Mineral Oil Submerged PC

The following link is a tutorial on how to submerge a PC in an aquarium filled with mineral oil. The results were quite astounding considering the computer being used is a server for UT2004 and CS:S. It runs at 120 degrees F and is completely DEAD SILENT. This is a fun project, and is most likely best if you use slightly older or spare parts. If you enjoy the article/video, digg it!

The 1337 Fleet Mineral Oil PC

Step 1 Gathering the Materials

Alright, so after watching this video you must be thinking either one of two things. 1. Wow, that's really cool! -or- 2. I mean, damn, his typing is so freakin' slow! Explanation: My video capture slowed it down a bit, no idea why. Moving right along, since this is so amazing, let's first go over a few things with pretty pictures. Here are the required materials, (or the things that we just used).

Materials:

• 5 gallon aquarium
• 1 piece of justly fit plexi-glass
• All standard PC components
• Hacksaw
• Hot glue gun
• A lot of minutes on your cellphone (I'll explain why later)
• 5 gallons of mineral oil (or 40 pints, which is more common to find)

Comments

[absolutekold]

one of these days I'm going to get a dozen or so motherboards and make a frame to support them and drop the whole thing into a shiny metal trash can with mineral oil . tie it to a heavy duty 2wheel dolly and have a portable compute cluster to act as a brain for lan parties. Been planning the super-computer-trash-can for a while just as soon as i am not poor anymore..

[mrdudej]

I don't understand how the parts still function?

[asoo1]

u can try it with destilled water too . but add a littel salt and ur computer is done.

[Rhamkota]

The distilled water will corrode the metal. As the oil will not

[Tux0r]

They still function because mineral oil is non-conductive.

[naufanmaker]

crazy! sparling fire burn it all

[Fridge Gnome]

Would this work on a xbox? or would it get to hot since xbox 360s seem to be pretty sensitive.

[ArkAngel762]

Sure would. Just make sure you run a USB hub and the power adaptor/video plug to a dry place so you can hook it up and unplug it.

[ArkAngel762]

Bad idea, leaving the power inverter in the oil. That's where a lot of the heat comes from, which will just add to the heat in the rest of the tank.

[theuke]

good idea for an upgrade ssd inside no little airhole

[Nyxius]

I was going to suggest the same thing.

[jb8350i]

I herd of a dude who did this kinda thing a few years back, only he did it with a medium sized fish tank, split the tank 50/50 front to rear with a piece of plexiglass caulked (or cemented?) into the tank. The front portion was filled with H20 and fish, with some rocks and stuff, then the rear was filled with the mineral oil, amd some more rocks/fake plants, just like the front.

The plexi disappears with the two clear liquids on ether side, and looks like your gear is all in the take with the fishes.

Even cooler would be to add a bubble bar or whatever those are called to spew bubbles up overtop of the mobo. I've been wanting to make one of these for awhile now.

[T_T_]

the hard drive can also be submerged all hard drives are air/water tight

[wethecom]

nope they have air filters in on them ive torn may apart and i havent seen one without a small cloth patch acting as a filter

[cbatchelor]

The platters are sealed against dust ad other things. If they had air filters then particles could get between the read/write heads and the platter. If you saw a paper or cloth patch, it was most likely being used to protect the circuit board from the HDD casing.

[T_T_]

I have taken apart a lot of hard drives too. about 3 didn't have holes, although they were really old. about 128mb

[jangoachayan]

Not really. The drives have a breathing hole to equalize pressure. Oil might not get it mut then not recomended

[bben46]

Hard drives have a tiny hole to allow for air pressure equalization so it will allow oil in. The oil will slow the drive down enough to cause problems. A Solid state HD should work though. Here is a link to one that has been in operation for several years with a large forum on it. Lots of good info. http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php

[rcisneros]

Thanks for the link. I have about a dozen computers in boxes, drawers, in furniture, I never thought of this and the puget people make me want to try this.

[T_T_]

there are some hard drives that don't have holes but I think all the new ones have holes

[windowsnerd]

In an old hard drive I opened there was a small piece of cloth inside that was near the disk. When the disk would spin, it almost looked like it would suck in some air, so the oil would have not been a good idea for that one.

[kittenlover666]

Is it ok if I Incorporate this into my own design, crediting you of course.

[The Old Fart]

As for protecting connections, you can coat all wires with Plasti-dip. it is solvent proof and comes in different colors. You can now design your own colors on their website. I have been using it on my tools for over 15 years and it has been in all sorts of solvents and still going strong.

[flame boyyyy]

Nice username...lol

[weazle]

I did this with a ten gallon tank, a twin fan Thermaltake radiator(cooler) with a Thermaltake750 pump. Running a AMD 955 Black Edition Quad-Core CPU with all four cores overclocked to 3.95GHZ! I installed a Digital Water Temp Gauge to monitor the temp of the oil - at idle it is around 95-96 degrees F. While playing WoW - 102-106. The Video card is a Radeon 9650HD 1GB card which normally runs very hot (60-90 degrees Centigrade have been reported with it running fine) runs at 44 degrees... OVERCLOCKED ~25%!!! Put a strip of blue LED's along the top pointing down into the tank for a very cool nighttime effect! Here's some pics for Facebook members: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=22090&id=1817906041&ref=pb

[mrobertson1]

I looked at the photos of your project and it looks amazing, i was thinking that it would look cool with leds, and i envy the beverage cooler.

[weazle]

Sorry - misprint - the video card is the Radeon 9800HD Crossfire card... I recently switched from an NVidia card and confussed the two!

[IncrediblyCondensedBlackMatter]

add an aquarium pump that pipes the oil through some tubes or pipes to radiate the heat into the air, or else the oil will overheat and degrade quicker. if i do this, i think i'll get a few peltiers and run tubes over them, or through some sub-room-temp cooling system. keep the oil cool enough, and you can do some pretty badass overclocking

[ryanlg]

Uh, how does this not short out your computer? Aren't liquids bad for computers?

[StickStoneBone]

No... all liquids aren't bad for your computer. Only liquids that allow the electricity to conduct. Mineral Oil does not.

[binglebeebop]

How about the fan, i'm thinking the viscosity of the oil may shorten the life of the fan dramatically, does it?

[StickStoneBone]

What about the fan? You're not cooling the computer with air, you're cooling it with oil. Remove the fan. Some prefer to leave it in to assist in 'circulating' the oil, which isn't necessary.

[binglebeebop]

OK then, but if one were to place a fan in to aid the circulation, would the fan burn up quicker with the viscosity of the oil?

[StickStoneBone]

1. Oil circulation is not necessary.
2. As oil is thicker than air, the fan will indubitably burn out quicker.
3. The fan is unnecessary, as the oil is doing the fans job better.
4.Go ahead and use fans if you want, but.... why? Unnecessary.

[binglebeebop]

convection that occurs within the tank works efficiently, got it. :)

[privera2]

Walshlg is totally right, at first I thought you had some external heat sinking device, something that would circulate the oil outside and cool it. The difference if compared to a normal computer could be that the heat coming from the hottest components(processor, GPU, source, HD, etc.) will be transferred equally throughout the tank, since oil is a lot more capable of transferring heat. This could slow down the dangerous heating of the main components, but in the end it will all reach a dangerous temperature. I think your final product is very nice and economic, but I would definitely add something for cooling.

[onemoroni1]

Most interesting. The submersion of electrical components in oil for spark suppression is and old method from the relay logic days (not so in you application). I know you sealed yours, but it would be interesting to add an aquarium pump to add bubbles in the oil for effect.

[walshlg]

May I remind you of some basic thermodynamics: You seem to be using the oil as a heat sump. THat's fine if you understand that the heat must go somewhere or it will just keep heating up! So eventually, the heat consumed will equal the heat radiated through the walls of the aquarium. The aquarium is not a very good way of dissipating heat! So it will get very hot, the question now becomes how hot?

The next point is that mineral oil is a very good solvent of organics, like wiring, glue that holds labels onto the powersupply, plastic connectors that the wiring plugs into, wiring insulation.

In summary, this approach will probably not last long. If you want to cool your computer really well then check out the DangerDen forum and learn how to water cool, its most excellent and your machine is guaranteed to weigh less than 80 pounds!

[fostersfriend]

He's did not weigh eighty pounds more like 25

[_Scratch_]

You could probably run the hot mineral oil through a heater core or radiator with some fans, and that would act like a whole computer water cooling system