Coolers?

[Merlin]

IF you could eliminate the condensation problem is there any reason why you couldn't use a USB powered drink cooler ( Fry's for $20) to coole your PC a bit more without all the "stuff" involved in water. I have no idea how much it would help if at all. I was just wondering.

[Zertz]

It wouldn't nearly be enough. All it does it take something at room temp and make it a bit cooler. Also, don't forget that a drink doesn't really heat up like a CPU. What would probably happen is that the cooler would struggle to cool itself.

To reach sub-ambient temps you need something more... extreme than a drink cooler, although it would be an original ghetto mod

[HONkUS]

USB Drink coolers use a Peltier element to cool the drinks. The problem with Pelts is that in order for one side to get cold the other must get very hot. Using Pelts to cool a CPU isnt new infact I think Swiftech has a waterblock you can buy with a groove cut out so you can sandwhich a Peltier between your CPU and the block. Another problem with using pelts to cool a cpu is that in order to have a pelt that will cool a CPU sufficiently you would need one powerful pelt, much more so then the one found in a USB drink cooler. With such a powerful pelt you would almost certainly need a dedicated PSU for the pelt. Long story short its a lot of trouble to DIY. Coolit's line of CPU coolers use several low wattage pelts to cool liquid in a self contained loop. I have their Eliminator it works great, better then a high end water system in fact, except itll only cool the CPU. You can find the Eliminator for around $150 bucks now I think.