Mineral Oil Submerged Computer

[PCC-Jon]

Puget Custom Computers shows off a truly unique computer, built in an aquarium! Cooling is provided by submerging the system in mineral oil. With lights and bubbles, it looks great, and is not as expensive or difficult as you might think.

Link: http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php

Post your discussion here!

Edit: Please see our new forum section (http://forums.pugetsystems.com/forumdisplay.php?f=44) dedicated to aquarium PC topics!

[mlbpro417]

Wow simply amazing!

[Muddy]

You have to make and sell these. I know I want one.
I wonder what you could put in it to make it look like a real fish tank? Just picture one of those small deep sea diver with the bubble blowing treasure chest in it.

[maccam94]

Rather than just using a lid, you should have covered the top with a large heatsink (make sure it touches the mineral oil, even if you need to attach another thermally conductive piece to the bottom of the sink). This way, rather than just using a large heat resevoir, you could use this setup as an actual cooling apparatus. Without a place to dissipate heat, the system will eventually heat up all of the mineral oil and crash/meltdown.

[singularity]

Hey guys, I'm going to be building a copycat system using a machine I already have up and running. My only question is where did the optical drive go on the second machine? I see a CD or DVD drive sitting on top of the tank for the first machine but none visible for the second. Also I'm considering making a stand and mounting the hard drive to the platform and submerging that as well. Any reasons (aside from the unwillingness to put up with unplugging the drive numerous times) why this is a good or bad idea? Last question: does the mineral oil eat away at the rubber on any of the capacitors and such? I thought that was one of the main cons about submerged systems, but this looks too cool to pass up. Thanks for showcasing such an awesome idea and any answers to these questions you can provide!

[neodeltai]

This is quite an exciting project! My roommate and I were discussing this subject last night, and I came upon this while researching today. I have many questions, but I'll limit them to the two I'm most curious about:

I came upon this thread discussing submersion here (http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/t247256.html). Ignoring some of the childish bickering in that thread, I'm wondering if you've come across the problem detailed here (http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/LIQUID-SUBMERSION-helpful-learned-facts-ftopict206715.html), and if so, how did you overcome it?

Also, practically every submerged system I've read about stressed that the PSU should be kept outside of the oil, as it would only serve to heat it unnecessarily. Yet I noticed your system had the PSU on the bottom of the tank. Was submerging the PSU intentional, as in was there a specific benefit you were aiming for?

I really look forward to seeing how well this system performs for the next few months/years. From the number of people nay-saying submerged systems (too expensive, risky, ugly, etc.) it would be great to see one stand the test of time.

Off-topic: Great music for the video! I can almost picture Christopher Walken flying around in that tub of mineral oil.

[PCC-Jon]

My only question is where did the optical drive go on the second machine? I see a CD or DVD drive sitting on top of the tank for the first machine but none visible for the second.

Last question: does the mineral oil eat away at the rubber on any of the capacitors and such? I thought that was one of the main cons about submerged systems, but this looks too cool to pass up. Thanks for showcasing such an awesome idea and any answers to these questions you can provide!

Hello singularity!

All the drives in this unit are external. The hard drive is ESATA, and the optical drive is USB2.0. This is necessary, as their moving parts would not function under oil. However, we're going to try dipping an old hard drive, and will let you know what happens!

We have not seen a problem with capacitors or wicking oil into small spaces where it can't be cooled, but we will be posting a follow up in about a month that will cover our observations with long term use.

[MaxMercury]

Wow, I'm speechless. Not only is the aquarium rig really cool, but your video of how you built it is really fun to watch. Fantastic, imaginative work! :thumbsup

-- Max

[PCC-Jon]

Special thanks to Digg.com for some amazing traffic starting last night when we made homgepage. The gap in the graph is because our server load was so high we had to turn off tracking for an hour or so just to keep our server alive :thumbsup

[stips]

Two days ago a friend tossed me the link to your mineral oil submerged system, amazing! I'd never even heard of oil submerging computers, period heh so this has been quite a learning experience.

Afew thoughts, what if the bubbler were moved directly under the processor? Maybe two of them, a second bubbler directly under where the sound and graphics cards would be. Wouldn't that cool those areas even more plus address the concern an above poster had about the oil not circulating in the small areas of the board?

My friend and I were having abit of fun last night talking about this oil rig of yours, imagining putting it in a second larger fish tank and having the larger tank full of water and fish :-)

Thanks again for the amount of detail you put into the writeup and also the video, please keep us updated as I have an alienware tower next to me with heating issues that could use a dip :D

[tred]

I am looking to perhaps make a rig submerged in mineral oil and i was lookin at the website you got the oil from. what viscocity did you use for this?

[PCC-Jon]

The lightest we could find, but horse laxitives don't have too many choices :)

[Grogfantastic]

Fantastic idea! I think i will do the same with my alienware comp... its starting to run too hot.

I do have some questions, my hardware savvy is about three years out of date.

1. If you have two hard drives working as one, is there any sort of exterior casing you can use?
If not, will it work submerged?

2. Can you describe how you had the hard drive set up to run? everything else makes sense to me but that.

3. If i have a wireless card, how am i going to set up the antenna? inside the oil?

[PCC- Builder Dan]

You really should keep hard drives out of the oil. The oil seeps into them, and that ruins them.

The hard drive in the oil PC is in an external USB enclosure. It's rather like a gigantic USB memory stick, with the operating system installed on it. Seeing as you're running a more complicated setup (and probably want to keep your data intact), it would probably be easier for you to run the hard drive cables out the top of the tank, and plug straight into the hard drives there.

3rd, sealing off the back of a PC is all but impossible. We set ours up so the back of the motherboard and cards (where everything plugs in) was just above the surface of the oil, with everything extending down into the oil. That way, all the plugs were dry, and easy to plug things into.

[Gorle]

As you know, normal cases have a power switch on them to turn the computer on. What did you do for your switch? Also, If you wanted to change some of your hardware around (change CPU, GPU, ect.) would you just pull the motherboard out and put it in?

thanks.

great idea by the way.

[binouz24]

this was a great idea,
im going to do this during the summer with a friend
just wondering (so we can start saving up),
how much money did you spend on the powerful computer(2nd one)?
not including the monitor and keyboard, but only with everything else inside and outside the aquarium.

thanks a lot,
binouz

[Viacrucis]

Awesome happy to see the PSCC being hardkore :showoff

I'm going to spread this video around for you guys :type

[stips]

Over on the comments section for youtube there is a poster who said this :

"Mineral oil will degrade the rubber seal on any of the capacitors that are not of a solid-state type and they will eventually come loose from their leads. So unless you specifically buy a motherboard with solid state capacitors on it or replace all of the non-solid state ones your hardware will eventually fall apart."

Any truth to this? I also found this for anyone curious about the long term usage of this oil rig :

http://youtube.com/watch?v=FNLtrDTTFaE

5 Months and going strong. I'm just concerned about that degrade the rubber seal thing.

[kitizz]

Simply beautiful. A lot of people, including myself, seem to be considering doing this with a mate during the upcoming holidays.
I'm in Australia, myself, and it has been more difficult to get hold of the required equipment, but I've managed to score an old free pc from my school. No vets sold mineral oil in the quantities that I needed, but I found an Aussie site (lubrimaxx.com) that sold it for AU$92 since STEoil does not ship to Australia, plus i think I've found a decent tank for around AU$40. Cheap as! :D

Just one or two questions though; When you talked about sealing up the CPU, was that to do with what 'neodeltai' was talking about, with the hot-spots or something else?
Also, I notice that you have quite a large fan on the final spec computer, was/is that necassary or is it ok to use a smaller fan? (My own pc has a P4 3Ghz)

Thank-you, Kitizz

P.S. I also forgot to ask; what search term should I use to find a motherboard tray like the lian-li? I've tried almost anything under the sun and can't find anything in Australia, lol, but yeah. Thanks

[washu9]

Several things I'd like to point out here (I haven't tried any of this myself so please excuse my ignorance and correct me as you see fit :) ):

1. About the choice of oil media. I seem to recall mineral oil having a detrimental effect on rubber sealant over time. Wouldn't non-solid capacitors (in most non-highend motherboard) be messed up?

If you consider this, then even if you get an ALL-solid-capacitor motherboard, wouldn't there be some left in the PSU (Power Supply Unit) and/or the video card as well?

Some people recommend the use of silicone oil instead to solve this problem.


2. I wouldn't recommend people submerging Hard Disks into oil. For one thing, it will spin A LOT slower than it should. Even if it doesn't break the mini-motor, that will undoubtedly make a major dent in performance.


3. This one goes without saying to most people. Don't forget to clean all components you're going to submerge. Those dirt will become a rather unsightly goo in a short while.

Same thing in regards to blowing air bubbles. If you're in a relatively dirty environment, don't bother doing it. The oil would filter the air being passed through it (the bubbles).

If you're considering that the use of air bubbles would make the oil cooler, don't bother.
The oil is taking FAR more heat off the computer components than equivalent volume of air would. Considering that, you'd need to blow so much bubbles that you'd make waves on the oil surface to get anywhere near the temp you're thinking of.

Using a radiator like Zalman's Resarator unit may be a far better choice to get some of that heat off your oil (not to mention more expensive). You may want to add/replace the pump though.


4. For people who didn't notice, they're still using heat sinks and fans (that's why they would turn on the computer before they actually put in the oil in the water tank) That's how they make sure that the oil keep moving and cooling critical parts.

Yes, it should be fine to use fans in oil. I'd imagine it'd rise the electrical load requirement, but it should be ok.


5. Putting some sealant on the bottom of the processor would be recommended. The close proximity of those pins might cause a short circuit.

[PCC- Builder Dan]

If you're considering that the use of air bubbles would make the oil cooler, don't bother.
The oil is taking FAR more heat off the computer components than equivalent volume of air would. Considering that, you'd need to blow so much bubbles that you'd make waves on the oil surface to get anywhere near the temp you're thinking of.


Actually... the bubbler lowered system temps by five degrees C, IIRC. When the oil was at 90 degrees C or so, bubbling 22-ish degree C air through it did cool it off a bit. The oil does soak up all the heat from the components, true, but then where does it go? The plexiglass fishtank is a great insulator. The top is all but sealed off, so the oil can't evaporate and wick away heat that way. All it can do is get hotter, and hotter, and hotter, until enough heat gets through the plexi that the temperature balances out. Pumping very cold bubbles of air through the oil gives the oil another place to store the heat: In the air. Unlike the oil, the now hot bubbles of air can rise to the surface, burst, and work their way out the top of the tank.

In short, bubble cooling the oil does work. A little bit. If we really wanted to keep temps down, we'd have dropped a pump into the tank, and pumped oil through a radiator on the outside, with fans.

[lovespuds1]

The reason that the bubbling of air through the mineral oil is lowering the temperature of the mineral oil is two fold.

1) Heat escapes through the surface of the water because it is the only non insulated surface. The bubbles circulate the oil in the tank so that the oil is transported past the hot components picking up the heat and moving it to the surface where it can escape. (the tank can't be fully sealed or the air would burst the tank if it could not escape, so warm air must be escaping)

2) When transferring heat between interfaces surface area makes a big difference, that’s why heat sinks have all those fins. With no air going in the tank the surface of the oil in the tank stays still. By passing air through the tank the surface of the oil is disturbed and moved this greatly increases its surface area therefore allowing more heat to escape. I know this because the same is true of fish tanks it's a common misconception that bubbling air through a fish tank gives fish oxygen (this actually adds very little oxygen) it's actually the disturbance of the surface that gives the fish more oxygen due to increased surface area at the top of the water.

So why did the graphics card temp rise?. My guess is that the air was actually being sucked into the graphics card cooler. The oil is actually a better conductor of heat than the air is so by sucking air through it you’re actually reducing the oil contact with the graphics cooler and insulting it. This could be tested in two ways move the bubbles away from the graphics card or use an air stone that produces larger size bubbles and move it slightly away from the card. The bigger bubbles will make it go up faster and hopefully keep them away from the graphics card. I know this because of studying physical chemistry (which was painful!) from an effect known as nucleate boiling.

How can you cool the tank more and make this a better long term pc?

Circulating the oil through an external radiator is one way but I doubt it would bring temps down a huge amount as it's to slow. A more efficient way would be to put a large flat shaped radiator behind the motherboard in the tank. Then pass water through the radiator, the water then passes out of the tank to a radiator outside the tank. Why is this more efficient than simply passing the oil through an external radiator?. Simple, water conducts heat much better than oil does and also the water is not as viscous as the oil so will circulate through the radiators much faster than the oil would. This allows it to transfer heat away faster. Inside the tank the air bubbles will circulate the heat and oil passed the radiator. I know this adds more expense. :)

Also using a more heat conducting top rather than acrylic such as glass would help. Although I know this was not used here because it is difficult to cut to shape. Also make sure cool lighting like leds are used so they dont add heat to the system.

Things to note:

--The air bubbling also increases evapouration of the lower molecular weight factions of the mineral oil.

--Keeping the oil cooler by using the radiator solution will reduce evaporation effects (higher the temperature the higher the evaporation)

The only way to see if the oil corrodes any rubber components is simply to watch this pc for a couple of months regular use.


What do you think?

[FinalStar]

Were either of the computers used as a normal computer before you put them in there? or were they all brand new?

My experience with liquid cooling (even with liquids that say they are none conductive) is if you take a board thats even a little dirty with dust or whatnot, when you start splashing it with stuff, it shorts it out.

Did you have to clean off anything?

[PCC-Jon]

Were either of the computers used as a normal computer before you put them in there? or were they all brand new?

Did you have to clean off anything?

The old hardware was in use for years and was not cleaned (well, we blew the dust off at least!). The new hardware was used for about two weeks, and was also not cleaned.

[washu9]

Just a few tidbits I'd like to add to this discussion.

To: PCC- Builder Dan,
Sorry about the comment on the air bubbles being ineffective. I was thinking of my own area climate. The Environment here can get rather hot during summers (up to 40-43 deg C).

Furthermore, there's usually a buildup of very fine fibers on my desk just in a week time. So in my case, the concern about dirt going into the system through the air pumped through is quite valid.

This is why I think it'd be very ineffective.


To: lovespuds1
Several things I'd like to add to his analysis here.

1) In regards to the graphic card, you'll get much bettter temp if you just open the upper lid of the video card heat sink (this is usually possible as most video card maker just use a thin aluminum/tin plate).

All current video card takes air from inside the case, blow it through the fins of the heat sink, through to grille on the slot, and outside the case. Since we got the video card standing vertically on this setup, and the fact that the fan would definitely be unable to move the oil past the oil level; at the very least, you need the oil level to be above the exit grille of the video card (which means putting the DVI connector in oil).

I'd advice removing the cover on the heat sink either way.


2) Since you're considering putting water into the cooling system, I have a more radical idea here.

What if we put both medium in the tank without a radiator (like you said). Oil and water don't mix, and the difference in mass would make water to stay on the bottom of the tank.

You can enhance the heat transfer further by adding fins in the transitional area between oil and water.

Here's the lowdown on my idea. (yes it requires all connector to the motherboard/video card to be submerged along with the system)

___ max oil level


___ motherboard position





___ end motherboard position
___ start fin

oil
___ transitional area ___


water

___ end fin (bottom tank)



Notes:
The width of the fin should cover the whole width of the tank - I'm just thinking a failsafe feature here so that in the event that the motherboard slip down, the fins would prevent it from going to the water side.

Furthermore, the fin should have holes all over it to promote circulation

The height of the water area should at least cover whatever pump you're using.

A pump in the water area will exchange water to an external cooling unit (like a radiator, or a TEC based aquarium cooling unit).

And before anyone ask, no, I don't think you can put any real fish in the water. there'd be barely any oxygen there since its surface is covered in oil. It's one of the reasons offshore oil spills are so deadly to marine animals.

It's a good idea to use a high head pump just in case the water evaporated to the point that oil will go into the pump and on to the radiator. In which case you'd just need to add water to regain normal temp. With this note, I'd also recommend having a tube going on the side of the tank to channel water directly to the bottom part of the tank as I'm quite certain you don't want to get any water going rouge on your precious motherboard/video card.

This is another reason I put the max oil level a length above the motherboard.


CONCERN:
My concern with this setup would be the escaping water vapor.
When the oil heats up the water enough, it will start to evaporate, making tiny bubbles.
These bubbles can be trapped in the system (got stuck on a video card or something) and return to water form after temp goes down enough; and with minor agitation, return to the bottom of the tank.

Now, this is "distilled water" we're talking here, so theoretically it shouldn't be a problem.
What do you think?

[kitizz]

Thanks washu! I'm fairly right with everything except sealing of the CPU, this is relatively new to me, and I've been reading numerous tutorials and I have a rough idea of how it works. But I would feel more confident if I could see a video of this being done. My attempts to find a video of it have currently failed, but while I still look, does anybody else know of any good tutorials or (even better) videos.

Thanks guys, Kitizz

Also, to add onto the water idea; with fans and what-not in the setup, you'd have to be careful that they don't stir up the water into the system, but it's a cool idea :cool:

[washu9]

Well that's yet another reason I wanted fins covering the transitional area between the oil and water. It will act as a buffer zone making extra sure that any agitation would not break the surface tension of the water/oil.

In theory, you can shake things up rather harshly and it still would not break surface tension as the force of the waves are buffeted by the fins.

If there's any water going rouge and floating about in the oil, then that means you haven't got enough fins.

Also, if you wanted to be extra sure, just place any fans in the system to face horizontally. I don't believe it to be necessary.

I don't know anyone who's tried this particular oil/water combination yet.
It just came up to me while reading lovespuds1's idea about putting a radiator in.

I believe there's a few video in youtube covering several oil PCs.
Several of them are using mineral oil, while others are using plain cooking oil.
I think there's 1 or 2 video covering some mishap that happened in an oil based setup.

[afie]

Hello people!

I've got a couple of questions to ask (Yes, really!)

First, and mainly, would high-end synthetic motor oil work just as fine? I've got relatively easy (and free) access to low viscosity synthetic motor oil. Would it have the same degrading effect on rubber items? I figure it should be lower, but I'm not an expert in these areas. I know there's no conclusive answer as to what the long term effects of sumbersion causes, but someone might have a clue?

And secondly, what does "Weather Stripping" actually mean? English isn't my first language, so I kind of got stuck on that one ^^

Anyway, it's a great project and I really hope it works out over a longer period of time.
Keep up the good work!

[andics]

Just wondering, would putting in a passive cooler on the video card help? With the bigger surface a passive cooler have, it might have a better transfer of the heat from the vieo card to the oil.

[unholycrap]

I am very curious to see a report on the long term effects (several months) the oil has on a system like this running consistently.

One concern I have is about the lifetime of the submerged fans. Obviously, they are forced to move slower in the oil. Will this cause the motors to struggle and produce heat? Will their lifetime be shortened?

[PCC- Builder Dan]

Hello people!

I've got a couple of questions to ask (Yes, really!)

First, and mainly, would high-end synthetic motor oil work just as fine? I've got relatively easy (and free) access to low viscosity synthetic motor oil. Would it have the same degrading effect on rubber items? I figure it should be lower, but I'm not an expert in these areas. I know there's no conclusive answer as to what the long term effects of sumbersion causes, but someone might have a clue?
Motor oil should work just fine, we used the oil we did specifically because it's clear. Oil-cooled PCs have been made with vegetable oils, which have way more junk in them than motor oil.



And secondly, what does "Weather Stripping" actually mean? English isn't my first language, so I kind of got stuck on that one ^^
Weather stripping is foam, usually in long rectangular rods, used to seal around the edges of windows and doors. It makes the door (or window) wind-proof when the door is closed, so you don't get drafts coming in around the edges of the door. It's called "weather stripping" because it comes in strips, and is used to keep weather outside.

[Terial]

(New to this stuff)

Okay, so i had a question about cooling, there is something i currently use on my desk which i use to keep my drinks cool while i am on my computer. A USB beverage chiller, as seen in the image here...
http://i9.tinypic.com/61yb87l.jpg
Its "cold-plate" temp is about 45 degress Fahrenheit.
What do you think about using it to cool a mineral oil computer?
I think if you drop a few of these in the tank, it should technically reduce the oil temp dramatically.
It has an intake fan on the far side which can be kept outside the oil to pull in new air which will cool the "cold-plate"

Thoughts?

-Terial

[Smirnof]

1. Your little usb drinkplates won't work inside the oil. The device has to have a way to exchange heat, and if you put it in the oil it will make the surface of the plate cold and simply disipate heat into the oil from the other side (if it doesn't use a fan to do that job).

Now if you attached your drink cooler (or 4) to the bottom of the case in such a way as they made good contact that might do a nice job of it, or perhaps attached the 1 or 4 drinkcoolers to a nice big heatsinc and cut a whole in the bottom of the case and siliconed the crap outta it so the fins went up in the oil, that might do nicely. But i think you would get more effeciency (i can't spell) Hooking up a radiator. If you do that tell us how it works. Actually given that heat rises you might just attach the heatsincs to them and put them through the side or in the lid so they dip down into the oil (less sealing and less messy that way too).


2. Now my turn. I'm from a family of auto mechanics so this is where my idea comes from. the cooling system in a car uses coolant and needs to be replaced because heat breaks it down. My dad (mechanic for 30 years) theorizes that is like a 10 year + lifespan as far as a computers is concerned. Now the components inside your engine collect grime and crap by a process called electrolisys, which develops based on the electroconductive properties of the coolant. He tells me that some of the best stuff is toyota coolant because every coolant job he has done with that in it leave the parts very clean. (i haven't taken my voltmeter to the coolant yet because this idea came about over the weekend and i haven't had any chances to test the coolants electroconductive properties), but i was wondering if anyone else has played around with any kind of automotive coolants. Its my next project to try but i don't really have time right now.

Thats my idea tho, replace oil with some toyota antifreeze. I just figure maybe one of you will be able to do it before i do and post on it. Make sure the coolant isn't premixed with water.


3. Also, the post about the water and oil half and half idea, for 1, heat rises meaning your fins going into the water will not be very efficient and 2, i would hate for someone to kick my pc accidently and get a wave of water somewhere it shouldn't be... and 3... too complicated.


4. Has anyone played around with the idea of using silicon oil (expensive but won't eat away at rubber parts, and is the main ingredient of silicon grease... you know... that stuff they use to transfer heat from the cpu to the heatsinc...)??


Whatever design i find to work for me, my finished product will contian a pump and a heater core (like a radiator but very efficient, for the cars heater) cause i can get a new one from carquest for 23 bucks (wholesale), and a small fan. I just imagine that if the toyota coolant would work (meaning dielectric) it would do an excellent job being very thin and designed to move heat around.... just make sure not to get the premixed with water stuff.

I also was playing with the idea of using a fuel pump to move the coolant through the radiator... that would move some coolant around.... or maybe a windsheild washer pump... but ill probably just use a fish pump or a standard one for this perticurlar application.

lemme know what you think...

[Smirnof]

Almost forgot... Synthetic oil will still eat away at the rubber components... and won't give an advantage over cheaper mineral oil because it probably won't need to be changed for 50 years. However, given that you have access to it try it on some old hardware and let us know.

[kitizz]

yeah, I think it's worth a go if you have nothing to lose.
After doing some research about sealing up a CPU, did you guys use any bits of "foam" to cut off the CPU from the oil, or did you just put a bit of sealant around the base of the CPU socket?

Also, I'm still having trouble finding a Lian-Li motherboard tray anywhere other than that site, let along Australia.

Cheers, kitizz

[MattZani]

Hi, i joined because im really interested in doing this to an old noisy PC, and came up with a way to reduce the heat of the oil, and wanted to know if it would work.

http://www.slotforum.com/forums/uploads/1178822712/med_gallery_3666_478_22938.jpg

it would need just the cooling pump from a water cooling kit, and a big sheet of copper, and basic solder/welding/glueing skills to produce. the enclosure uptop is to keep the DVD and HDD in the case, but out of oil.

this is what i'll do to my old PC if you think it will work, but i'll make a custom perspex case, rather than using a fishtank.

[kitizz]

Wow, i reckon it'd look very nice... but it seems a bit over tidious and complicated and somewhat impractical. But... how cool would it be to have oil and water in your pc, lol, so don't let me stop you! :D
I think I'm gonna keep mine relatively down-to-earth, with oil, a fan, passive coolers and if required radiator.:cool:

[washu9]

2. Now my turn. I'm from a family of auto mechanics so this is where my idea comes from. the cooling system in a car uses coolant and needs to be replaced because heat breaks it down. My dad (mechanic for 30 years) theorizes that is like a 10 year + lifespan as far as a computers is concerned. Now the components inside your engine collect grime and crap by a process called electrolisys, which develops based on the electroconductive properties of the coolant. He tells me that some of the best stuff is toyota coolant because every coolant job he has done with that in it leave the parts very clean. (i haven't taken my voltmeter to the coolant yet because this idea came about over the weekend and i haven't had any chances to test the coolants electroconductive properties), but i was wondering if anyone else has played around with any kind of automotive coolants. Its my next project to try but i don't really have time right now.

Thats my idea tho, replace oil with some toyota antifreeze. I just figure maybe one of you will be able to do it before i do and post on it. Make sure the coolant isn't premixed with water.


3. Also, the post about the water and oil half and half idea, for 1, heat rises meaning your fins going into the water will not be very efficient and 2, i would hate for someone to kick my pc accidently and get a wave of water somewhere it shouldn't be... and 3... too complicated.


:confused: I think you're mistakingly consider oil to act the same as air.

Hot air does indeed tend to rise through the atmosphere.
But oil would not "rise"; it will simply flow to another area (still in the tank) which has lower density (cooler).
The speed in which this is done depends on the viscosity of the oil.

The same can be said about air. The very reason that air raises is that the air density in upper atmosphere is lower.

This site explains is better than I do: http://www.sciencetheatre.org/ask_st/042496.html


I must admit the details of my design is rather complicated. But I need to stress that several of the things I added in the design are failsafe features.
I didn't say it's a simple idea.... hehehe


By the way, most people would not want their computer getting kicked around in the first place. It is not even a minor concern unless you're moving your computer around often. In which case you would not want to use any oil submersion in the first place. VERY messy to clean up, ask Greenpeace if you don't believe me ;)




4. Has anyone played around with the idea of using silicon oil (expensive but won't eat away at rubber parts, and is the main ingredient of silicon grease... you know... that stuff they use to transfer heat from the cpu to the heatsinc...)??


Whatever design i find to work for me, my finished product will contian a pump and a heater core (like a radiator but very efficient, for the cars heater) cause i can get a new one from carquest for 23 bucks (wholesale), and a small fan. I just imagine that if the toyota coolant would work (meaning dielectric) it would do an excellent job being very thin and designed to move heat around.... just make sure not to get the premixed with water stuff.


I don't think it's such a good idea...
Some people have fiddled with this idea before.
Too much risk involved.

Yes radiator coolant are mostly dielectric. But unlike oil, they do not keep that dielectric property when they degrade.

2 Things will happen when the coolant degrade:

- There'll be short circuit all over the place.

- Electrolysis happens when 2 or more metals are in the same conductive liquid. When that happens it will eat away all metals (some faster than others). 2 different metals is all it takes. Imagine what happens with all the different metals in a motherboard construction. Not to mention the material of the heat sink and everything else you put in there.

You'd have to get a REALLY long lasting radiator coolant.
AND you'd have a hard time knowing when you'd need to change the coolant (before it's too late)

...unless, ... there is that alarm device commonly used in the reservoir of a PC water cooling system. It alerts the user when water don't touch the sensor. You can reverse the function to actually give out an alarm when the liquid starts conducting.

You can add another contactor to immediately shut off the main electrical line so you won't get short circuit in the motherboard.


To: MattZani

Your design is just a modification of my idea so I can immediately suggest improvements to it.:D

Please note that I design for long term use. I consider ease of maintenance to be more important than the initial effort required to build the system.

Let's see, I can foresee 3 problems with it for long term use.

1) Water evaporates, even in a sealed container.
Once it does that, at one point it will not touch any of the copper heat sink fins.

You might want to consider extending the heat sink fins to the bottom of the tank. Just punch some holes in em like a beehive to keep the water circulating.

2) You need a fill-bleed system outside your tank to be able to fill/drain the water. (I think you've already thought of this one so I'm just pointing out the obvious here just to make sure we're on the same page)

You have the pump outside just in case it fails and you need to replace it. Good point.

3) You'd have NO WAY to clean the water container manually (scrub the insides). This is the only real objection I got with your design.

I've got some experience with water cooling on PCs. You need to consider the possibility that there'll be some bacterial/fungi growth in there. More so if you're exposing the water to sunlight/UV.

4) I think you've read my previous post. I'm just reiterating this one to make extra sure you remmember. DVD/CD/HD drives MUST NOT be submerged in the oil.

[MattZani]

I see your point Washu, but this was a quick concept i thought of in 5 mins, there's always improvement.

Answers:

1) A top up via the pump is simple enough, but fins to the bottom will be added.
2) Basically the same as 1, the pump/cooling place can be filled up, its just a reservior from a water cooling kit.
3)the way to clean the water would be to disconnect the tube going into the case, and let it drain, then re-fill, maybe every 3 or 4 months? im not sure how you would clean the actual part in the case, there must be a tablet of some sort.
4)I know, the white is air, so thats a custom plexi shelf containment, that lets the Drive come out from the front, and look like its in oil, but its not.

I think with a few brainstorms, we could have an oil/water cooled PC, that may be able to stay at around 50oC if were lucky!

Trial and Improvement as always!

I typed this on the PC im hoping to do this too, man is it LOUD! and slow.....

[Smirnof]

Won't work anyways... i just came back from the shop and my ohm meter tells me that the toyota antifreeze isn't dielectric enough, or anything else we tried... If it would have worked you would still be talking about a 10 year + coolant change life... given that the envirnoment you subject tthe coolant to in a pc is much less harsh than that of an car... That and i imagine i will start having stability problems when its time to change the coolant... but alas its too conductive.

You ever get into a lake and the water is nice and warm and then you float out to deep water and swim down... and the water gets cooler... Heat rises. at least for water and air anyways... Im not sure how much it would effect anything given the design is quite small to begin with, and leaving 1 fan in the case (despite the friction) should be plenty to keep the oil temp constant.

And what did you mean by too much to lose with the silicon oil idea.. just because silicon oil is expensive or what... cause from my understanding its dielectric and shouldnt do any more harm than mineral oil... in fact it should do less in that it doesn't eat away at the rubberized components.

I also picture your water growing algea in the bottom of your pc... dunno how well thats gonna be, but if your going to go through that much effort you should put some fish in the water for fun... make sure you leave a space to feed them ;)

Now if you took a radiator of some sort and ran some water throught it (radiator submersed into the oil) and used it as a heat exchanger and used another one outside with a fan on it you might have an efficient design, but i see just running the oil through a radiator (or in my case a heater core) to be simpler and more effective.

Another idea i was tinkering around with... how difficult would it be to say... i dunno.. spraypaint the components on your board... submers it in thompsons waterseal or something like that... then you could use whatever you want... the big downside is you would have to have everything plugged in and seal up around your ram and your videocard and your empty pci slots and your ide/sata cable and your power cable... and man that sounds like a pain in the ass. Just a thought for any more adventurious modders out there.

[Smirnof]

I was looking at this stuff but i don't know how much it costs (its probably a metric shitton of cash)... just throwin more ideas out there.

http://www.dsifluids.com/OptiCool%20Fluid%20Page.htm

[washu9]

Won't work anyways... i just came back from the shop and my ohm meter tells me that the toyota antifreeze isn't dielectric enough, or anything else we tried... If it would have worked you would still be talking about a 10 year + coolant change life... given that the envirnoment you subject tthe coolant to in a pc is much less harsh than that of an car... That and i imagine i will start having stability problems when its time to change the coolant... but alas its too conductive.

You ever get into a lake and the water is nice and warm and then you float out to deep water and swim down... and the water gets cooler... Heat rises. at least for water and air anyways... Im not sure how much it would effect anything given the design is quite small to begin with, and leaving 1 fan in the case (despite the friction) should be plenty to keep the oil temp constant.

And what did you mean by too much to lose with the silicon oil idea.. just because silicon oil is expensive or what... cause from my understanding its dielectric and shouldnt do any more harm than mineral oil... in fact it should do less in that it doesn't eat away at the rubberized components.

I also picture your water growing algea in the bottom of your pc... dunno how well thats gonna be, but if your going to go through that much effort you should put some fish in the water for fun... make sure you leave a space to feed them ;)

Now if you took a radiator of some sort and ran some water throught it (radiator submersed into the oil) and used it as a heat exchanger and used another one outside with a fan on it you might have an efficient design, but i see just running the oil through a radiator (or in my case a heater core) to be simpler and more effective.

Another idea i was tinkering around with... how difficult would it be to say... i dunno.. spraypaint the components on your board... submers it in thompsons waterseal or something like that... then you could use whatever you want... the big downside is you would have to have everything plugged in and seal up around your ram and your videocard and your empty pci slots and your ide/sata cable and your power cable... and man that sounds like a pain in the ass. Just a thought for any more adventurious modders out there.

Ok, first of all let me apologize about the confusion with the silicon oil idea.
The quote was not meant to be placed there at all. the comments was meant for your radiator coolant idea. Not for the use of silicon oil.

Actually, I quite agree with you on the silicon oil as a better medium.



In regards to your deeper water being colder, it is true, BUT the cause of it being colder is not simply because heat rises.

1) Shallow water means that the sun rays is heating up less water in a square meter of lake, thus it gets warmer faster.

If you also consider the clarity of the water, you can also account that some IR radiation left after the sunlight hit the bottom of the lake gets reflected back up thus heating the water some more.

2) Do you know that deeper water have higher pressure? One of the very reason that submarines have a depth limit on their structural integrity. This is caused by gravity. The closer you are to the center of the earth the more gravity with exert it's force. The same can be said about air.

Ok, now, remembering the facts I just mentioned, and the other fact gained from http://www.sciencetheatre.org/ask_st/042496.html, it can be concluded that

YES energized matter (hot stuff) does tend to rise for all liquid (or any other material with variable density throughout it's body) provided that gravity it being exerted upon it.

BUT heat itself doesn't rise through a medium. Try it this way, if you have a block of SOLID (non-variable density material) copper and you put a heater on 1 side, would the upper part of the copper get hotter faster than the bottom part (imagine the block of copper to be suspended in mid air to remove the possibility that the heat that reach the bottom part may be transfered to any material you're putting the copper on)?

So... you're quite correct in thinking that the oil on the bottom would be cooler, but since we're tanking a difference of less than quarter a gravity, the temp difference would be very small.
Even more so it there's 1-2 agitators in the oil; which both you and I agree would be good to have in any case.

If you want to account for heat being more commonly place itself up, then I have a suggestion for MattZani there.

Since you're sealing the water reservoir already, why don't you put the position in reverse?
The water reservoir on top and the oil filled container on the bottom part.
You'd just need to redesign the fins going through the oil part to avoid any components and extend it even more downwards.
The fins with touch the coldest water and hottest oil.

One major advantage of this design is that the water part can be removed to easy cleaning (since the top doesn't need to be sealed) and you can also clean the bottom (oil filled) part as well. The pump can also be put inside the reservoir since it's no longer sealed.

Another improvement to this would be to put heat pipes replacing the fins. We couldn't do this before with the water being below, but if it's above, it can be done. Expecting 50 deg average load temp is not a far fetch anymore.

We're going on MODULAR DESIGN on this one, that's soo cool.

Just a major concern on this new design though. If it leaks... the water WILL go through your oil filled container, and it will be A LOT more than tiny bubbles of water vapor that I was concerned about in my own design.

In my design if it leaks, it just create a mess... ok a BIG mess, but your computer would still be ok (since I'm still having the heatsinks and fans). If you have water with impurities touching components, it'll create short circuits.

You can always place the reservoir on the side instead of directly above the tank. It'll be far more complex though. Otherwise you can just make extra sure not to have any leak in the first place.

OR, you can have a second (empty) rather small room just below the water reservoir channeling any water droplets to the side of the case. You can design it like the water collection design in a rice cooker.

[Smirnof]

Me personally, im just gonna pump the oil through a radiator. I think that will be the most efficient way of cooling the system down... and its much simpler.

Another thing im tempted to try is using a whole transmission cooler (which should be about the size of the side of the case... smaller actually...) and then see if i can't get it to be passivly cooled... That would be one quite machine until i ran the antivirus scan :). One of these days i would like to get one of those expensive solid state hard drives... but for now i havta deal with my budget.

Im just trying to think of the next badass mod...

Also i think you could get the amount of liquit and the containter for your mainboard pretty small if you built it right... and i was tinkering with the idea of removing the power supply from its case and taking all the heatsincs off of them... it should be pretty small at that point, and you could fit a great deal of your computer into a space as big as 9x12x5 1inches, and that would give me about 2.33 us gallons... which while it won't keep the pc very cool for very long without a radiator, all my designs are going to incorporate one into them. Im tempted to do like a triangle design... or a 4 sided something like...
_____
| : : : \
| : : : c\


Where the outline is my plexiglass, the colons represent pci and video cards and the c is where the cpu would be... only on a shallower drop... whatever is necessary to go from the video card (high point) to the edge of the pc (Low Point). Just to make it smaller and use less fluid.

And then something like:
______
| : : : p|
| : : : c|

Where the p would represent a taken apart psu and inverted and mounted to the top of the plexiglass upside down... the biggest downside being that you would have to build and seal your container around your board making it very difficult to repair or upgrade. anyways im done ranting lemme know what yall think.

[Smirnof]

Oh ya... and that page... while i understand everything on it and it is accurate, looks to have been written by a 5th grader ;)

[kitizz]

lol... let's not get off topic now XD
this is about submersed PCs, science debates are for other forums.
Anyway, with regards to the power supply; I don't really want to put that under aswell, I'd liek to keep it up out of the water, but I'm having trouble trying to think of a practical way to do it and still have the overall thing lookign good. It makes it more dificult due to the mess of power cords you need to get into the tank from the supply.
Ideas welcome.
Cheers.

[washu9]

Oh ya... and that page... while i understand everything on it and it is accurate, looks to have been written by a 5th grader ;)

Hahaha, it's written FOR 5th grader. Once in a while, there's always kids who ask these sort of questions and made the teachers wish the end-of-period bell rang a bit sooner. :D

Ah, not that I consider you to be a fifth grader of course. I just think it's simple and to the point.


Hmm, now you're thinking of making a micro ATX form PC.
I don't think that form factor can fit any of the high-end video card.
They're huge.

I never tried building a micro ATX before so I couldn't give you any input on the position and stuff, but your concern about having a sealed container is quite valid. Even if the motherboard is not broken, you'd need to damage your setup just to add more drives.

[MattZani]

if a water cooling pump could pump the oil, then that would be great, or if there was a similar low cost low noise pump.

on another forum discussing this, someone had the idea to make the whole curved front section, and the side thats the front sealed off, and used for fish, then it would appear that fish are swimming around your PC. that could also be a way to keep the oil cool, because the water would need to be warmed for the fish, and the heat would transfer into the water, THUS cooling the oil, and having fish in one tank. it would be soo much easier, and give you fish, and might off set some of the cost (by saying its a fish tank) or let you have a slightly bigger tank.

http://www.slotforum.com/forums/uploads/1178822712/med_gallery_3666_478_23420.jpg

NOW IN 3D!!!!!

all the panels are acrylic plexi glass, Except the outer shell, which is the fish tank.

[PCC-James]

Hi MattZani,

Nice work on your oil cool pc #2 with fish plan. Only one problem. While the temperature of the oil is fine in PC terms, the amount of heat that would be transferred to the water would be deadly in fish terms.

[MattZani]

damn, i thought it would be about 30 deg? im only going to put an old P4 and ATI Rage GPU in there, not a brand new 8600! :cool:

[washu9]

Hi MattZani,

Nice work on your oil cool pc #2 with fish plan. Only one problem. While the temperature of the oil is fine in PC terms, the amount of heat that would be transferred to the water would be deadly in fish terms.

I concur with the assessment. Unless you have some way to effectively remove heat out of the water you'd end up with dead fish.

Also to note, underwater plant-life is more susceptible to environmental changes. I doubt you can keep one for long in these.

Another thing you might want to consider. I got a fish pond. Those fish sometime jump out of the water through the top for no reason. You might want to consider having some type of lock on the lid.

[MattZani]

i have a fish tank, and the fish never jump, you fish jump because of fly's and other insects. If the water was 35 Degrees, and i added a cooler at 30 degrees, this would cover when the PC goes off, with out changing the temperature too much. You're also forgeting a PC's idle temp is about 30 Degree's in England, and a load temp of around 40 Degree's for the old P4.

[Smirnof]

I was refering to a full sized mobo... I don't wanna spend that kinda dough for the power i want to get it in micro... there was someone who put an old hp something or other in like a staples something or other for fliers... it looked to be a little bigger than an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper... but the container was about 4 or so inches... but ya it was probably slow and had built in video... but i can't find the site now to reference it...

Here's an idea for the fish tank... If you had yourself a very efficient radiator that could keep the water in the tank cool despite the added heat, then you could stick a temp switch on the fan for the radiator... that way it would keep your fish in an ideal environment, your pc cold, and you wouldn't have to heat up the fish tank in the winter time... and just hope that the temp sensor for your fans didn't fail... I also imagine algea growing very rapidly on the oil panels (in the water side) because algea likes nice warm places to grow, and the heat coming off that plexi pane would probably do a very good job to encourage algea in mass.... unless you want a natural solution to hiding your mobo... but then you've just defeated the purpose and might as well go get a seperate fish tank... Also a load temp of 40 degrees C (104 F) would probably kill the fish... and it would suck to kill your fish accidentally because you were playing a 5 hour game of supreme commander... especially if you lost :D

kitizz... i personally am doing this for performance and stability... i could give a crap as to how it looks... but one thing you could do is just run the wires around the back of the tank and seal them there where they are less noticeable... or get some fake plastic plants and put them in the oil... Im also going to build my next pc outta 3/4 inch plywood... they have some pretty nice textures and such nowadays... and that way i could make it smaller than a standard midsize case and get it to do everything i want it too... Even stick my own plexiglass side on one of them... thats custom :)

also what other components on a pc are suseptable to breakdown by the oil other than the capacitors?... im thinkin of just putting a bead of silicon on each cap b4 hand and that should increase the life of the project exponentially...

[kitizz]

Hmmmm, you'll have to send some pics when you're done with it! ;)
And i don't particularly want to bore into the side of the tank. I have a few ideas, I'll jsut play aroudn with them, and should be all good.
My mate and I are going to be doing really detailed documentation and stuff, so I'll post that up on a blog somewhere or something for people that had the same questions that I did.
Anyway, yeah, thanx.

[Smirnof]

I keep doing this from the perspective that im going to build my own cube of plexiglass to the exact size im gonna need... i keep forgetting that everyone else is just going to drop theirs into a fish tank... In that case go get a bunch of lego guys and make it so they are all climbing your power wires or something... it sounds to me that unless you put the psu below the oil your gonna see wires. And my ability to document is poor... what i will do is take pictures tho :)

Then you can pretend your reading an instruction manual.... and i can put bad grammer in it like i was a chinese guy making a safetly label... "into the oil you put the supply power" and the like...

My favorite warning lable came off a knife manufactured in china... "Warning: Keep Out of Children"... its a classic.

Could you possily (if you had the room, i don't know if your going verticle or horizontal... but i assume verticle) run the wire behind the mobo and bring them around and over... just a thought if your that worried about them.

[kitizz]

Lol, i wasn't REALLY worried, i just needed something that worked and still looked... for lack of a better word(s), the way is was meant to be...
That's why I love your lego-man idea. Damn, why didn't I think of that. Yup, I think that's my solution. Cheers Smirnoff! :thumbsup

[freeflap]

cool idea.
however, i am concerned that the powersupply, videocard, and cpu fans will eventually die while having to push such a viscous fluid as oil vs. air.

a better solution would be to add a fishtank powerhead such as: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=4596&inm=1&N=2004+22788+2032

this will circulate the oil for better heat distribution and also has a venturi valve to add the bubbles. the valve has a small floss filter to trap dust and dirt before it enters the tank.

i would do this in a glass tank. glass is a poor insulator of heat compared to acrylic and would allow more of the heat to escape.

thx

[FinalStar]

Sorry if that was already said.

I was thinking about using a Transmission Oil Cooler to cool the mineral oil. Its got a pump designed to push around thick oil. you would even couple it with an AC to get a lot of cooling.

[Smirnof]

Ya but ac is loud and noisy... I was gonna take a tranny cooler for my experimental model, and see what it would do. For the real head dissipator, i was gonna use a heater core... and i was gonna split the intakes and put them on the heatsincs for the vid cards and the cpu so it sucks in the oil from the hottest part of the pc and cools it (kinda like how air blows over you cpu except the hose will be there instead of a fan and the fluid would be sucked through the fins and into the radiator). I also think im gonna put most of it together with epoxy... something that will stand up to petrolium oil.

I was speakin with my dad and he was telling me that when he took out pool pump apart for servicing it had a black oil in it that was extremely thin... he thought it was water at first... to keep the motor cool... i was wondering if anyone knew what kind of oil that was, and what its electrical properties are... Ive been through google for hours and i haven't found it yet... but its gotta be there. If its a thin dielectric oil i think it would be better than anything else we have been trying to find for removing heat. Thats my newest thing... and i don't wanna havta find a bunch of pool pumps to get this oil.

[glj12]

Great idea, I was immediately inspired to try my own version of it.

Only difference is that it will remain on 24/7 as a server of mine which runs UT2004 and CS:S.

Here is a link to a somewhat casual tutorial of mine as well as a video: http://www.leetupload.com/tutorials/1337_fleet/

Keep up with the great work Puget!

[Spartan452]

I really want to do this project, but i was wondering if anyone can solve this problem stated in one of the first post

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/LIQUID-SUBMERSION-helpful-learned-facts-ftopict206715.html

[glj12]

Hey guys, I'm going to be building a copycat system using a machine I already have up and running. My only question is where did the optical drive go on the second machine? I see a CD or DVD drive sitting on top of the tank for the first machine but none visible for the second. Also I'm considering making a stand and mounting the hard drive to the platform and submerging that as well. Any reasons (aside from the unwillingness to put up with unplugging the drive numerous times) why this is a good or bad idea? Last question: does the mineral oil eat away at the rubber on any of the capacitors and such? I thought that was one of the main cons about submerged systems, but this looks too cool to pass up. Thanks for showcasing such an awesome idea and any answers to these questions you can provide!

CD and DVD-ROM drives are external, cannot be submerged. Same goes for the hdd because of the air hole that maintains the pressure. That's why its a bad idea to submerge it. :D Someone else did this in October a year or two ago with mineral oil before Puget systems did, and he tried the hdd submerged with no such luck. Just spun up and then nothin'. All because of the hole I was talking about before.

Hope this helps.

[SpinozaQ]

The previous poster is spot on about hard drives. That little hole vents air in and out of the drive to equalize the pressure. Hard drive heads float on air just above the surface of the platter. That's why hard drives won't work above 10,000 ft of pressure, there isn't enough air mass to support the heads. ( note... jets are pressurized to < 10,000 ft so hard drives work fine on them. )

However... Other then that little hole hard drives are completely sealed, air ( and oil ) tight. So you might think that you could just close up the hole and dunk it! Well.. not quite. The hole equalizes the pressure so the hard drive container doesn't flex as the pressure changes. It's a compromise to making the structure of the hard drive much more rigid. ( Rigid, totally sealed hard drives are available, just tough to find, and expensive. ) A cheaper DIY solution is to seal the hole of the drive will a small balloon like bubble before dunking it. The balloon would allow the pressure to equalize, and not allow oil to enter the hole.

I'll test this out with an old drive and let you know how it goes. I'm fairly confident it should work though.

[caelric]

Hmm, interesting about the hard drive pressure thing, except... I have a home built PC in my car, in the trunk; runs to a touch screen in the front, and plays MP3's through my sound system, and does GPS as well as any other thing Win XP can do (wireless internet when a router is in range, etc...) (check out my CarDomain page (http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2253753) for some pictures.) I live in Colorado, at about 6500 feet. I often drive up to the mountains (10k+ feet) and have never had a problem with the HD freezing up due to altitude.

Dave

[glj12]

Very interesting posts by the prior two. I like the Infiniti by the way, quite slick!

As per the hdd issue, I was thinking about for my version of the mineral submersion (which I have already completed after depleting all of the mid west's mineral oil, haha) that maybe I could make a plexi-glass box for the hdd, and put a tube in there, and weave it out of the aquarium. Would this make it work even though its submerged?

Also, when you were talking about a fully enclosed, more expensive drive, were you making reference to the somewhat new sdd's? (Solid State Drive) seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_state_drive

[drunkinbda]

k..i tried to find this but didnt see it. Correct me if im wrong though.

My thought on the whole keepin oil cool thing: What if you ran your typical pc water cooling loop? cpu block on the cpu, water hoses from that running out of the tank to a pump/resevoir/ and radiator?
then the vast majority of the heat would just be gettin pumped straight out of the tank at the source and hopefully not even heat up the oil.
and with some lights and dyes it could look pretty cool too.

[glj12]

k..i tried to find this but didnt see it. Correct me if im wrong though.

My thought on the whole keepin oil cool thing: What if you ran your typical pc water cooling loop? cpu block on the cpu, water hoses from that running out of the tank to a pump/resevoir/ and radiator?
then the vast majority of the heat would just be gettin pumped straight out of the tank at the source and hopefully not even heat up the oil.
and with some lights and dyes it could look pretty cool too.

If you're talking about pumping mineral oil, have fun with that. Its pretty rough to pump around that stuff.

[PCC-Jon]

It depends on the vicsosity. The stuff we have isn't much thicker than water.

[Smirnof]

That has been my thought as well as a couple of other peoples thoughts... but my idea was to use an automotive heater core... and you don't need to pump the oil very fast because the oil absorbs more heat than water, so it will still do an efficient job of moving heat from inside to outside...

One of the other ideas we tinkered with was a heat exchanger... radiator in the oil radiator outside the oil and you pump water through the loop... but i would imagin that that would just be redundant and not as efficient as pumping the oil.

Punch in sealed hard drives on google... they make em in all different sorts and sizes...

Also make sure your balloon isn't made up of rubber... the oil will eat that... and make sure you compensate for the fact that the heavy oil is going to add pressure to it when you submers it (make it a little blown up or something...

I was thinking maybe you could just seal a tube around the hole and then run the tube outside the oil... That seems like a viable solution to me.

[caelric]

The question I do have to ask is thus: while a mineral oil cooled computer is cool for a project, why would you do this for a computer you use every day? I mean, it seems like a lot of work for a potentially unreliable setup that you plan on using on a regular basis. PCC, this is not directed at you, thats obviously a project computer, but for all those who say they are doing it to overclock their daily use systems to extend the life, there really are a lot of better ways to do so that are proven to work....

[Smirnof]

also my major reason for doing this is to keep costs down aka i don't wanna spend 60 bucks on a cpu water block and 90 bucks on 2 videocard waterblocks.

[caelric]

Well, my point is that I think you would end up spending alot more on this project than you would on an inexpensive water cooled setup.

[drunkinbda]

If you're talking about pumping mineral oil, have fun with that. Its pretty rough to pump around that stuff.

no no. i mean runnin water through the tubes like a proper water coolin setup. its supposedly leakproof anyway so i would imagine it would stayin in its tube circuit. and then just submerging the motherboard w/waterblock attached, and hoses(with water runnin in them) coming out of the tank to a radiator.

[Smirnof]

ok drunkinbda, running a normal watercooler system inside an oil system is kinda redundant. You could do it but why? It just adds cost to the system... which brings me to my next point:

caelric, I replied my second post inbetween yours without realising it... but to answer your question:

My planned system will draw oil from above the cpu and 2 video cards (splitter) into a radiator and deposit it onto the ram... and anywhere else i deem necessary. I had priced out watercooling for my system and there is no "cheap" version for me. It will cost me around 540 minimum to cool my system. 2 90 dollar gpu watercoolers, 1 50something dollar cpu water cooler, ram watercooler (for 2 chips) is like 80 something bucks, and various chipset watercoolers (which added quite a few bucks onto it... i don't remember what i wanted exactly... but i knew it was about 540 dollars and so oil cooling will be my alternative.

but smirnof, why do you care about the chipset.

reason, i just got done fixing a friends computer. It was watercooled, and the chipset was cooled by the excess air from the cpu (which wasn't present because of the watercooler). So he had severe instability problems he couldn't track down. I put a fan in the system to blow over the chipset and it solved every problem he had with that machine.

I can cool a computer for anywhere between 20-100 bucks (depending on the quality of oil and parts i wanna use). That is the major reason why i wanna do oilcooling. Its more efficient for the money. It would end up cheaper this way.

[drunkinbda]

redundant..perhaps, if you consider the only reason for doing this as being system cooling in a very cool way.
but how much does a typcial decent case run nowadays? 100-200 bucks. Would it be that foolish to run the water cooling loop as your primary cpu cooling, and to use the tank/oil as one kick ass case which cools the gpu/chipset etc, when all the mats would end up costing $150 give or take? and you wouldnt have to deal with the tank heatin up to 80 or so.

it would end up being more like a typical rig with an atypical case. Perhaps even save money by bein able to make a simpler watercooling loop. $200-300ish for cpu cooling, $150 for "case"... doesnt seem too big a number, perhaps even a lower cost that most hard core enthusiast rigs.

Or do you think this would be use too much work/mess/risk to justify lookin at it as just an awesome case for the comp with some cooling benefits?

[glj12]

As of now, speaking of colling and whatnot, I am making my best attempt at a new way to cool a PC. All I need to do now is get a few computer parts from a friend of mine since the mineral oil server is obviously not going to be touched. :D

I'll let you guys know in maybe a month or less the results of my 'idea.' If it works, I'll crap my pants.

[kkant]

Hi folks. I just noticed this thread and decided to let you know about my mineral oil experience.

I've had a mineral oil computer for about two and a half years now, running more or less continuously for all that time. Yes, it works, and you can do it cheap. Yes it is quiet, but there *are* some cons, which I will get to. :) Here are some things to keep in mind:

- I am using a large plastic container, a storage container. You can get these for much cheaper than glass aquariums. You can find these at Target or Home Depot or even the grocery store. I got mine at the grocery store, actially. It is 45 quart container.

- You need a lot of mineral oil to submerge everything. I used about 8-9 gallons. Additionally, you want to get as thin an oil as possible to enhance circulation (more on that below). A good source for thin, cheap bulk mineral oil is www.steoil.com. The big advantage here is you get full physical properties on the MSDS fact sheet, including viscosity (you want low viscosity). I used "Crystal Plus 70T" (bought 2 of the 5 gallon buckets).

- You *need* to circulate the oil through a radiator or otherwise cool the oil. Otherwise the oil gets hot and the computer will get hot too. Not dangerously hot, but hot enough to make the computer crash. Here's what I did to cool the oil. I bought a car radiator on ebay for $10 (I got a new one, I wouldn't want a used car radiator for this :)). Then I picked up a submersible pond/fountain pump (600GPH is about the right size) for ~$25 (also on ebay). I got some clear rubber hoses from Home Depot and hooked everything up, and viola! Almost totally silent pump, and lots of throughput. A word on the hoses: DO NOT get the black rubber "heater" hoses. These hoses will sweat oil and make a big mess.

- Finally, just the radiator is not enough. You need a fan. Without a fan it will still crash. I picked up a 20" box fan ($13 at Lowe's) and set it against the radiator, and turned it on low. That fan quietly ran for two years straight without failure, until it finally died because I let dust build up on the fan and radiator, and it overloaded. Take a vacuum with a brush attachment and clean the radiator/fan every couple months.

I will post more info as I think of it.

[kkant]

OK, some more thoughts:

- What is submerged in the oil: motherboard/CPU/video card, power supply, and submersible impeller-style pond pump. What is not in the oil: Hard disks and floppy/CD drives (obviously).

- Use heatsinks, but don't use heatsink compound. I know for arctic silver 5 at least, it dissolves completely in the oil.

- Use fans on the heatsinks to force oil through the fins. The fans are submerged in the oil, so they are totally noiseless even at max speed.

- Use a video card that has a strong (preferably squirrel-cage-style) fan. Most of the medium- and high-end cards these days seem to have this type of fan, so you probably don't need to worry about it. Initially I had an ATI radeon 9800 XT card on it with a weak standard bladed fan, and I often had to manually hand-start that fan after a restart. Eventually this fan jammed and died. Remember, all submerged fans are noiseless so use powerful high speed fans! All my other fans (including the ones in the submerged power suply) are still running.

- Place a cover on the oil-filled box. It doesn't have to be airtight--just something to keep dust out of the oil. Otherwise you'll start seeing clumps of dust in the oil.

- Make a small platform that is a little higher than the top of the oil box. Everything coming out of the oil box should rest on this platform. This includes the radiator and its hoses, all cables, and all the HDs and CD drives. If you let cables come out of the box and lie on the ground, you'll get a small but appreciable amount of oil oozing onto the ground.

- Speaking of that :), do yourself a favor and buy a cheap 2x4 sheet of hardboard at home depot, to set underneath the whole apparatus. This will absorb minor spills.


Anyway... feel free to ask any questions, and I will be happy to help if I can.

[kkant]

Oh, I should add one more thing about the heatsinks/fans. Having heatsinks/fans is extremely important, even submerged in oil. Just turning the submerged fan on makes a 10 to 20 deg C difference. For example, even when the weak slow fan on my submerged video card died, my GPU temp went up 10 deg C. So install those fans and max them out!

[drunkinbda]

just wondering if you read the guide that this forum thread is based on?
http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.ph (http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php)p

just checkin cuase some seems like great additions.. some seems repetetive(sp?)

either or.. did you bother trying to hide the car radiator and fan? or proudly display it with your tank?

[kkant]

Yeah, I didn't bother hiding the radiator. Form follows function, you know. ;)

[crookbounty]

Would it be possible to do this kind of cooling with a X2 5200+ and an 8800GTX? Also, would it be possible to enclose this in some kind of air tight container and have tubes leading out of the container to some kind of cooling devices for the oil to keep condensation out of the container? How much OCing could I do with just the oil with no cooling devices?

[akelly999]

i have an idea and wondered if anyone has tried it. what if you used paraffin wax instead of mineral oil. the melting point is low so there would be a phase change cooling effect so long as some of the wax is still solid. plus you can give your feet some heat therapy in the process...

[kitizz]

i have an idea and wondered if anyone has tried it. what if you used paraffin wax instead of mineral oil. the melting point is low so there would be a phase change cooling effect so long as some of the wax is still solid. plus you can give your feet some heat therapy in the process...

hmmm, lol, i think viscosity is your main concern here. If it gets too thick, it will not circulate well at all

[Danik]

I am also planning to build submerged pc. I got All the parts i need for it. The miniral oil i am going to use is ASTM D-3487 Type II. This oil is used on High Voltage Substations, and it's clear. Actualy you need special rubber for seal on this type of oil.

[freakboynv2000]

Has anybody come up with a clean way to mount IDE drives besides external usb cases? I want to build one but I am at a loss as to how to house my cdroms and hdds.

[glj12]

Has anybody come up with a clean way to mount IDE drives besides external usb cases? I want to build one but I am at a loss as to how to house my cdroms and hdds.

Build a plexi glass housing for it and place it underneath the lid of the aquarium lid. But for me, I didn't use plexi-glass, but its just a thought. See: http://leetupload.com/tutorials/1337_fleet

In regards to the "have to use a radiator so it won't crash" thing, that's completely false. You can leave this mineral oil machine on 24/7 with absolutely no cooling mechanism, and it will remain completely stable. The link above is my project for the mineral oil beast, and its been runnings a server with no coolant, (not even air conditioning, and I'm in the mid-west, so it gets awfully hot here).

As for a CD-ROM drive, why not go with an external USB one?

[wildwill]

Has anyone done extensive testing on the oil sumerged pc. will it destroy the capasitors or have any other adverse effects on the pc. please tell me i an seriously thinking of using it for colling on an above average pc.

[PCC- Builder Dan]

We're doing that now, actually- the machine is being used as a desktop box running Vista, we're seeing what will happen in a couple of months.

[Jack Ruby]

I just wanted to post up the email I sent to the Puget guys last night. It might add something to the discussion :)

Nice work! I’ve been kicking around the idea of building a mineral oil cooled computer since I saw a veggie oil one about a year ago.
How did you mount the hdd? Or the Cdrom? Did you seal the cpu like toms did?

At any rate, you asked for a pump/reservoir unit. I would suggest a cheaper (and possibly more appropriate) method is a stop by your local auto parts store.
You could pick up a nice radiator for cooling engine oil or transmission oil for 25 bucks
That’s what I used here: http://www.instructables.com/id/EDZO09MXA3EV2Z4CFS/
Also, for a cheap pump (about 30) you could use an aftermarket fuel pump. Fuel pumps run on 12v and are designed to be lubricated by the fluid they pump. Plus they can stand up to the viscosity of the oil, which a water pump shouldn’t be able to do for long.
http://www.oreillyauto.com/EW3/DisplayTheParts.do?toolsAccMoreIndex=0&didSearchFor=Fuel+Pump&bid=1180658447351&cycleCount=1995

[glj12]

We're doing that now, actually- the machine is being used as a desktop box running Vista, we're seeing what will happen in a couple of months.

Same here, running it currently as a knoppix server for cs:s 24/7 with no air conditioning in the room, and no radiator. ;)

[Jack Ruby]

Oh, and you can buy mineral oil here
http://www.chemistrystore.com/mineral_oil.htm
or if you're feeling like something more appetizing how about wintergreen oil
http://www.chemistrystore.com/methyl_salicylate.htm
Minty!

[davefp]

Great project, it really inspired me. I'm going to dig out some old-ish hardware of mine and build a server in a similar fashion. The major differences will be that mine will be a Micro ATX board in a smaller tank and the tank that I have is glass, not acrylic. Hopefully that will allow a much higher heat dissapation than one of the more modern acrylic tanks.

Trouble is I haven't found a place in Canada that sells mineral oil. I'm sure there's one out there somewhere (Canada's a big place), I just need to look harder. I really don't want to pay $100US for 5 gallons of the stuff (plus any customs charges).

[freakboynv2000]

mineral oil is used as a laxative. I found all of mine at area drug and grocery stores. Look next to the antacids and laxatives. Update on my project, I made the backboard for the mobo and mounted it in the tank today. after some fit up issues I dropped in the power supply and routed all of my cables. the oil is in and it's working great. Now I am working on the final version of the Hdd mount and mounting the external usb and sound ports in the lid.

[kitizz]

Why is everyone asking questions and makign comments, that are already answered/stated in the original article?
lol... number 1 anti-noob law: research before asking.

anyway... I was just wondering if you guys were still planning to report on how the computer is coping this weekend. If the report is good, I'll be heading off to buy the stuff.

Cheers guys.

[davefp]

As luck would have it, I've found both a plastics place and a chemical place locally up here in Ottawa. I'm thinking at the moment that the easiest thing to do (due to my lack of tools) is draw up a design for a combined lid/mount for the motherboard and have the plastics people fabricate it for me. That way I know it'll be exactly the right size :)

[glj12]

Why is everyone asking questions and makign comments, that are already answered/stated in the original article?
lol... number 1 anti-noob law: research before asking.

anyway... I was just wondering if you guys were still planning to report on how the computer is coping this weekend. If the report is good, I'll be heading off to buy the stuff.

Cheers guys.

My mineral oil PC has been on 24/7 with absolutely no cooling (not even air conditioning) here in the hot midwest, and it has been a steady 120 degrees F. It has been on for 3 weeks so far, straight.

[kitizz]

My mineral oil PC has been on 24/7 with absolutely no cooling (not even air conditioning) here in the hot midwest, and it has been a steady 120 degrees F. It has been on for 3 weeks so far, straight.

yeah that sounds hopeful :D
and no troubles with the corrosion of the rubber? A lot of people talk about it, but I can't find anything that officially states that some oils can corrode rubber. So yah.
Sounds really good!

[freakboynv2000]

Well my system has been running for a few days now. I can tell you that the oil gets HOT. After a hard core benchmark session my oil temp was 130degF. The tank was hot to the touch but the system never missed a beat. The plexi backboard is great, the only thing that the tray has on it is physical support for the expansion cards. I found a cool set up to mount my usb ports in the lid, I will post pics. I made a rack out of plexi for my hdds and used silicone to fasten it to the back of the tank. It was a temperary measure and I wanted to be able to remove it without marring the tank. It didn't work out too well as the heat caused it to fall loose. I will use clear glue or epoxy on the final install. I am doing some research on which glue is best with cast acrylic and the best way to cut plexi. I will do some experimentation and post the final result. I am going to use a transmission cooler and some clear vynal hose to carry the oil to a small aquarium pump I got off of ebay for about 10 bux. I am going to try passive cooling with no fans at first and see if that gets me the result I am looking for.

One word of the wise, don't think that you can speed up the cooling of your oil by spraying canned air on the side of the tank. The tank will develop mini cracks and scare the hell out of you :eek: Dont ask how I know.

[Smirnof]

The ability of the oil to cool the system is related to the power of the system High end systems generate more heat and will probably need to be cooled. Lower end systems might be able to dissipate the heat through the glass or plexi tank. You (directed at no one in perticurlar and everyone in general) all have started an arguement based on weather or not that will work without defining a standard to test it on. Its like saying my car will outperform yours when you don't know what each other is driving.

I've been busy (moving mostly) but ive been thinkin... im going to build this system in my car as a car pc (google it). I live in phoenix where july can get upwards of 115f easily. The trunk of a car can easily turn into an oven... which means my design is going to have to draw some outside air and have a heavy duty oil cooler (probably a radiator with a radiator fan given my unlimited 14 volt power supply.

But ive been tinkering with hard drive ideas... bein in a car i don't wanna trash out the hard drive from road bumps and road noise and such... so i was thinking... what if we sealed the hard drive in a plexiglass case (the vent hole is strictly for pressure changes, so it shouldn't have a problem in a sealed environment). Then hook it up to the mother board and suspend it below the surface of the oil with a series of springs... or like floating on the surface (if it displaces enough oil) with some sort of spring to keep it centered and away from the edges and other components... Anyone else see any inherent problems with my design? Thats the main reason im throwing it out there before i ruin a hard drive.

Im also tempted to build a board, dip it in some white latex paint, or possiby an epoxy (ruins the upgradability but who cares) and just running water across it... any ideas as to that one? a good epoxy should be able to carry heat through the smaller components and if all the heat syncs are sealed onto the board it should theoretically work...? right.

Ok im too tired so i'm going to bed but thats my ideas of the day hit me back.

[kitizz]

My mineral oil PC has been on 24/7 with absolutely no cooling (not even air conditioning) here in the hot midwest, and it has been a steady 120 degrees F. It has been on for 3 weeks so far, straight.

actually, wat's the specs of your pc? is it relatively new?

[caelric]

I've been busy (moving mostly) but ive been thinkin... im going to build this system in my car as a car pc (google it). I live in phoenix where july can get upwards of 115f easily. The trunk of a car can easily turn into an oven... which means my design is going to have to draw some outside air and have a heavy duty oil cooler (probably a radiator with a radiator fan given my unlimited 14 volt power supply.


Do some research on carPC's before you decide to oil cool one. Most carPC's are built on low power, mobile processers (Pentium-M, Core Duo T, etc...) and don't generate much heat, thus not requiring much cooling. Mine is a Core Duo T 2600 (2.16 x2 GHZ), and has a regular, stock heat sink and fan, with cross ventilation in the case, and has not had any problems, nor did the Pentium M before that, including a drive across the country via the I-10 in the summer and a year in Hawaii. My car is black, so it gets somewhat warm inside...

Check out www.mp3car.com for more resources, and also take a quick look at my cardomain page located here (http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2253753) for some pics of one carPC solution.

Dave

[glj12]

actually, wat's the specs of your pc? is it relatively new?

1. Mineral oil is pretty much non-corrosive. Think about it, ven if it does corrode the plastic covering the wiring, it certainly won't damage it.

In terms of the specs of the computer, its pretty new. I think its a 64-bit Celeron D. Can't remember the clock rate, but its up there, (even though its a Celeron, heh), and it has 1gb of ram. I purchased it about 8 months ago.

Nothing hardcore gaming sort of material, but fine for a counter-strike:source server. ;)

[caelric]

The Celeron D doesn't make a lot of heat compared to some other chips, so while you might not need external cooling, someone else who uses a higher powered chip, and/or a highpowered graphics card would need external cooling.

Dave

[Smirnof]

I've done extensive research on car pcs... I also have enough spare parts to make a car pc... the only thing im gonna need to buy is a small in car lcd monitor. Also, it seems to be 1 environment where oil cooling is practical. My brother thinks i should just run the hoses to the front of the car and stick a cooler in front of the radiator... I'm half tempted to do that but i didn't perticularly want to run the lines. I also don't want my computer running at 150 degrees... just because it can doesn't mean that it is good for it.

Well... I'm off to ruin a mother board with a can of thompsons waterseal (or some latex paint, or some epoxy... depends on what i have available), and see if i can start a fire in my garage with a psu. Wish me luck.

[caelric]

Oil cooling may or may not be practical (depending on your opinion), but there is no reason for it on a CarPC.

Anyways, good luck either way.

Dave

[glj12]

The Celeron D doesn't make a lot of heat compared to some other chips, so while you might not need external cooling, someone else who uses a higher powered chip, and/or a highpowered graphics card would need external cooling.

Dave

Yup.. that's why I don't need any extra cooling.

It would be absurd to have an 8800 in there without extra cooling. =/

[kasdec]

Hello singularity!

All the drives in this unit are external. The hard drive is ESATA, and the optical drive is USB2.0. This is necessary, as their moving parts would not function under oil. However, we're going to try dipping an old hard drive, and will let you know what happens!

We have not seen a problem with capacitors or wicking oil into small spaces where it can't be cooled, but we will be posting a follow up in about a month that will cover our observations with long term use. you could still have all drives internal within a sealed compartment thet would be void of oil and still dissapate the heat if metal surround, this would function then more like a normal comp wothout an extra unit, to be commercialy viable, as i emailed you, i could easily sell 100.000 units to start if you want to go that way,although a gimmick, it is still fully functional and millions to be made, as i mentioned, if quad core used and top end mkt, don't look back :-)

[davefp]

My main concern with putting a submerged PC in a car would be the movement. Without a sealed tank you'd have oil everywhere in no time. As for cooling in a vehicle, my first thought would be to somehow divert the A/C somehow and use that.

[caelric]

Yeah, like I said earlier, there is no need for exotic cooling in the majority of carputers, even in a black car in the midst of summer on a hot day. The CPU fan, plus a venilation fan is perfectly fine. It obviously depends on the CPU, but most carputers have mobile type CPU's and thus have no problem.

[glj12]

And eh....

Hard drives in a moving vehicle isn't such a hot idea to begin with. It would be best to get a SSD instead. But really, it isn't worth it to do that in a car, agreed. ^

[caelric]

Very few of the carPC crowd has had any problems with vibrations for hard drives in a car. Some people advocate rubber mounts or other types of shock absorbers, but really, unless you live in an area with VERY bad potholes, or you do some serious offroadings, you don't need to worry about it.

Like I said, my carPC (in it's various versiopns, is going on two years now, with no hard drive related or heat related problems.

[glj12]

Very few of the carPC crowd has had any problems with vibrations for hard drives in a car. Some people advocate rubber mounts or other types of shock absorbers, but really, unless you live in an area with VERY bad potholes, or you do some serious offroadings, you don't need to worry about it.

Like I said, my carPC (in it's various versiopns, is going on two years now, with no hard drive related or heat related problems.

Just saying, I wouldn't take the risk, especially if I had data that I would be worried about losing. I'd prefer to shell out a bit more dough, and be able to peel out and drift freely without worry. :)

I live in a fairly bumpy area since the roads around here are so crappy, filled with pot holes, and has not been re-paved in years, pisses me off. :(

[FinalStar]

Very few of the carPC crowd has had any problems with vibrations for hard drives in a car. Some people advocate rubber mounts or other types of shock absorbers, but really, unless you live in an area with VERY bad potholes, or you do some serious offroadings, you don't need to worry about it.

Like I said, my carPC (in it's various versiopns, is going on two years now, with no hard drive related or heat related problems.

Very true. I have had a carpc for a year and a half now, and not a single issue. its a Via CPU, with a seagate 100gb laptop HD. Not heat for vibration issues.

Question: I see everyone has been talking about different ways to cool the oil. Do you think a car engine oil or transmission oil pump would be a good idea. I figure its designed for oil a lot thicker and hotter than the mineral oil, might be a good idea.

[caelric]

Very true. I have had a carpc for a year and a half now, and not a single issue. its a Via CPU, with a seagate 100gb laptop HD. Not heat for vibration issues.

Question: I see everyone has been talking about different ways to cool the oil. Do you think a car engine oil or transmission oil pump would be a good idea. I figure its designed for oil a lot thicker and hotter than the mineral oil, might be a good idea.

Well, they would work to pump the oil, but engine oil pumps are usually driven by the engine crankshaft (with belts) and are a lot larger than what people are looking for, so, it wouldn't be a good idea.

[EFDisaster]

I think you guys (puget) should sell the Acrylic/plexi/whatever piece. You can buy frames for the marineland 6 aquarium separately, cut the piece and hot glue it in. I don't think I have any access to a saw, otherwise, I'd be ordering parts and building one of these, this week.

[liquidwave22]

I was wondering about making Extensions for any cables you use (power, IDE, Pbtn, Reset, USB, etc) and make a custom plexi backboard?

[Clemm]

I Just Saw Your VideoOn Youtube And I Think It's A Great Idea. I Talked To One Of My Friends And We Have Decided To Attempt This Project. We Are Going To make A Few Changes. We Are Using A 20 Gallon Tank So There Is More Room For Effects Such As Fake Fish And Such. We Are Also Putting A Core Temp Gauge In As Well. Ill Keep You Posted On Our Progress And Post Pictures When We Are Finished :)

[EFDisaster]

I'm gonna do this after all. I picked up a Black & Decker jigsaw, I'll get myself a piece of acrylic at Home Depot along with the sealant and glue and such...

my girlfriend's little brother's computer is getting a new motherboard/ram/processor, so I get to do what I want with the old pieces... ordered my fish tank (went to a petco, the sale is only at their online store), motherboard tray and a few other accessories (to get my hard drive in an external case and have a power button, etc.)

[Agouti]

Got a computer, leave it on 24/7, hate the noise of the fans, especially with a 6800 Ultra.

I'm going to make up one by getting 2 glass aquariums (acrylic/plexiglass is an insulator), 1 big and 1 little, putting the little inside the big and fill the little with mineral oil. Insert computer.

Seal off the top with acrylic, as glass is a pain, and fill the big one with water.

PS: Make sure where the cables comes out is all sealed up, and make sure theres a gap at the bottom of the inside tank, so as if any water leaks in you can see it before it kills the computer. I'm personally planning on having the cables come out through a 1 inch clear tubing, so I don't have to reseal them if something wants changing. I can't think of anyway to reliably seal the little aquarium and still have it sealed reliably plus opened easily. Maybe a rubber seal and clamps?

Add salt water to outside tank, insert pretty tropical fishies. Observe ultra coolness as the inside aquarium's walls are near invisible, so it looks like the whole thing is in water too.
And as a added bonus, the computer will warm the water!

I'm going to use a simple watercooling rig, such as a
CoolerMaster Aquagate Mini http://www.pccasegear.com.au/prod2362.htm,

or if I'm feeling stylish maybe something like a
Zalman Reserator 2 http://www.pccasegear.com.au/prod4001.htm

Course what I really, really, want is a Silverstone TD01: http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_contents.php?pno=td01&area=usa

But i need cash. CAAAAAAASH!!!!! Donations? I take diners card! Please?

... except that instead of a water block, just going to have a loop of copper tubing through the back of the water tank, and probably hook up both pump and fan to an automatic fan controller, which will keep the water temp 18-24 degrees C.

Might become a problem in summer, as I can't cool the water, using a radiator, to below ambient, and not practically to within even a couple of degrees, so I may have to remove the computer's tank from the big tank, stop the water getting too hot.
Actually, now I write it down, may have to do something with some evaporative cooling. Really, really don't want anything with a fridge/compressor. That would suck. Half the idea is no noise. And of course being looking like a million bucks ^.^

Anyone know what the power rating on a mid sized tropical aquarium heating element is? I think it's only about 100W, and my computer chews about 450W.

Could do something like the (old old) "bush fridge" (Aus) which involved a sack, with the bottom in a container of water, the water soaked up the cloth, evaporated and cooled what was inside. Probably beer. So maybe something on the same principle might do the trick.

Tea-towel draped over the back, perhaps. If you got the size right it would be slightly automatic - the hotter the day, the more water would evaporate ergo the more cooling would happen.
Maybe even a big aerator might create enough evaporation, who knows.

Be a little while yet, spare time is something that happens to other people... been big storms here recently. youtube "newcastle storms".

Anyway any ideas would be great, I'm going to have a ball with this stuff.

Also, was reading on another site, you do leave fans on and running, as it can make as much as 10 degrees difference. This was on an old radeon 9800, but still. The same guy had fans running in oil for some 3 years without them seizing, except for the original radeon's fan, though I imagine they would pull more current working so hard.

Some of the smaller fans like northbridges and old vid cards can't start themselves too, got to get them spinning by hand when the comp hard boots. If you going for a new pc you could always pick up a fanless nVidia 7600GT or something. But the oil does need to be agitated by something it seems.

Might end up doing something with a sealed (no water or dust thank you) acrylic inner box, that reaches to the top of the water level, so no water near cables coming out the top, and up the back of the aquarium.

Then have a radiator and fan arrangement hidden behind. Probably copper heat pipes, save having to have a a pump. Still have the fan controller hooked into the water temp of the water, to keep it right, the computer can deal with temp fluctuations, fish can't, and besides I can watch the comp temp with speedfan or something.

Because of the insulating acrylic (thick acrylic probably) the oil should heat up a lot more, so it can actually be cooled by a radiator and keep the water temperature right. Also I have a fanless 500W Antec PSU, so I can leave that out without contributing to noise. If it heats up the water too much, can always add another layer of acrylic with a air gap.

PS apologies for long ramble of a post. 2 AM. Can't sleep. Stupid dog next door. Grrrr.

*EDIT*

Just did some math.
Acrylic has a thermal conductance of 0.14 W/M*K (watts per meter degree) and being pretty rough, with a 1cm thick sheet of acrylic, and a box about as small as you could make it (MB, CPU & Vid card, 30cm*30cm*20cm) submerged, you would get just under 6 Watts of heat per degree C of temperature difference, ie with a water temp of 24, the oil, when putting 100W into the water, would be about a bit over 40. I'll work out what it is in air and with glass and give you guys the formulas to work it out for your box tomorrow.

[SEO-Dan]

Interesting top 10 results here, http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGIH_enUS215US215&q=mineral+oil

Puget, Digg, YouTube

[mix_masta_vince2002]

wondering if i can get a pic of the back of the system and top pic. im gonna build one. i was thinking about hiding the HDD in the lid on the lexan but under the lid.

[Noooby]

After seeing your video I decided to build my own. Cool looking setup but this was my first cpu so naturally I goofed up royally. System ran fine and cool for about a day before shutting down from high temp. Turns out that my heat sink mounting bracket had broken and the heat sink had popped off the processor. Without knowing any better I figured that jbweld would be a suitable bonding agent and stuck, really globbed it between my cpu and heat sink. So as you know it didn't work and now I need to know how to remove the heatsink and processor w/o wrecking the mobo, and saving the cpu if possible. System is a Nforce4m-a mobo, amd 64 x2 5000+. (I should have experimented on lesser).
Thanks. Oh, also what could I use to safely clean off the mineral oil w/o a lot of scrubbing?

Cool project, really dunked me into computer building,.....(mwauahahaha)

[thrusty]

hi everyone, i saw ur great project, and im going to do my one vegetal oil submerged PC. but, my question is: is that the vegetal oil electricity conduter? if it is isnt there any brand with no conductivity? i need to know this things before i tried. great job

[kitizz]

@thrusty
just be careful, remember it can get pretty rancid after time...

[glj12]

wondering if i can get a pic of the back of the system and top pic. im gonna build one. i was thinking about hiding the HDD in the lid on the lexan but under the lid.

Plenty of pictures of mine from most angles found here: The 1337 Fleet (http://www.leetupload.com/tutorials/1337_fleet/)

I have my hdd hidden underneath the lid.

[EFDisaster]

I'd also like to throw ina request for pictures of "under the lid"
I'm trying to figure out exactly what you cut and were you glued the acrylic panel to on the top frame... I've got everything but the oil and I'm ready to start assembling the beast...

I took my power supply out of it's housing...
still trying to decide where I should mount my power button.

Did you guys take the light out of the lid?
If not, does it give off much heat?
Is the bulb replaceable?

[pchelka]

Hello guys i got a questions about that submerged pc -

1) are the fans still running or did they burned ?

2) did you removed stickers from mobo,psu and other stuff ?

[glj12]

I'd also like to throw ina request for pictures of "under the lid"
I'm trying to figure out exactly what you cut and were you glued the acrylic panel to on the top frame... I've got everything but the oil and I'm ready to start assembling the beast...

I took my power supply out of it's housing...
still trying to decide where I should mount my power button.

Did you guys take the light out of the lid?
If not, does it give off much heat?
Is the bulb replaceable?

Look no further at the link I supplied above.

@pchelka
1. For me, after one month, all the fans still work.
2. I didn't remove any sticks, but one stick from the case fan flew off and erm, hit the CPU fan, haha. But all is well.

[EFDisaster]

Look no further at the link I supplied above.
sorry, I used the same tank they did, so the lid and the frame under the lid is pretty different. I did look at your site, your build is nice, but I'm still curious about the details of theirs, since I used the same aquarium hardware.

[glj12]

I understand what ya mean, hopefully they'll give a response! By the by, the project of my somewhat odd/different method of cooling a computer got on hack a day, yay!

http://www.hackaday.com/2007/06/19/heat-pipe-wine-cooler/

[greg C. TNO]

I like this so much I'm going to build one. There is a population that runs their equipment at 100% for more than 12 hours at a time, people who do distributed computing projects. I'll have to have the pump and radiator, and I'm looking to OC with this. So, we'll see how it goes, and yes, I'll have a diver, gravel and maybe even those mechanical fish. :cool:

[Danik]

You have to remove thermal grese compound because it will leak in the oil.
Use a alcohol to clean your mb it wont damage it but maybe remove the battery of mb this is what we used in electronic industy.

[funkybrown]

I have been designing a similar setup for at least 6 months since i graduated in Design, and have been trying to think of ways of incorporating a phase cooling system, i have a Vapochill XE case ready to be dismantled, can you tell me any more about the mineral oil? maybe run a couple of tests for me:

Whats its freezing temperature for example? and would it be better to pump the oil through a reservoir, cooling it there, or do you reckon it would be possible to just plunge the chilled tip into the tank?

I've had it run to -29.5° and have been trying to find various substances to handle this, ethyl glycol (at a 50% ethanol/water mix) was the highest water content that would stay viscous at these low temperatures, however, this becomes slightly flammable at +29°... worrying. Anyway, thank you for some renewed enthusiasm. keep up the good work.

Thanks
James

[kitizz]

I have been designing a similar setup for at least 6 months since i graduated in Design, and have been trying to think of ways of incorporating a phase cooling system, i have a Vapochill XE case ready to be dismantled, can you tell me any more about the mineral oil? maybe run a couple of tests for me:

Whats its freezing temperature for example? and would it be better to pump the oil through a reservoir, cooling it there, or do you reckon it would be possible to just plunge the chilled tip into the tank?

I've had it run to -29.5° and have been trying to find various substances to handle this, ethyl glycol (at a 50% ethanol/water mix) was the highest water content that would stay viscous at these low temperatures, however, this becomes slightly flammable at +29°... worrying. Anyway, thank you for some renewed enthusiasm. keep up the good work.

Thanks
James

I tried looking for safety sheets for it on google, all of them said something like 'N/A' for the melting point, so I'm guessing it's so low, nobody has tried before. But I have seen a youtube video of a mineral oil pc runnign at far below 0°C.

And the worry about being flamable, firstly a fire needs 3 things: fuel (plenty of it), heat (sort of there) and oxygen. The only place you can get a fire is on the surface of the oil, and there is not likely to be enough heat there. Also, the Autoignition temp is something liek 250°C. THen factoring in that you're going to be cooling it to below freezing, there should not be much worry of combustion.

A lot of safety sheets talk about the hazards of consuming mineral oil and inhaling it. So apparently it's a risk if it's in a mist. As far as consuming goes, I used a food-grade mineral oil... so the worst it can do is make you crap your pants. :p

I hope that was helpful :\
Kitizz

[Semper Fuzz]

I saw this thing in real life yesterday at the shop and it is so cool ! I mean Hot ! WoW

[Sampsomonium]

ok i know i don't know NEAR as much about the all this as the rest of you but if you took the coils of an old refrigerator or something that could fit IN the tak or even next to it in order to cool it? i know dealing with freon sucks but could this be a solution to the heating problem.
also i have heard of using dry ice in the bottom of the tank to cool the system down...dunno if it is a more permanent solution but it works for the here and now.

again i don't know....just throwing out ideas

[JFlo]

just curious, but how would u go about taking everything out if u need to modify the system or replace a part. would u have to dry the parts or what???

[EFDisaster]

http://www.fashiondisaster.org/g2/d/6042-2/crop_P7120392.JPG
done.

links to a couple more (full size) pics at http://fashiondisaster.org/
I'll get some more pictures later.

The system is an old Gateway. P4 2.53Gig chip (left the fan on), 512M RAM, Audigy sound card, Netgear wifi nic. ... I added an eSATA controller and cloned the hard drive to a 2.5" SATA drive and put it in a thermaltake external enclosure. I removed the casing from the power supply and mounted it (with wire) to the extra space on the left side of the tray, I also added a fan with some blue LEDs and a little "bubble light," just for fun The hard drive is under the lid, along with the wireless keyboard/mouse receiver and and the air pump for the air stone. Other decorations include some pebbles, a castle and plastic horses (sea horses). Oh, and a power button (Bulgin Vandal Resistant Illuminated Switch) I picked up from the same place as the motherboard tray fit perfectly in the hole left by the lamps power button.

Haven't determined if I can get the temps and fan speeds from the motherboard or not. Anyone got a good suggestion for a program that can usually get that sort of info? I know the board is an Intel Yorktown chipset.

[Heavybell]

I hope this question hasn't been asked, but 14 pages if a bit too much to read through at work... :P

I've been thinking about trying my first liquid cooling solution recently. Having heard about the submerged PC, I wondered why not use mineral oil in a regular 'water cooling' system, instead of water? Would this be a Good Idea, because any leak is less likely to ruin my computer, due to the mineral oil not conducting, or a Bad Idea for some reason I can't think of?

[PCC-Jon]

I was thinking about that myself Heavybell. Unless the oil is found to corrode rubber or acrylic (no evidence of that so far), then I think it would work fine. It would certainly be messy if it leaks, but at least it wouldn't fry the computer! Much cheaper than products like FluidXP too.

[Heavybell]

The only other issue I can think of is if perhaps the stuff doesn't cool down as well as water in the radiator. I'm not sure who to ask about that, though.

[PCC- Builder Dan]

That's fairly simple to work out: if you look at the specific heat capacity of both water and mineral oil, water holds about 4.19 kilojoules of energy for each degree you heat a kilogram (kJ/kg.K), while mineral oil only holds 1.67 kJ/kg.K. What this means is that mineral oil needs to be two and a half times hotter (above ambient) than water to carry the same amount of heat. If you're really concerned about performance, and using a system designed to move water without leaking, water is the better performer by quite a bit.

[Heavybell]

I'm mainly just interested in a quieter cooling setup than my current 3 case fans + CPU fan + GPU fan + RAID card fan setup. So long as all parts are adequately cooled, I don't mind, and don't intend to overclock. That said, the 8800GTX gets quite hot.

Either way, one of the engineers at work says that oil would be a bad idea, due to the problem of heat capacity at room temperature, but also because it becomes conductive when it encounters dust. Since my computer would be mostly full of air, there's a good chance that if a leak occured, I'd be no better off than if I used water. According to him, anyway.

[marshall]

hello i noticed on the puget submerged pc yall used a intel core 2 duo i'm planing on building one myself soon but ill be using a p3 i'm trying to figure out how hot it will get what was the old hardware yall tested it with it looked like a p2 and how hot did it get

[dwood15]

Sorry if this is a "noob" question but.... I dont exactly have any acrylic lying around in my house, so where could I get some that would be large enough for me to cut it to fit the case and mount the lian-li mo-bo panel on?

[dwood15]

Okay. I found some panels Here (http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/variant.asp?catalog%5Fname=USPlastic&category%5Fname=21314&product%5Fid=10477&variant%5Fid=44211) They are 2 feet by 2 feet. Thhats big enough, right?

[marshall]

they should be how big is the opening of your tank and i think you can get the panels at home depot or lowes if you have that where you live

[dwood15]

I checked lowe's/home depot and didnt find any

[marshall]

odd i think i saw some at mine anyway 2x2 feet should be plenty large enough heres a link to a site that sells the tray none of the measurements excede 2 ft so it should be good to go
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=3387

[Wollu]

Hi foks,

Great job! I've been looking at mostly all of the projects in the field. Your's the only simple and logical one. I will build one myself :)

Suggestions for upgrades:

1. Use transformator oil (i.e. Shell Diana M, > 30 kV current resistance, up to 140°C stable)

2. Use a diaphragma or a peristaltic pump instead of the Eheim cetrifugal pump. This matches the viscosity of oil. If its getting cold, oil could become quite viscous (1000 times more than at room temperature!). In contrast to a centrifugal pump, a diaphragma pump don't care about this very much :) Be sure to use pumps using media-contacting parts made of PVC or PA! Mineral oil will damage the pumps parts if its made of PPS or similar material!

3. Instead of the Convecto-Matic radiator, use an oil cooler. Smaller and especially build for such fluids and great heat.

4. You wont loose oil by evaporation. The vapor pressure of oil is so high, that you'll need 120°C for months to see any loss.

5. Bubbles do help? Bubbles are seperating the media. Air is a bad thermal conductor. With enough bubbles you may be able to add some chaotic flow in the oil, dispersing the heat, on the other hand, the oil becomes less thermal conductive (like foam). Better exchange the heat with a tiny pump and a good oil cooler. Oil can take up to 40 times more heat as air. So it's clear, why the graphic chip heated up when you was using bubbles. The bubbles were close to it :)

Regards,
Wollu

[Wollu]

[QUOTE=Heavybell;30229]I'm mainly just interested in a quieter cooling setup than my current 3 case fans + CPU fan + GPU fan + RAID card fan setup. So long as all parts are adequately cooled, I don't mind, and don't intend to overclock. That said, the 8800GTX gets quite hot.

Take it this way: In our world, the only way to isolate an cool high-performance electrical switches and transformators (i.e. at power plants) in one go, is with the use of transformator oil. If those guys use it, they sure know why. So forget the panic.

Dust won't change your oil (you'll need kilos of it to turn oil into something semi conductive). Dust affects your computer only, if you've got an air cooling device. Dust doesn't mix as easy with oil as it does with air :) I know what I'm talking about. I'm cleaning my mainboard very often and I find lot of spots (also under the cpu cooler) where static loads are accumulating dust. The tragic is, that air is the worst media to cool something. It is used only because it is available everywhere. Not because it's good for cooling. At 45°C room temperature, air - as acoolant - is useless. Oil is still taking heat at a very high rate.

regards,
Wollu

[kitizz]

Mmmmm, that's something I wanted to mention about the oil.
With the evaporation, the problem is that it DOESN'T evaporate, lol. If you get it on something, it's not going to dry off it too soon. Bottles and everything need a good wash with hot soapy water.

And also, the fishtank I bought came with a filter, which filtered out ALL the dust in about 20 minutes. It was really decent.

[brandontroy]

Hello, my name is Brandon. I have never been here before or even heard of your fine organization. Earlier today I saw posted on a forum I do frequent (that has nothing to do with computers by the way) a thread titled your computer can 'breath' mineral oil.

Intrigued I clicked the post which was a link to your wonderful article. I was in LOVE. I have been wanting to upgrade to water cooling for quite some time but all those water blocks are expensive. I couldn't believe how inginous this was. Also, I immediately saw the benefit of being able to keep the whole board at the same temperature as I hate some spots on my MB get so hot they would burn you if you were to touch them.

My rig is basically an HP Pavilion a6000n (yea I know what your saying, I got a great deal on it OK) upgraded to an AMD Athlon64 X2-6000+ and 4 gig of DDR2 PC-5300. My primary graphics card is a visiontek X1300 with a stealth X300SE I run a projector off of.
So i'm reading this today and I was just so stoked. I had the day off work so figure what the hey and cruise in to town just to start getting some parts together, ya know.

Let me digress for a moment here. I feel it important to mention I live on a small island in the tropics (pacific ocean) so finding supplies for any project can be an extreme excersise in patients at the best of times. Also the whole reason I had cooling isssus in the first place is my small apartment runs about 84 degrees F day in and day out year round. If I shut down all my equipment and turn the air on high I might see 78 by the middle of the night but with the heat load I run in here it never usually drops below 80.

Ok, back to the story. Now we may not have much, but we do have a Walmart. So off I went, first stop the pet isle. I picked up something called an aqua-tech 5 aquarium for 35 bucks. It came with a filter, hood, light, and everything one would need. Next stop the pharmacy.

I should mention I had already called STE and a few other places to inquire about having oil shipped and got quotes from 140-200 dollars just for the shipping. I was pretty much figuring I could build the system dry but finding the oil and getting it here would be quite the ordeal.

So back at the wally world pharmacy, I find the oil (bottom shelf between the enemas and the exlax). Hmm, only four one pint bottles. So I grab all four and seek out an employee to inquire if perhaps they have some back stock. The woman I find in broken english tells me to come back on Monday as that is when the person who stocks this department works next. A little frustrated and hoping maybe she just misunderstood I ask again, "can't someone just look in the back and see if you have any more?" "No can, come back Monday" comes the reply. So I thank her and kinda stand over by the empty shelf of mineral oil debating my next move. A youngish girl walks by so I decide to try again. Same question this time she says sure no problem let me call the department manager she can help you. So long story short she invites me in the back where I am confronted with several cases of the the stuff and suddenly realize I have no idea how many pints in a gallon. I decided on fifty as I piled them into my wagon, right next to the tank that looked probably close enough. By the way they get $1.49 per pint. So I was out of there for like $115. One last stop the hardware store to grab a hunk of lexan. They had tons and I picked up a 2ftx2ft piece for $3.99. So with the widest grin I make my way home back to the otherside of the island.
I chose just to go with the machine mentioned above right off and not mess around with old hardware. I may be wrong (certainly wouldn't be the first time) but my belief was that if the thing did short out chances are it would fry my motherboard and all the other components would be fine. So I figured no big loss. Also, I want a better board anyway so I can OC this rig a bit. Never did that because of the above mentioned heating problems I needed to get under control first. Hence the plan to do a water cooled setup.

So I skiped the tray in the tutorial an instead just cut the lexan to fit the back wall of the tank drilled and tapped all the motherboard mounting holes. Then used marine grade silicone to secure it in the vertical. Obviously this leaves basically no structural support at the top (what would be the back of a normal rig). I plan to use some leftover lexan to secure everything at the top so my graphics cards don't fall out etc. I should point out I still have a bit of finish work to do. My goal today was just to get it up and running as I really couldn't survive even a day without a puter.
Anyway, It took me about 2 hours to go from opening the fishtank to a running wet machine. Ha ha ha, just popped in my head, a whole new meaning to 'wetware'.

After I got everything mounted and hooked up I booted up the machine to make sure it would work before I added the oil. It seemed to take an eternity those first few seconds until the monitor flickers to life. So thank goodness booted up no problem except to tell me my sytem fan was not working but this wasn't really a surprise as I had failed to even pull it out of the old case.
Can I just tell you how freaking scary it was to add the oil. I left the machine on while I added it and man I tell you, the first few bottles my hand was shaking. I stoped with it about an inch deep, the power supply had that inch over it but it hadn't touched the mother board yet. I just chilled out for about 15 minutes and surfed the web. Basically I was amazed that I even could with my power supply half submerged. :D
After this I calmed down and realxed a bit. I figured if the PS was fine the rest would be too. So like 30 some bottles of oil later it was full and amazingly it was still on. I ran a torture test for awhile without even a hiccup and am downloading 3dmark06 right now. Will leave it looping over night and see what happends.

Conclusion:
I am so happy my face hurts from smiling. I want to thank the people responsible for the machine on your website and the great video and tutorial. Also, I want to thank all the people on this thread who gave me all these great ideas from the lexan backing to using alot of the pint bottles of oil from the drugstore. My rig and I thank you from the bottoms of our hearts.

Along with some detail and finish work I don't intend to keep the cooling of the oil simply passive. The next step is...quick background info first. About 5 feet from this computer is the reservoir for my aquarium (one with fish lol) It has a 1/2hp chiller that I built to dump all the heat outside and keeps my fishies water rock solid at 78 degrees no matter how hot it gets in here. I am going to find an inline pump that will move the oil efficently enough and get say maybe 30 ft of copper tubing make it into a coil and submerge it in the resivoir then pump the oil through the tube and back to the computer tank. Effectively this will make sure the oil never goes above 78-80 and best of all now all the heat my computer makes will be dumbed strait outside reducing the heatload in here significantly.

Well thats all, thank you all again. I have linked to a few pictures of the rig for your viewing pleasure. Please remember it isn't quite done yet. Along with the afore mentioned improvements I plan to add some more gravel, a better light and some fish tank decorations, bubbles etc. Take care everyone and have a Wonderful day!

-Brandon

http://img354.imageshack.us/img354/664/img6964po5.jpg
http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/5749/img6962oe4.jpg
http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/3703/img6961li1.jpg

[PCC-Jon]

Great job! I like the rocks along the bottom, and the power supply looks great with the cover off. Just be careful to unplug it before you stick any fingers in there :)

[marshall]

nice job and thats the exact tank i am going to use i saw it the other day at work which is wal-mart. hey it pays the bills. but i would switch the light to like a neon of somesort instead of that flouresent stock tube it looks great though. oh and did you just use a internal harddrive and ran the ide cable down or is it external.

[brandontroy]

Wow, thanks guys!
Thank you for pointing that out Jon. To be honest I was so afraid of getting bit by the caps on there, even though they are so small, I only handle the PS with hands protected by rubber gloves (the kind sold for washing dishes etc). Also, I find they work great if one needs to reach into the oil for any reason to make the job a bit cleaner.

Marshall, Yea as soon as I turned the light on I was like "ewwww". I will definately be on the look out for some blue neon or even just use a blue gel maybe. Yea, I run an internal hardrive that is mounted under the lid. That IDE cable in the pics was actually for the CD but since I forgot to buy a longer SATA cable while in town I was using an old IDE HD plugged into it as well. That cable is soooo ugly I have since bought a nice pretty round one and you can see it when I update with the new pics.

Ok, now for the bad news. Grrr! Had a minor setback and I wonder if it isn't a problem others will have with this particular heatsink configuration. What happend was I woke up to find my machine off and the heatsink at the bottom of the tank. Cursing the spring loaded thingy I drained some oil and using gloved hands attempted for several minutes to reattach it. Failing at this and unable to find the tab on one side I began investigating more closely and discovered the black plastic ring that surrounds the CPU that the heatsink attaches to had actually broken on one side no longer allowing an attachment point. I seem to recall a previous poster in this thread describing the same problem.
Lesson from this: DO NOT use these spring/clip on heatsinks. My friend's machine has a heatsink which is heald on by four screws instead of a stupid clip. I advise anyone attempting this to go that route.

Also I should add, I use my machine to run Boinc (distributed computing) so my CPU is at 100% load 24/7 this obviously causes the highest of heating conditions and surely contributed to this failure.

Anyway, I have parts on order and they are slated to arrive Tuesday so I will post an update then and give some new photos. Also I have built my cooling coil and will show this as well as give some information on using an inexpensive peltier cooler in this application and it's effectiveness.

http://img391.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img6971vc7.jpg

Edited to add:
Parts delayed should arrive tomorrow (thurs) will post an update when I get it back together.

[marshall]

cool man not really a bad setback you live you learn thats what this is about and so far i have learned nothing but that this thing is way cool

[hurleybt]

I stumbled upon this by reading a radio-controlled helicopter forum... my other hobby :) I've heard of running brushed, electric motors in distilled waterto "break them in", so this concept doesn't come as a huge surprise to me... but never a computer!!!

I'm going to build a new 'puter when DX10 comes out, and I'm definitely interested in dunking it in oil!! I'm very interested in the cooling process mentioned above with a simple pump and some copper tubing. I imagine there's some good OC potential.

I wonder what effect the viscosity of the oil has on the electric motors in the fans. I bet they pull quite a bit more current, and maybe generate a lot more heat themselves.

[akelly999]

Just a note, I bought everything listed in the setup Jon used except I went with the wally world 5 gallon tank for ~$40. That tank doesn't work well with the aluminum mb mount. Its too long by 2+ inches. I suppose you could try mounting it with the mb facing the back of the tank... Also, I tried this for a htpc I have running 24/7. The Hauppauge pvr 150 does not tolerate oil. I lost 3 cards trying to make it work (well, actually circuit city lost out but I digress). hope that helps someone...

[lowrads]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I can't help but wonder if bundling each individual component in its own small OEM sealed tank wouldn't be an awesome idea. Obviously, it'd have to have sealed ports to plug into other equipment, or to add exchangers, or external heatsinks. Not as cool visually, but maybe practical.

Basically, it would take advantage of distributing the heat all over that card, and also allow for the addition of heat sinks with much larger footprints. Mineral oil seems like a decent option, but perhaps there's something with similar properties, but lower viscosity. If exchange ports are an option, some kind of pathing might be needed to ensure even flow across the board. The small volume wouldn't offer you the same specific heat capacity, but you could get around that issue if your exchanger tank itself has a large volume.

Someone owes me lunch if this turns out as a successful business idea.

[Talos]

To user brandontroy:

I saw the images that you attached and it seems that you have built a nice aquarium-pc there. But i have a question : where did you mount the ground cable of the psu, since you removed its metallic enclosure? If i see it right in the image, it is floating in the oil and it is attached to nowhere. That consists a safety issue... See the attached image :

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/4812/img6961li1in6.jpg

[davefp]

I would imagine that the floating ground wire is a non-issue in a case like this. If I remember correctly the ground wire is usually connected to the psu housing in order to ground the case itself and prevent it from becoming 'live' if a current-carrying component inside somehow comes into contact with the case.

Here that problem doesn't exist, as not only is the tank an electrical insulator (Made as it is of plastic) but the mineral oil is by design also an insulator. The only risk is if one were to directly touch a live component while the power was running. Having said that, this risk is also present if you're foolish enough to be poking around in a 'normal' metal case with the power on.

Another related risk is that the capacitors inside the psu are very high voltage. Even when the power is off they can still deliver a very large shock if not properly discharged. I usually use a screwdriver with a plastic handle to short the two pins of the capacitor (discharging it) before going anywhere near them with my hands.

[Robotguy]

I work with underwater electronics and have been submerging electronics in oil of some type (including food grade mineral oil) every day for almost 8 years. We pressurize electronics enclosures with oil so that a leak will not allow water ingress. Here are a few tidbits that I have learned:

1. Mineral oil will react with the PVC jacketing on the wiring, causing it to get stiff and shrink over time. How much time, I don't know since all of our stuff is in oil at several thousand PSI, so it gets absorbed faster. As long as you aren't moving things around that shouldn't be too much of a problem. We have seen problems with PVC jacketed ribbon cable shrinking enough to short conductors together at the IDC connector. If you are worried about it, use Teflon jacketed wire (pricey!).

2. Hot oil will rise. I have personally run a 4kW lighting controller submerged in oil and watched the plume of hot oil rising from the SCRs.

3. We use isopropyl alcohol to clean PCBs that have been submerged in oil.

[illume]

Quick question: Is there some reason why you couldn't submerge the pump in the oil tank too and just have tubes coming out to the radiator? I going to build one of these myself and I would think that might keep things a little quieter...

[PCC-Jon]

Interesting idea! Honestly I'm not entirely sure, but I don't see any reason why it would be a problem. My only concern is that the shaft of the pump might have some fins attached to cool the electric motor, and in the mineral oil those would be high drag. If that's the case, the pump wouldn't work very well, if at all.

[marshall]

that is true they make submergeable pumps for use with those decorotive water fountains so being that theres no problem with electric conduction here i see know problem other than you need one with the muscle to pull the oil and i'm not sure if the magnets on the motor of the pump would effect the mainboard of the pc we need to test this good idea though and i posted the same time as jon he's got a point there to^

[brandontroy]

Hey guys, sorry about the delay!

Just wanted to check in and let everyone know all is well. Also, I wanted to run the system for awhile and make sure no more problems arose. It has been running 100% 24/7 for a couple weeks now and no further problems have come up.

I promise time permitting I will edit this post and give a complete update in the next couple days with pictures and all I have learned. All I can say is this is absolutely awesome and has tremendous OCing potential if the oil can be kept lower than ambient. This is my next step. Right now using my tropical fish tank as a cooling medium I can run faster than I could air cooled but cannot cool the water too much or my fishies would not be too happy. So the plan is to get a dedicated chiller to cool the oil.

I will read up on all the new posts and answer any questions as well. Thanks and keep up the good work everyone. Take care, I will be in touch.

-Brandon


P.S. Just thought to add this...
The biggest problem I have had is pumping the oil. For the current setup, I am using an extra pump I stole from my fish tank so now have two pumps hooked in series and it seems to be sufficient but I would like about 2x the circulation I am currently seeing. The oil return line contains oil the same temp as the cooling medium (fishie water) but the pumps just don't move enough oil to get rid of the heat as fast as it is produced. Right now the oil in the computer runs about 20 degrees above the water temperature which is kept 4-6 degrees below ambient. The pumps are Supreme mag-drive utility pumps Model 5. I believe part of the problem may lie in the fact I think the drug store mineral oil is a fairly heavy viscosity but it is all I have access to at this time.

If anyone has any advice on how I can better move this oil through about 50 feet of 3/8 line I would be forever grateful.

[Jon855]

I had stumbled upon on the page of the oil cooling and needlessly to say I was impressed, in fact so impressed that I'm going to do it but before I do that, I've couple of questions for the team here;

1) U sealed the cpu areas - could u explain it in details as on how this was done?
2) Have you tried to overclock with the oil in it or is the rig running stock only?
3) How do you wire the video connectors? I'm not too sure if I see it clearly on the video.
4) Will you do it again?

I've some idea on how to keep the tempature of the oil well below the ambient tempature, but I'll withhold the exact details for now - I want to be the first one to do this.

The rig to be exposed to the oil:
AMD X2 3800+ @ 2.4
ATi X1900XTX

[mattclary]

When I was in the Air Force we used oil to cool the transmitters (B-1B). The stuff was called "Coolanol" and was a mixture of mineral oil and alcohol. I assume the alcohol was used to thin the oil. The stuff smelled bad, but was pretty thin, and as clear as mineral oil. I don't know if alcohol and mineral oil mix smoothly by default, but it might be worth a try to get a thinner fluid.

We actually had a special cart the size of a large mini-van that would cool and circulate the oil so we could use our systems while the plane was on the ground. The couplings would actually get quite cold. The hoses looked like smallish fire hoses. It was really nasty to connect and disconnect, it was not unusual to take a bath in the stuff. Under pressure, the cart would spray oil just like a fire hose if the connector stuck open. Happened more than any of us liked!

Ahhh, love google...



http://www.exxonmobil.com/lubes/exxonmobil/emal/Coolanol_Silicate_Ester_Dielectric_Heat_Transfer_F luids.html

[Cephas]

I am thinking about attempting this myself but would like to know if anyone knows of a good quiet 115V diaphragm pump as was suggested by Wollu a few pages back that would be compatible in volume of flow (most of the pumps I can find online are way too powerful) and not be susceptible to the mineral oil breaking it down internally. I will probably mate that with a standard automotive oil cooler hidden from view. The pump needs to be nearly silent also. If it was priced low that would be great too!

Is the centrifigul pump used in the article still holding up well?

I still have yet to find much info on people reporting overclocking results on current generation processors. (I plan to try a Q6600 with an 8800GTX) Any links to that would be great.

[SniperFC]

Im looking to do this aswell just like everyone else, the main problem I'm getting is aquiring the Mineral Oil! I live in the UK and I cant for the life of me find anywhere to get the stuff from. I have tried some friends that work on farms, tried searching google the lot nothing anyone have any ideas?

If it comes to it im going to try baby oil, Its apparently Mineral oil with added fragrance, does anyone (who knows more then me) know if this would still work.

Im going to test it with a small PCB kit from an electronics shop. but some advice would be nice!!

This is for my media PC which is just my old part from the last upgrade.

[pswinslow]

Did all the oil in the aquarium reach 88C or just the oil near the heat sources?

[lolinternet/db]

So its been over a few months now, so im wondering if this PC is still in commission , and if is can we get a nother test run of it, also have you guys tried keeping it on all the time since the rad was installed, also... could you please post the specs of what you have in there currently.


Also has anyone ever thought of a Compact type? I know its been stated about flow and pressure etc, but if you have the proper flow of the oil im sure it wont be that bad, and you could probably mock up a dual rad with box fan in the middle of the two.

my only issue would be keeping the back ports dry.

[Real Genius]

Did all the oil in the aquarium reach 88C or just the oil near the heat sources?

That's the big question, isn't it. I await the answer with interest. I strongly suspect that the CPU and GPU run a bit hotter than the surrounding fluid because mineral oil is a much poorer heat conductor compared to water. The CPU has such a big, honking heat sink too with a fan. It would be a worthwhile experiment to disconnect that CPU fan and observe the result.

I wonder if we need special heatsinks for optimal oil cooling. They should have fewer fins and the fins should be further apart. We might need special fans too - designed to be used in oil.

I suspect cooling could be improved by designing better oil circulation into the system too. I would have the pump output feed a plate at the bottom of the aquarium with strategically placed holes in it so the fluid rises uniformly under the areas which need cooling - much like a reverse-flow undergravel filter in a real aquarium.

[Real Genius]

Just a note, I bought everything listed in the setup Jon used except I went with the wally world 5 gallon tank for ~$40. That tank doesn't work well with the aluminum mb mount. Its too long by 2+ inches. I suppose you could try mounting it with the mb facing the back of the tank... Also, I tried this for a htpc I have running 24/7. The Hauppauge pvr 150 does not tolerate oil. I lost 3 cards trying to make it work (well, actually circuit city lost out but I digress). hope that helps someone...

I'm guessing that the oil didn't actually cause any physical damage. The oil has a different dielectric constant than air. The resulting changes in stray capacitance probably made it impossible for the tuner to function properly.

[PCC-Jon]

The system is still running great! We've been wanting to remove the casing from the power supply, so we did that. At the same time, we added some crushed aquarium rocks just to add to the aquarium effect!


Did all the oil in the aquarium reach 88C or just the oil near the heat sources?

The oil does an excellent job of spreading out the heat. When it was 88C, it was 88C everywhere. We couldn't detect a variation of temperature by location at all.


So its been over a few months now, so im wondering if this PC is still in commission. Also... could you please post the specs of what you have in there currently.

Yep, it is still running great. We're running it without a radiator again, and just putting it into standby at night. That's enough to get it down to ambient at night, and it makes it up to about 70C by the end of the work day. We're running a nVidia 650i Ultra motherboard, with a E6600 CPU, 2GB of DDR2-800 memory, and a 250GB SATA hard drive (not in the oil).

The pump was still running just fine, we just wanted to run more time without the radiator to see if temperatures introduce any problems over time. So far, the oil itself has given us no problems, aside from it stiffening up the cables coming out of the machine (power, keybaord, mouse, monitors).

[Real Genius]

The oil does an excellent job of spreading out the heat. When it was 88C, it was 88C everywhere. We couldn't detect a variation of temperature by location at all.


But an earlier report indicated that adding the bubbles increased the GPU temperature while lowering the oil temperature - unless I misunderstood. Please clarify. Was the homogenized temperature only observed at maximum temperature? Did you ever actually have readings of oil temperature (measured with an accurate external thermometer) while simultaneously recording identical temps of the CPU, GPU, mobo chipset - as reported by a PC health utility?

Please understand, I do not mean to imply any dishonesty of any kind here but it's so important to clearly state results in an experiment like this. I don't imagine you set out to perform an experiment under rigorous scientific conditions but guess what: Your experiment has a huge audience and we're all looking to you for accurate information. If this turns out to be a practical way to have a very powerful PC - without it sounding like a Lear Jet is performing it's pre-flight checks in your living room - you may well get credit and publicity for revealing it. And rightfully so. You are the not the first to build one of these things but you're the first who has earned a huge audience - and a strong measure of credibility. Take advantage, dude! Report detailed, accurate information and you may earn a place in history!

[PCC-Jon]

It depends on how you measure. When using a laser temperature probe, we see the same temperatures everywhere. When using hardware sensors on the motherboard and video card, they measure differently, but that's just a calibration issue. There obviously is a temperature gradient, it would be impossible to not have one, but that gradient is small enough to not be measurable by our equipment. A physical probe put down into the liquid might give more accurate results.

[Real Genius]

It depends on how you measure. When using a laser temperature probe, we see the same temperatures everywhere. When using hardware sensors on the motherboard and video card, they measure differently, but that's just a calibration issue. There obviously is a temperature gradient, it would be impossible to not have one, but that gradient is small enough to not be measurable by our equipment. A physical probe put down into the liquid might give more accurate results.

Understood. Like you say, there HAS to be some temperature gradient - those pesky laws of physics demand it. I understand that the hardware sensors on the motherboard and the video card might report different readings because of lack of calibration but the information would be useful nonetheless. Do they at least track the same differences between idle and load? Could you disconnect the CPU fan and see what difference that makes in on-board sensor reports?

You have already made the investment in hardware, webpresence and time that is only practical for someone who has your resources. Why not take the next step and make really meaningful, scientific reports? You could position yourself as a leader in the next phase of PC advancement. Trust me: there are those of us who would love to have the feel like we are really landing a 737 in Flight Simulator without having to endure the same auditory effects when we're surfing the web or checking email.

[lolinternet/db]

thanks for posting the specs, and new pics, been having thoughts on the proc type.

also, can anyone list the types of liquids available at hand?
ie:
mineral oil
vegi oils
ive seen someone use car oil, just wondering if theres anything else,
and things to look out for ... would radiator fluid work? the non 50/50 type, since those dont have water in it.

[Real Genius]

I'm going to pass on building one of these for now but I think I've learned something interesting from this example.

This PC has run stable even at what one would think is dangerously high temperatures. The folks here speculate that this is because of even temperature distribution. My speculation is that it is because of the slow rate of temperature change. Any material can be damaged by a too-rapid temperature change. It's compounded when you have different materials expanding or contracting at different rates. The large thermal mass of the oil prevents rapid temperature changes. Assuming some of the damage in overheating is caused by the rate of temperature increase, this system may allow for safer operation at higher temperatures.

I plan to build as large a reservoir as practical into my next conventional water-cooled build with the aim of lessening thermal shock on the components.

[Valendros]

Well I am now amung the prowd owners of my very own mineral oil case.

http://members.cox.net/valendros/Mineral1.jpg

My work steadily replaces their hardware and had a P4 3.0 2gb ram just sitting around. I figured it would do me very well as a test machine / internet radio listening station. So I slapped it together.


I do have a question though: The power supply Hemorages heat. I can see it bubling up and coming off each component. I'm sure it's not necessarly bad for the PS, but does anybody else's box do this? There are a couple caps that seem to do a lot more than others.


*Edit* It's been on for a few hours, and I've had a couple minor video glitches - I wish I had put the Power Supply on the side with the CPU, not the video now... It hit about 50* C...


*Another Edit* It's been a few days, and I'm still having some minor video glitches, but it could either be heat or just Vista being Vista. Either way it's nothing bad enough for me to care about too much. (It levels out at around 65* under usual Vista stress, takes about 10 hours...)
Things I would do differently:
- First I would take the PSU out of it's case completely, not just take off the cover... and put it over by the CPU. I would have done it before, but aprently I'm afraid of solder.
- Second I would have taken the time to buy a dremel, and cut the bottom of the Mobo tray, make it about an inch shorter. Also I would have cut holes in the top. This way it would have been supported by the top, not resting on the bottom, and cutting the top in about half would let more light shine in and the top fit onto the base instead of resting on the mobo tray.
- Then I would have also done what was in the video - with the plexiglass around the top to prevent splashing.
- I would have taken the time to buy another CPU heat sync - the one that came on the board I have has horizontal fins, that is probably an issue since the heat can't go up - the fans take care of it somewhat but vertical fins would be better.

oh, and I would have put a skull sticker or something on the fan, cause all I see all day is a little dumb logo rotating around at 90 RPM all day.

Anyway, I'm very happy with this rig, and if/when I ever get around to making an extreme gaming / file server for home, I think I'm going to do all those things with a sub-ambient water cooling peltsier setup... or maybe just a good oil cooling setup.

[Runner]

i have been trying to find the same oil that you use, but it is kind of difficult to find the right thing. i would a appreciate if you told me what exact type of oil i need to use. and if any one could help me find that kind of oil in my area, i leave in israel.

[Valendros]

I used the same mineral oil that they show (STE clear mineral oil).

It seems like just any generic pure mineral oil. Really what mineral oil is, is just like baby oil without fragerence.

[Runner]

i was all so wondering if it possible to see the top of the aquarium. do you seal it completely hermetic?

and can you post up the measurement of the aquarium (prefer CM), we don't have that kind of branch in here.

[Runner]

can i use baby oil or paraffin oil?

[illume]

Sorry it's taken so long to post pics of my my oil computer. My system is not actually a computer but a superfast hard drive. Inside my tank is a passive PCI backplane with five i-RAM cards (each loaded with 4 gigs of RAM). A Hiper power supply provides power to the cards.

Five SATA cables comes off of each "hard drive" and merge into a multi-lane connector on top. From there, heavy duty, external multilane SATA cables go into my main workstation connecting to a RAID card. The result is that I get a blazing 20 gig hard drive that I can use for whatever. I mostly use it for tracking and editing HD video clips or as a scratch disk for Photoshop and After Effects.

From previous experience with the i-ram cards I knew this rig would be hot so I'm using the same passive radiator system Puget was using. I wanted to keep everything as quiet as possible so I have the pump submerged in the oil (you can see it near the top). I've had this system running non-stop for about 5 weeks without a single problem.

If you're curious, the computer below it is a liquid cooled 8 CPU (3.0 Ghz Clovertowns) with 8 gigs RAM. These two boxes are quite the pair and they certainly couldn't look any cooler! Thanks to all for your help and great info on putting this together...

[PCC- Builder Dan]

Now that is a great use of mineral-oil cooling. That's really well done.

[marshall]

that's really cool i like the x-files theme

[goodtimenotalongtime]

Taken from the Chemistry Store site link posted here.
http://www.chemistrystore.com/ChemicalMSDS/Mineral%20Oil.pdf

I'm not sure how serious a concern this is but I think I would skip the bubbles for fire safety reasons. This stuff is apparently slightly flammable ie will ignite with a spark. However unlikely it may be, consider that your PSU might fail in such a way that it could either cause a spark or create excessive localized heat on one of its internal components. You would be providing the oxygen needed to complete a state of combustion. I think I would also want the PSU outside anyway since they are one of the more common parts to fail in a system in my experience.

ANYWAY, I read most of the posts and I don't think I've seen this idea yet...
Taking the idea of pumping to a radiator a little further. why not have the cold oil return pointed directly at the CPU as it comes back into the tank? I think you would want the CPU fan blowing down onto the heatsink in the same direction as the flow. This may also help reduce the stress on the fan motor and increase its life. I think it would also provide better agitation of fluid around the capacitors and other components close to the CPU socket being forced positive pressure rather than subtle negative pressure that might leave more "dead pockets" of no flow. You could also have the inlet for the radiator as far from the return as you can for some free circulation.

Just some thoughts :)

[FUS CompSci Club]

Hey, I'm wondering... do you guys recommend any cheaper radiator/pump to use? Preferably from the US?
My club is new so we're rather short on funds...

[FUS CompSci Club]

uhm

[goodtimenotalongtime]

Also, has anyone considered how to dispose of the miner oil when the time comes?

[goodtimenotalongtime]

Possibly found some info about the capacitor/miner oil dissolving thing:

http://www.pupman.com/listarchives/2001/September/msg00068.html
The poster here says that Miner Oil dissolves Polypropylene.

However...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypropylene
this suggest that only specialized high performance capacitors use polypropylene... which in on the inside being used as the dielectric. If you are worried about it you could just seal up the lead ends with some epoxy or something, but I don't think it's a concern.

[maejrep]

I saw someone mention that they had trouble with a TV tuner card in the submerged PC. Has anyone had success with a tuner? What works, what doesn't, what breaks, etc?

I'm interested in knowing how both NTSC and ATSC tuners work out in the mineral oil. An obvious use for a PC like this would be for a HTPC, which usually entails a TV tuner, so I'm curious how it holds up, and if anyone has an explanation as to why it fails if it doesn't work.

Thanks

[JBV]

Great Job, but do you know that Puget is also a French brand of olive oil?
See at www.puget.fr
Amazing for a Mineral Oil Submerged Computer!!!!

[JBV]

Great Job, but do you know that Puget is also a French brand of olive oil?
See at www.puget.fr
Amazing for a Mineral Oil Submerged Computer!!!!

[marshall]

thats kinda cool

[Boo]

I need some input on a system much like the featured system.

Aside from obvious accessibility issues of the submerged computer, the allure of eliminating the hot spots of the traditional air cooled computer is difficult to pass up. I can't help but think that making an air tight, submerged system (with pump and radiator) would be pretty awesome.

What are the pros and cons of submerged vs. water cooled?

[akelly999]

To answer some previous questions.

TV tuner cards (PVR-150 at least) have issues with oil so I would recommend using a usb tuner. Whatever cables you use (IDE, power, etc..) you should be prepared to lose. All of the ones I used have gone rock hard stiff. Mineral oil is the base used in many brands of motor oil so anywhere that deposes of motor oil should be able to handle it (car mechanics, service stations, etc...). Also, you cannot ignite mineral oil at room temperature with a spark. To ignite mineral oil, it would have to be heated to over 200 degrees F. so even a match would not work. I would not worry about any of the electronic parts of a pc igniting mineral oil. The house would already be on fire before the oil will burn. Anywhere that sells horse feed or supplies would have mineral oil. Apparently its used as a laxative. I bought about 6 gallons at Tractor Supply.

Lastly, since many will want to know sooner or later; pure alcohol does a great job of cleaning off mineral oil as well as water and some dish soap. Just give it a few days to dry and no harm done to the pc. So ends my essay...

[jedediah]

Thanks for the info Akelly! I was reading through the whole thread trying to see what could clean the oil off in case a part ever needed to go back. And I know some asked about power buttons. I found this site with the biggest collection to pick from. http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l1/g44/DIYMod_Parts.html I'm going to just order a $5 one. I need nothing fancy.

[GuyFawkes]

Hi Folks, just done this (anyone based in the UK read on for availability of oil etc) and have documented it in my blog, not a plug, but way too much to post here. But will post last entry below.

Blog is hosted at the end of a home cable connection, so limited bandwidth. It's at http://surfbaud.dyndns.org/sites/blog/ in the category "Liquid cooled"

---------------------------------------

I've yet to find something in my life that came out *exactly* as I predicted or hoped, there is always some aspect you didn't quite get or foresee.

This project has been no different.

1/ All hardware has a sort of buffer zone in between what it will work at and what it is able to do, the newer the hardware the bigger the buffer zone.

Everyone is going to be tempted to start immersion oil cooling with old hardware, don't do it, cut straight to new hardware, the (good) reasons are manifold, but most of all immersing things in oil is not going to revitalise a hammered old component and give it a buffer zone like new replacement.

2/ nobody pays much serious attention to the paths of airflow through air cooled cases, and the same is true of oil cooled, stuff is just plonked in a tank where it will fit, this is wrong, flow is vitally important, especially for oil cooled. Doesn't matter is flow is forced by pump or natual by thermosiphon, you *must* have good flow and circulation.

3/ Ultimately all these oil cooled designs are wrong, you need to lay the mobo flat at the bottom of the tank, put the heat sources at the bottom of the tank, and run extension cables for all you I/O and data up to the lid, all these cables will harden with exposure to oil.

4/ if one time is the actual build process, I'd guess most people will have a limit of three times with going into oil to pull / swap components before they give up on the idea, bear this in mind, especially in conjunction with point #1

<strong>Safety warning - an item, such as a PSU, pulled out of oil and allowed to drain, MUST NOT be plugged in again unless immersed, the thin layer of oil covering everything is an excellent insulator of heat from airflow too, I suspect a PSU packs enough punch to let some magic smoke out and even potentially exceed the flash point of the oil.</strong>

5/ I went into this thinking cooling and silencing, I'm coming out of realising that the true domain of the oil immersed computer is lack of maintenance and lack of contamination, if you want something that is built and never touched again for a few years, and / or something that stays utterly free from all airborne contamination, then this is the answer, which is *exactly* what it is used for in industry.

6/ The cooling aspect works, no doubt about that, but by not containing the coolant you pay a price in convenience. It looks fairly cool to if that rocks your boat.

7/ Weight, my fairly minimalist oil cooled computer weighs in at near enough 70 lbs.

8/ Standby issues... unless you pull the plug at the wall the PCI bus is powered up, so even the standby PC is drawing power from the standby PSU, and I'm becoming more convinced that the oil immersed computer needs to lose the ATX PSU entirely and go for a solid state industrial grade DC-DC ATX PSU sited outside the oil, with extension power cables running into the oil.

9/ Qualitat, the more I look at this the more I realise that I did it utterly wrong, the oil immersed computer should be done with very very high quality components, such as item #8 above, in fact many moons ago I was involved in designing a computer system for yachts, here oil cooled would come into it's own, allied with industrial grade hardware, build it, seal it, fit it, forget it.

My own particular usage and one suggested by a mate as a way of cooling and quietening noisy old Compaq servers, nope, can't say it is ideal. For the home user I'd say limit yourself to dropping a (stripped) laptop in an oil bath and using it as a headless server, it will perform excellently and you'll never be wanting to do hardware mods etc.

10/ I've got this nagging feeling in the back of my head that I get when ideas start to coalesce, so I can't put it into words yet, but having done this (extremely worthwhile and not regretted for an instant) experiment I am coming to the conclusion that solutions such as this should be tools in a toolbox, which are used in conjunction with other tools, not a one-tool-fits-everything approach, which is what we have today in computers, you either go bog standard air cooled or you go bog standard water block cooled or you go bog standard phase change cooled, there is no elegant pick and mix of appropriate technologies for appropriate applications, and there are many different applications inside the modern PC.

Summary.

There is a danger that this will come across giving the user the idea that immersed in oil cooling is not an experiment they should undertake, and that it entirely contrary to the opinion I wish to give. It is a very cheap experiment, and if you have read these articles properly you won't make any of the mistakes I made and you won't kill any hardware.

What you will do is learn a lot, about oil and about computers, and at a cost of maybe 50 quid's worth of oil all I can say is the knowledge you gained comes cheap at the price. Reading this WILL NOT give you this knowledge, just a peek / insight into it.

To clean Paraffin based mineral oil off components, use isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol, or simply a bowl full of soapy warm water, then thoroughly rinse with running warm water, then dry immediately in the air stream from a fan heater or similar warm air current... sounds mad, having run a computer in oil it won't.... coffee with sugar is an electrolyte, spill it on a powered up computer and zap, warm soapy water on unplugged components does no damage, provided you rinse well and dry THOROUGHLY before reassembly and powering up again.

This experiment was not a bust, it yielded a ton of useful data, and that doesn't mean you shouldn't repeat it, you should, it will (apart from your own learning) simply add to the knowledge base.

I've built and run MkI and MkII, no point moving on to MkIII because of the accumulated data that needs to be thought out first, MkIII is not going to be a simple progression from MkII, we need to learn from what we have learned.

In the next article I'm going to discuss the pros and cons of the various aspects and methods of cooling. In this way we will arrive at a basic design spec for MkIII.

-------------------------------

cheers

[Super-User]

what do you think of this? Silicone Dot5 Brake Fluid (http://www.clearcoproducts.com/specialty_silicones.html#2)

I think that due to the fact that it is silicone based it will not have a detrimental effect on the
cheaper mobo's caps and should be as corrosive as regular brake fluid as it won't eat paint. Plus it has the viscosity of brake fluid which is pretty flowy. it is non-flamable, non-conductive, boils at 180C which is hotter then any puter in its right mind should be getting.
I just thinking that if I was to build a custom oil cooled pc that this may be the stuff to do it with other then that fact that it's bluebut then again what color is the ocean?

[PCC-Heather]

Hm. I notice it says odorless, but I wonder if it gives off any biproducts as it circulates...I am not sure I'd be comfortable with it unless it was sealed or something.

That's just me, and I'm kind of paranoid because I spent years doing technical support in chemical plants...(if it looks like water, folks, it's not).

[akelly999]

I would avoid using brake fluid as it was designed for things other than cooling. It also has additives that may affect the circuit board material itself. Any kind of transformer cooling fluid would work but mineral oil is cheapest. I suspect that liquid paraffin (used in oil lamps and candles) should work as well and be readily available to anyone. I am still looking at using regular paraffin (white wax that melts at low temp and is nearly a perfect insulator) in a phase change setup. Should work well without the need for a cooling radiator. Kind of like a electronic lava lamp... :rolleyes:

[HKLN]

Merry Christmas to all. Here is my water oil computer (place bottles of water in tank)
http://hklnblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/water-oil-computer.html

I am going to use 3DMark03 to perform the load test because 3DMark06 is too large to download.

I am concerned about the safty of mineral oil (e.g. flammability) after reading this article.
"Vegetable oil based dielectric coolant - Patent 6184459"

[thegreatabbazaba]

hello, i am looking at buying mineral oil online from a vet. would the viscosity be worse than if i went to walmart and bought the mineral oil for people. i ask because i would save a lot of money buy buying from the vet.
here is the link to the vet:
http://www.jeffersequine.com
from there search for mineral oil and pick the one that says "Vet Mineral Oil"

[Ksl177]

what do you think of this? Silicone Dot5 Brake Fluid (http://www.clearcoproducts.com/specialty_silicones.html#2)

I think that due to the fact that it is silicone based it will not have a detrimental effect on the
cheaper mobo's caps and should be as corrosive as regular brake fluid as it won't eat paint. Plus it has the viscosity of brake fluid which is pretty flowy. it is non-flamable, non-conductive, boils at 180C which is hotter then any puter in its right mind should be getting.
I just thinking that if I was to build a custom oil cooled pc that this may be the stuff to do it with other then that fact that it's blue but then again what color is the ocean?

One of the worst fluids you could pick. You'd have to totally seal the system as it's extremely hygromatic (it literally sucks water vapor from the air).

Also I'm not sure why folks are so worried about the caps. Hint: they're filled with dieletrics, hence when they "pop" they go bad. As long as the dielectric you're using for the fluid has about the same properties as the fluid in the caps the absolute worst that will happen is you'll sub one dielectric for the other.

[EFDisaster]

TRAGEDY!!!
no, not really

Mine (http://fashiondisaster.org/2007/07/12/fishtank-computer-needs-a-name/) was running pretty hot (old P4, so not unexpected) but I did purchase a Zalman Reserator 2 (for myself, for the holidays), and I fished out a molex connector for it. Unfortunately, when I tried to power on the system, I got nothing... seems my power supply is shorted or something, possibly I jostled something when fishing out the power lead... now when I hit the power switch, the light (that used to be popping out of the back of the power supply) just blinks and the machine won't post.

Not really looking forward to pulling the thing out of the oil to work on it. I assume that's gonna be pretty messy.

[thegreatabbazaba]

if is true about the stickers falling off from the mineral oil, than would that void all warranties?

[mikefabbri]

First off, I'd like to say this entire project is absolutely amazing and has inspired me to do something similar myself. I do have some questions though; if you don't mind me asking.

What kind of heat sink is that on the CPU?
Was the fan removed from the video card?
What kind of Vid Card is it? (edit: never mind this question, saw the answer in the video.)

There was mention of a v2 of this project, anyway I could convince you guys to divulge some of the improvement ideas that are being tossed around? I can make a mean batch of pancakes. I will mail you guys pancakes in exchange for your secrets.



if is true about the stickers falling off from the mineral oil, than would that void all warranties?
This statement made me laugh for some reason :P

[PCC-Heather]

Mmmm...pancakes.....

[r0o0b0]

Hi- I have a few questions. Pretty much is there any steps that you guys didn`t really state. Like do you have to seal of the CPU some how? Or seal any GPU off or anything. What i`m looking to do. After of course testing the idea with an old POS computer..
Intel core 2 Quad Q6600
Corsair XMS2 Dominator 2GB with ram fan
Evga 8800 GTX Ko Acs3
Asus commando
BFG PhysX Card
OCZ GameXStream 850W
AuzenTech X-FI Prelude

I`m going to use water cooling on the CPU and GPU. I was just wondering if i need to protect anything.. or seal anything of. And will this wear out the computer parts faster than a normal casing?

[GuyFawkes]

This is what everyone (IMHO) does wrong, test the idea with an old POS.

You don't have some unique computer hardware, just because it's new and cost money, that is suddenly going to start reacting with mineral oil.

Old POS hardware has it's own problems, not caused by the mineral oil, but which will be caused by taking things in and out of mineral oil, when you immerse a mobo/cpu/gpu etc you leave it there until it dies, this is the only right way to do it, the only question is whether you accept this now, or insist on making a mess and buggering up perfectly good old POS hardware yourself in order to learn the lesson.

[r0o0b0]

This is what everyone (IMHO) does wrong, test the idea with an old POS.

You don't have some unique computer hardware, just because it's new and cost money, that is suddenly going to start reacting with mineral oil.

Old POS hardware has it's own problems, not caused by the mineral oil, but which will be caused by taking things in and out of mineral oil, when you immerse a mobo/cpu/gpu etc you leave it there until it dies, this is the only right way to do it, the only question is whether you accept this now, or insist on making a mess and buggering up perfectly good old POS hardware yourself in order to learn the lesson.

Pretty much i think the whole thing with the old POS thing is that. Well you know this computer works its never on you never will use it. So you use it for the piece of mind sake of thing. That you know your doing it right, And to test how you want to set everything up and where you wire and place everything. I dont know about you but i dont want to to it the first time with my over clocking and gaming rig setup first time and say opps this setup is bugging the hell of out me i wish i did it this way.. And then try to change it will a sloppy mess.. It mainly for piece of mind and works out the bugs in your setup (the way you set up the tank and what not).

But from what i understand from what your saying is that i can pretty much just dunk the computer in the oil and it will run perfectly fine and everything..Now my main question is, like all gamer we all know by next year were going to have upgrade or build something now and the old computer(now old after a year or 2) becomes the work pc and not the main rig. Will putting the comp in oil will it ruin the parts of the computer lifetime? I more than understand that once i put the computer in., its not coming out.. i`m just trying to understand the long term of things..

Also like i said, before is there anything i need to seal of or is everything safe such as the CPU or GPU to be immersed in oil and operate fine?

[PCC- Builder Dan]

We did a few tests with older hardware before dunking the new stuff - first, just a PSU, with a PSU tester plugged into it, just to make sure it wouldn't blow up. The next test was one of the ancient systems we have sitting around, once again, to make sure nothing blows up. I'm not sure what happened to the old computer, I believe the PSU is the one that's in the fishtank now.

As for sealing, I don't recall seeing anything being sealed, or any sealant being used. I wasn't the one building it, so I'm not positive, but I'm fairly sure it was as-is.

In terms of long-term use, the last time I saw the system was just before Christmas - seven months under the oil. It's been used as an office machine, so it's running a lot of 2-d stuff, and for 8 or more hours a day. So, what the lifetime is like, I don't know - it's certainly a while, at least.

Oh - you've probably heard this before, but don't submerge the hard drive. They have air holes that will let oil into the drive itself, and that'll do all kinds of nasty things to the drive.

[PCC-Jon]

Yep, that's right. The old hardware is still being used, as an air cooled machine. We didn't really do a good job cleaning it, so you definitely don't want to touch it :) We set out to seal the CPU to the socket, but in the end I'm comfortable saying that what we did was the equivalent of nothing! It was at best a 50% seal, and after so much time, I'm confident the CPU socket is entirely full of oil

[Dain]

Just signed up to get in on some of this.

First off all, THIS IS AMAZING! Someone posted your video on a forum I am on. I am really into aquariums and was actually about to start building my CPU when I came across this. I have had it built for about 5 months now and its just been sitting until I could get a monitor and such. Not to mention I hate that the oil is so expensive haha

My main question. Lighting. What are you doing for lighting? When I built mine I did what I needed so that I could retain the lighting in the hood of the tank. I like having the option to turn it on/off from the original button. Thing is...its white and I would like it blue. Been thinking I will just get a blue 12" cold cathode, leave the ballast in (?) and hardwire the cathode in. Would it work?


Just testing it out without the oil and loading XP onto it

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y128/talon4show/DSCF1546.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y128/talon4show/DSCF1545.jpg

[gravisrs]

Hi there.

I'd like to post some conclusions about making my first Oil Submerged mod.

1. Never put into oil your just-installed new CPU. The CPU heat conductive paste will be rinsed out quite fast (especially in hot oil).

Make sure that you will use silicon based paste (better way) or thermal conductive stickers (same as on GPU MEMs). Leave installed cpu for a few days to make sure that paste gets dry.

2. I used glass aquarium - made to order and it works perfectly. Even hot oil have no efect on aquarium sillicon welds. So glass aquarium is better because you can order custom sized and it is harder to scratch than acrylic one.

3. I sinked Sapphire Radeon HD 3870, 4GB OCZ Platinum (with normal radiators), Athlon XP2 5200+, M2N-E Asus MoBo and 500W Chieftec feeder (I didn't sinked HDD nor DVD/R. ). All I can say it gets hot really fast, 2 hours to 75 Celcius so when you plan to use brand-new-fast-heating parts you gotta make a cooling system that takes hot oil from tank and put it through some WC-like radiator.

4. I made additional cooling system that contains: oil pump and radiator with two 12cm fans.
This allow me to OC MoBo, RAM, CPU and GPU about 30-50% (!) while keeping temperature about 45-50 Celcius.

5. CCFL's (cold cathodes) looks very nice even putted in oil (I didn't sinked CCFL wires - those have 2000V voltage as I know)

6. Buy any connectors that your MoBo has (all USB, all SATA etc..) to take them out of aquarium. It will avoid future diving in oil to connect new HDD or USB gadget. (use sth like this http://abitech.pl/sqlimg/towar/d/9/1005327.jpg)


So oil submerging is IMHO the best option for both, modders and overclockers:

- quite cheap compared to WC (which costs very much if want to set WC blocks on GPU's MEM, chipset, RAM etc..)
- with aquarium gadgets (bubbels, LCD thermometer, glass stones, shipwrecks ;) etc..) looks really cool
- more effective than WC
- allmost no need to carry on (no algas, no water leaks on PC parts)

Disadvantages:
- probably noone want buy your PC parts in future (w/o warranty and greasy) - but will surely buy whole case.. I mean aquarium ;)
- getting large quantities of mineral oil is hard to find... and quite expensive.
- your PC will be really immobiled (20kg's)


PS. Hope you understand my english ;)

[gravisrs]

Oh - you've probably heard this before, but don't submerge the hard drive. They have air holes that will let oil into the drive itself, and that'll do all kinds of nasty things to the drive.

Those air holes are sealed with kind of aluminium foil, but the oil (especially under pressure) will probably get inside anyway (foil will be teared or just unstick).

Anyway I guess noone want to test it.

[biggdogg53]

My name is Jason and I currently in an IT program. My group is looking to build your oil cooled pc. I just had a few queries about your pc. As I'm watching the video I noticed that there are 2 lines drawn on the front of the plexiglass piece. I was wondering what the significance of both lines were. Also what was your procedure in taking the case off of the power supply? We are interested in having ours look this way and was wondering if there were any electrical concerns durning this procedure. Now with your processor, we've noticed the shroud over the top of it and the two(?) fans mounted below this. Is there any significance to this or is this how it came from the factory? Thanks for your input. We are looking forward to building this rig. Pretty much drooling at the mouth to do this. If you'd like to see some pics, I'd surely be glad to send some. Thanks for your time. Jason

[PCC- Builder Dan]

Those air holes are sealed with kind of aluminium foil, but the oil (especially under pressure) will probably get inside anyway (foil will be teared or just unstick).

Anyway I guess noone want to test it.

It's not really worth risking, in my opinion. There's plenty of space under the lid of the tank to put the hard drive up there.

@ BiggDogg:

If I recall correctly, those two lines were markers for where to put the cutout for the motherboard tray.

Pulling the case off a PSU isn't too hard, as long as you're careful about how you do it. The capacitors in PSUs are usually rated at a farad or two - more than enough power to do some serious damage if you short something with your body. I would recommend leaving the PSU the way it is. If you do pull it open, handle the circuit board only by the heatsink.

The thing over the CPU is the CPU cooler. We used one of our Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 (http://www.pugetsystems.com/part_info.php?part=4119) coolers, it's run just fine under the oil without any modification. Pretty much any air cooling heatsink should work fine in oil.

[id8839]

Hi i would love to build something like this, you've posted the materials but do you have any clearer direction on how to build this i would love that

[jace26]

Sweet Project, I'm in the process of building my own and want some advice. Anyone have any ideas about the STE oil versus Vet oil? Here's a link to some mineral oil for sale by a vet supplier and it's a lot cheaper than STE:
http://www.jefferslivestock.com/ssc/product.asp?CID=2&pf_id=11738

I guess my biggest concern is viscosity, how much of a difference could there be?:confused:

[Sunshine813]

we have some questions regarding the project....i have an 8th grade daughter who just completed the project and now has to do the research end....she needs to know why this works with mineral oil and not water or another liquid? this may be obvious to you, but not to us! is there a place to find information regarding why this works?? any help is appreciated.....

[drunkinbda]

sunshine..

it basically comes down to the makeup of the liquid.

Electricity is basically electrons moving. When people think of "water", they generally think of tap water and such. This water has impurities dissolved in it which effectively add electrons available to the solution. If there is any circuit in the water, these electrons will move and the water will be conducting electricity, which for a computer would create a short circuit and a fried computer.

Take these electrons away, and you have no conductivity, or electricity to short circuit things. My understanding of the oil isn't top notch but this is what i believe it happening. It does not conduct electricity because there are no free electrons to move about. If it doesnt conduct electricity, then it has basically the same properties as air (which as we know is good to go for computers).

Distilled water (no impurities) will do the same thing, but its very easy to make it impure water (dust, salts, anything) so not the best idea. Plus it evaporates easily.

Hope that makes sense and is in depth enough. I couldn't find any links other than complicated studies and stuff.

[Sunshine813]

thanks for your help - makes sense - if anyone else has anything to add, please do :)

[Ridoo]

Hey, I'm interested in fate of old hard-drive that you submerged to oil for test. How it looks? Could we put our HDD to oil?? ..I didn't see it here so I'm asking

[jace26]

Hey Puget, did y'all use thermal paste, a thermal pad, or an epoxy? Several people said in the forum that the thermal paste would dissolve in the oil leaving as gap between the proccessor and the heratsink, but I can;t find any thermal pads online big enough to cover a CPU, most of them are made for GPU's and GPU RAM and such. And I'm not exactly sure I'd like to Epoxy my heatsink on!

[killacrack]

Hi everyone ! My name is Eli and im new to ALL of this submerging stuff . I have a few questions as I am building my own submerged setup. Im building a custom tank out of plexi and im putting a pretty high-end system into it :8800GTS,E6300 . Im still in shock that this whole idea even works. Im pretty nervous about dumping this much money into mineral oil. :stars Is it 100% safe ? What is the deal about sealing the cpu block, do it or not ? Do cold cathodes work in oil ? What overclocking capabilities are there and if you mess up how do you reset the cmos ? How do you tell if the rocks on the bottom of the tank are conductive?How long does the setup last and how hard is it to upgrade in the oil , how ? I am really worried about submerging my computer in oil but it looks way to awesome to pass up !:stars

[jace26]

What is the deal about sealing the cpu block, do it or not ? Do cold cathodes work in oil ? What overclocking capabilities are there and if you mess up how do you reset the cmos ? How do you tell if the rocks on the bottom of the tank are conductive?How long does the setup last and how hard is it to upgrade in the oil , how ? I am really worried about submerging my computer in oil but it looks way to awesome to pass up !

You can tell if the rocks are conductive if you have Digital Multimeter (DMM). Use the resistance setting to see if the rocks have a high resistance. You can pick up a DMM at an auto parts store, or probably at Walmart...

If you can seal the CPU block I'd do it, but its probably not essential since Puget says their system doesn't have a good seal, and its still running.

It could be difficult to do some upgrading, but adding a pci card and other minor stuff should be easy enough. Changing power supplies, or wose yet a motherboard, would suck though.

[MorgusKane]

So, I've been looking around at doing something different for my next rig, and I'm really thinking this little project is going to be it. Just so I have a full idea of the directions I'm contemplating taking this in, I DID have some questions I was hoping someone had already tried, in order to leave less time spent tinkering and adjusting on my end. Value the experience of your elders and all :)

1 - Did anything ever come from that experiment of submerging a hard disk? I know it was mentioned that it would eventually be tested, but I didn't notice any concrete "We did this and X" responses in the thread.

2 - Would using a Solid State drive have any impact? As I understand it, they have no parts that move, and therefor would be immune to the unbalancing of the platters that theoretically would plague a standard hard disk, correct? (Expensive, but I want to cover all the bases)

3 - Have any been built that did not attempt to seal the CPU at all? While I understand the sealing job on the Puget system is admitted to being a bad seal, there's still the possibility that it actually is sealed. I was just curious as to whether or not it's been undeniably done, especially with any chip put out in the last year and a half, or so.

4 - What was done with the thermal paste dissolving out from around the chip and heat sink? Are thermal transfer pads the only alternative? Has anyone tried any other type medium, or no medium at all *shudder*, between the heat sink and chip with sustained success?

5 - Anyone thought about just throwing the whole rig into a small mini fridge yet? Wouldn't necessarily have to be set to freezing cold, so as to prevent thickening, but anyone contemplated this just for laughs? ("Hey, Jimmy, get me a cold one from the fridge." "DUDE WHAT IS A COMPUTER DOING IN HERE?")

By the way, First time poster, loving the resources.

[GuyFawkes]

So, I've been looking around at doing something different for my next rig, and I'm really thinking this little project is going to be it. Just so I have a full idea of the directions I'm contemplating taking this in, I DID have some questions I was hoping someone had already tried, in order to leave less time spent tinkering and adjusting on my end. Value the experience of your elders and all :)

1 - Did anything ever come from that experiment of submerging a hard disk? I know it was mentioned that it would eventually be tested, but I didn't notice any concrete "We did this and X" responses in the thread.



Yes, I tried that (link to my blog about this in a previous post if you're interested) not submerging directly but putting the disks in ziplok bags then immersing the bags.

For both cooling and silencing it was awesome.

However, over a period of 48 hours the paraffin oil wicked up the internal braiding of the SATA cables, coming out at the connector on the HD, and then gravity took over, it seeped into the ziplok back and one disk died as a result.

The PATA cables did not wick oil, only the SATA ones, so it is down to internal cable structure whether you get wicking or not

HTH etc

[terminator]

Before anyone else, rushes 'lemming' like, to blithely toss a Grand or mores worth,
of high-end hardware into the 'chip-pan', it would be nice to see a DEFINATIVE assurance, from either: Builder-Dan or Builder Jon etc. that hardware thus immersed, will still be capable of being upgraded, or even reverted to 'normal' operation, afterwards.

So for all of you thinking of trying it, may I point out that thus far, they have been somewhat reticent, about answering this subject.
I initially e-mailed them, regarding my concerns on 18/2/08, and have had no reply.
So here is my original letter :

Mineral oil, is a bad conductor of electricity. RIGHT ?
OK, You've just tossed in your shiny new kit, what happens next ?
Well, before you know it, you want to upgrade. OR something screws up, and has to be replaced. So OUT comes your m/b from the oil, and you unplug your 'old' component, (let's say your Graphics Card, for the sake of argument), but SUDDENLY, (before ever you can slot your NEW one in), your inaccessable (and impossible to clean) m/b graphics card contacts are coated with a 'lovely' coat of NON-Conductive Oil ! :eek:
You catchin' my drift here ?

Of course, if: 'I'm barking up the wrong tree', here, 'I'll eat humble pie' !
But I would suggest anyone considering 'annointing' their pride and joy, do a double-think !

See:
http://m3.bestpicever.com/piles/?s=fryingcomputer
Note: They've only tossed in a ratty old Pentium II
(And spare a thought, for all those poor constipated horses.
They need the mineral oil, a heck of a lot more than you do ! ) LOL

Cheers y'all
terminator ;)

[jace26]

So, I've been looking around at doing something different for my next rig, and I'm really thinking this little project is going to be it. Just so I have a full idea of the directions I'm contemplating taking this in, I DID have some questions I was hoping someone had already tried, in order to leave less time spent tinkering and adjusting on my end. Value the experience of your elders and all :)

1 - Did anything ever come from that experiment of submerging a hard disk? I know it was mentioned that it would eventually be tested, but I didn't notice any concrete "We did this and X" responses in the thread.

2 - Would using a Solid State drive have any impact? As I understand it, they have no parts that move, and therefor would be immune to the unbalancing of the platters that theoretically would plague a standard hard disk, correct? (Expensive, but I want to cover all the bases)

3 - Have any been built that did not attempt to seal the CPU at all? While I understand the sealing job on the Puget system is admitted to being a bad seal, there's still the possibility that it actually is sealed. I was just curious as to whether or not it's been undeniably done, especially with any chip put out in the last year and a half, or so.

4 - What was done with the thermal paste dissolving out from around the chip and heat sink? Are thermal transfer pads the only alternative? Has anyone tried any other type medium, or no medium at all *shudder*, between the heat sink and chip with sustained success?

5 - Anyone thought about just throwing the whole rig into a small mini fridge yet? Wouldn't necessarily have to be set to freezing cold, so as to prevent thickening, but anyone contemplated this just for laughs? ("Hey, Jimmy, get me a cold one from the fridge." "DUDE WHAT IS A COMPUTER DOING IN HERE?")

By the way, First time poster, loving the resources.

I've also got questions concerining the use of a thermal pad, but no one's answered me yet...

Mini fridge won't work too well. The fridge would have to work more than its designed foro inorder to keep it cool. A fridge is designed to keep cool things cool and occasionally cool down warm things, but not cool down hot things constantly. The fridge would breakdown fairly quickly. But, there are specially desinged cooling systems for pcs that use an air conditioning type system to cool a case, you could also convert a window ac to cool a case, but there are alot of issues. if you want to go that route check out some stuff elsewhere on the web.

[PCC- Builder Dan]

Before anyone else, rushes 'lemming' like, to blithely toss a Grand or mores worth,
of high-end hardware into the 'chip-pan', it would be nice to see a DEFINATIVE assurance, from either: Builder-Dan or Builder Jon etc. that hardware thus immersed, will still be capable of being upgraded, or even reverted to 'normal' operation, afterwards.
I'm sorry, but I really can't be definite at all when it comes to that - you are, effectively, coating all the boards in a layer of oil that's thick enough it won't flow off, and won't evaporate in any reasonable timespan. Upgrading the system is quite simple - pull the hardware out, put the new hardware in. The oil is thin enough that the contacts inside the slots will make contact just fine - they're spring loaded to ensure a good contact.

The real problem is getting boards clean after you remove them from the oil. Rubbing alcohol should work (in theory), but you're going to need a lot of it. Leaving oil on components is fine, it's just messy.

Jace is right concerning mini-fridges. They simply aren't designed for the continuous energy throughput that you'd need to keep a PC cold.

[terminator]

Munch, Munch, Chomp, Chomp ! Whassat you say ? I'm sorry I was busy eating this 'ere pie ! :rofl

Cheers for that Dan ! I'm sure a lot of guys will feel a lot easier, knowing it won't affect the contacts, and that upgrades and replacements are possible.

All the best
terminator :)

[DDW]

Hello,
I'm new to the boards here but thought I would share some of my experiences. We here at work have built a mineral oil computer after looking at different ways to keep computers cool. We run a marina and use the computer out on a pier to sell gas. As you can imagine it gets not only very hot in a closed kiosk but the humidity was rusting the components (we had some computers go down after capacitor failure) So after looking at the success here we stripped the old computer down and put it into a Rubbermaid Latchables container with the oil. The motherboard sits suspended from a slot cut into the plastic top and the plastic container means little chance of leaking as it's all one piece and flexible (and cheap!). I have been able to pull up the top and suspend the board to do work on it and clean up the wiring, etc. with no problems other than greasy hands. We use one of those stick-on temperature strips to monitor it and it's been running great at about 90F. Weve had it going for about 3 weeks now and are looking forward to having less issues with heat and humidity this summer. The stickers on the RAM, etc still have not come off yet either. I've read here and other places of the temps getting up to 145F or so without problems so we hope this will work out okay, no complaints so far, it's very quiet as well. I'll try to remember to post updates this summer to let y'all know how it handles the heat.

[dada]

PCC-Jon Are you start building "version two" yet ?

[Bryan]

im building a new pc.. all the best of the best you can get right now..

spending about 6k on it..

thinking of deepfrying it just for the hell of it but im an overclocker and liquid cooling is really expencive what do you all think of throwing 6 grand in oil?

im thinking go for it cuz most of the shit has lifetime warranty..

+ i would be adding a rad and fans

[jace26]

Yeah, someone from puget please resond, what did you use between the heat sink and cpu? I'm waiting to finish my build based on what y'all say!

[PCC-Jon]

PCC-Jon Are you start building "version two" yet ?

Yep, but I'm just in the early stages -- materials gathering.

[PCC-Jon]

Yeah, someone from puget please resond, what did you use between the heat sink and cpu? I'm waiting to finish my build based on what y'all say!

Just standard Arctic Silver thermal compound. Go light on the coat, you don't want excess floating around!

[dada]

Yep, but I'm just in the early stages -- materials gathering.

Cool, couldn't wait to. :D

[jace26]

Just standard Arctic Silver thermal compound. Go light on the coat, you don't want excess floating around!

Thanks PCC-Jon, can't wait to see version 2, I hope version 1 is still operating smoothly?

[Locke]

Jon,

You mentioned earlier on in the article about silicon sealant surrounding the processor. Could you elaborate more on this subject? From what I understand, the capacitance of the oil interferes with the processor and can cause crashes, however I know you said you believed that sealing the processor was not necessary.

Also, I'd like to do this in an Intel build (I love AMD, but Q6600 stole my heart away), and the motherboards have completely different setups for the processors.

For an AMD setup, do you think the system crashes occurred simply because oil was seeping into the holes for the processor pins, and eliminating conductivity? If this is the case, then I assume an Intel board wouldn't suffer from this problem, although I'm sure it's bound to have issues of it's own.

I am more of a visual learner, and while I think I have an understanding of where the silicon was applied, I would love if I could see a diagram of sorts pointing this out.

I am also in the process of gathering materials, and I cannot wait to start preliminary tests on submersion, and the cooling rig I will be attempting.

Thanks again for a job well done, you guys are an inspiration to us all.

-Locke

[Locke]

Thank you. Your response was both polite and informative.

[astewart999]

Gathering components for a submersible computer; going to try with the new AMD Phenom processor, Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H Mobo, 4 GB. In addition to taking off the power supply cover, I would like to sink a 17” LCD monitor into the tank and display an aquarium screen saver. Anyone have any thoughts on if this will work? and anyone know where I can get a really short video cable,maybe 18”?

[PCC- Builder Dan]

That is an amazing idea. I don't think you'll have any problems, as we've dunked both higher power draw components (power supplies) and higher voltage components (fluorescent lights). The one thing that you should note is that most LCD screens are passively cooled, and thus need to be completely submerged to cool properly.

Good luck!

[astewart999]

Trying to decide a keyboard and mouse, any suggestions on IR or Blutooth or something better? Goal is few cables as possible!

On the 17" LCD, just received a HP-L1710 from NEWEGG and have pulled it apart, too wide by 3/8" for the back of the tank, may have to put it in the front. I have taken the unit apart and opened the glass face with the pixel mesh running through it, but suspect I have to leave it matted against its 1/2 thick backing as the backing has a glossy surface which may be the actual light source. Anyone ever break one of these down to the basics? I'm close already, just don't want to ruin it before turning it on.

Thanks