Instead of struggling to cool down your computer's CPU, use the heat as a resource to generate power! Add a small turbine to turn waste heat into useful energy.
-- simonj, Dec 09 2008

Stirling CPU Cooler Stirling_20CPU_20Cooler
[phoenix, Dec 10 2008]

Could such a marvelous device run the CPU itself?
-- bungston, Dec 10 2008


I note that you say 'useful' energy. Explain.
-- Texticle, Dec 10 2008


//I note that you say 'useful' energy. Explain

Electricity is useful, no?
-- simonj, Dec 10 2008


I use that heat to warm my feet.
-- quantum_flux, Dec 10 2008


/Electricity is useful, no?/

In remotely worthwhile quantities, yes.
-- Texticle, Dec 10 2008


The heat could power a fan, which would be just as effective as it needed to be to prevent its own activation.
-- bungston, Dec 10 2008


Atom doesn't need a fan; it already sucks.
-- Spacecoyote, Dec 11 2008


Yes, but if I'm gonna pay hundreds of dollars for something, "normal usage" is the last thing it's gonna see.
-- Spacecoyote, Dec 11 2008


Simon, anything you put in which is extracting useful work from the waste heat stream is going to increase the thermal resistance of your cooling system (read:push the temperature of the source up).

A CPU, at any given operating point, will produce a fixed thermal output power. The thermal resistance between the source and the surrounding air determines the temperature difference required to push that amount of heat away from the chip.

If you put a turbine on, as a rough estimate, the exhaust temperature of the turbine will be equivalent to what the exhaust temperature of the heatsink would otherwise have been. The inlet temperature of the turbine will be hotter. The CPU will therefore be hotter than it would otherwise have been.
-- david_scothern, Dec 11 2008



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