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Step 6Final Thoughts
As of now, it seems to be functioning alright, but keep a couple of things in mind; velcro, as I have found out, does not hold down case fans too well. The one black fan as shown in the images and video started to fall over, but luckily was caught by the other case fan's cord. Phew! One other thing is that the case feels quite hot! Maybe it is because our summers here are pretty warm and humid. I guess certainly no hotter than it was prior in the cirulating air environment. I will certainly keep you posted in the forums about how long this piece of machinery is lasting. I am hoping that if it survives the summer, than it has passed the hardest test on any computer. And by the by, this is one of the heaviest PC's you will ever carry. Since mineral oil is 64 oz. per gallon, and there are 5 gallons plus the weight of the PSU, etc. it should be around 25 pounds. In terms of noise, it would be COMPLETELY silent, if there was no hard drive. Since the hdd is 9 years old, it was not built for silence+performance. Hope you enjoyed this somewhat of a loose tutorial, enjoy the pics and video, and try this on your own if you have computer parts to spare!
Here are some finished product pics.
Here are some finished product pics.
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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.
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!
http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php
They have a very nice Frequently raised questions section that explains all of this.
Just make sure that the power is off while washing it and then let it dry all the way.
I also have washed many electrical items with my water hose inside-out without any problems after letting it dry.
If you don't understand thermodynamics it's easy to assume that because the liquid is warm, then the computer is warm. The fact is, if the oil gets hot, it is absorbing a lot of heat from the computer. If you reached in and touched part of the computer (don't) you'd feel that it is cooler than the surrounding oil.
The oil is somewhat of a drag on the fans, but its also a lubricant and often the fans perform better than before.
Real distilled water actually would work, but you'd need to place both ends of a coper or zinc wire into the water to keep it from oxidizing (yes water can oxidize in a non sterile environment, i.e. stuff in the water like mobos).
You'd have to change out the wire a lot. Or alternately place two large copper/zinc panels and each end, attached by a wire.
(Am I being ignorant in asking these questions?)
At each end of the hoses place some fans.
Have one hose blow into the case from the reservoir and the other blow out of the case.
This way the oil flows and has a chance to cool off in the reservoir, which helps with heat in hotter systems. Using this technique you can Overclock Everything without heat damage.