>
> On Feb 19, 2008, at 2:26 AM, Apptech wrote:
>
>> I've been shopping for new computers: CPU, Grapics  and
>> motherboards
>> I noticed that lots of motherboards and heatsinks now use
>> copper heat pipes,
>> I assume those are made from solid copper!
>
> Probably not.
> The heat pipes are probably heat pipes - a technically
> meaningful term which Gargoyle knows lots about. A heat pipe
> has an effective thermal conductivity well in excess of
> solid copper.
>
> Use of a PC as a water heater is entirely viable but of
> questionable practical value.
> Imagine that you could recover 200 Watts continuous by water
> cooling. That's about 200/6000 =~ 3% of the capacity of an
> element in a typical NZ electric water heater. Gaining that
> 3%* requires designing the PC to accomodate this function
> and then connection to the household system. The optimum
> temperature for a cpu and a water cylinder are probably
> different.
>
> Better might be to add an electric caliphont to your PC with
> waste heat providing base heating and the higher temperature
> being provided by a booster heater (maybe a spare 1000 Mhz
> Celeron). You can then get continuous Java with your Java.
>
> Bear in mind that in Winter any removal of heat for water
> heating will make the room 'less warm'. If you run a heater
> in the PC room then the effort would be counterproductive.
>
>         Russell
>
> Depends on how many showers you take.
> 3% x 24hours = 36% for 2 hours so if you heat one cylinder
> full a day there MAY be some merit in this.

Perhaps the best approach is to use the heat for  handwarmers.
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