling as you dont have to worry about leakage ... though it would seem far overkill to have it directly on the CPU .. like to have such a device configured to distribute the cool air throughout the case ... or a case that would have it set up so as to prevent condensation

and what of pulse cooling? i hear intel is looking into it ... i forget where i had the link ... sounds interesting though

 

The pentium slot1's and amd SlotA's used peilter coolers, one side gets very cold while the other very hot which nitro-wings link should show (didn't look at it)

But after testing, they are not very reliable and are known for cracking and letting the cpu overheat (fry) as most people have reviewed on the internet. I would be great if they did still make a form reliable for todays cpu's but dry ice works just as well but cost a bit more

 

Yes, and as Pyrate mentions - condensation is the big problem. Want water droplets near your cpu?

 

condensation is a problem for peltiers?

 

why dont they use peltiers instead of water cooling since it cools it so much better?

 

From the link above, you could use a peltier setup if you design it, i don't believe manufacturers think its still a reliable setup.

 

the reason that peltier kits arent used is that if you have a (example) a CPU that displaces 250W of heat; the peltier kit has to be rated to dissipate the same amount of energy; if it only dissipaits 200W; your going to be looking at a meltdown. The problem comes to support a high wattage peltier kit you need an extremly high rated PSU that WONT fail under VERY HEAVY stressloads. That or Two Psu's which isnt very efficient or space saver.

 

i have a peltier kit on my dual athlons running two power supplies, one for comp functions and one for peltiers. i have a little pot on the front of my comp to adjust cooling level, the more power, the more cool. i have three thermometers and a moisture detecter. one thermo measures cold side of peltier, one hot side, and the other the cpu temp. the moisture meter will desconnect the power if humidity gets too high and will not let you turn on the comp until it drops. its kind of complicated but it is protection like no other. it might not be worth it though if you are running a single processor unit.