Mineral Oil Submerged PC

Step 6: Final 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.

Comments

[alexs556]

btw for the guy who made this saying its very hot thats just because it has almost no way of dispersing the heat

[Fridge Gnome]

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

[alexs556]

it would probaly work with an xbox btw maybe i will do that after i finnish my computer build but it will work but i suggest a radiator to disperse the heat or you can buy a prebuilt case from http://www.pugetsystems.com/aquarium-computer.php it also has a radiator connected to it to disperse the heat

[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.

[mrdudej]

I don't understand how the parts still function?

[alexs556]

all the parts still function because mineral oil does not conduct electricity it is also a good idea just because mineral conducts heat slower than air but you need something like a radiator connected to it to disperse the heat because oil is harder to move around than in air.

[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

[bigz3012]

the water would ruin the computer

[Tux0r]

They still function because mineral oil is non-conductive.

[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.

[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!

[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

[II AlphanovA II]

I really enjoyed this and I think i will do this with my old computer. i had one question though.. I could put a solid state drive in the oil without it getting destroyed, correct?

[jcartaya94]

luckly yes you can, good luck

[egal]

thats cool man...great idea

[hairyyy0]

For all those questioning the theory.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php
They have a very nice Frequently raised questions section that explains all of this.

[shortw]

Oil is a bad media to exchange heat, oil is slow to absorb heat and slow to give up heat. You have a fancy fish tank made from Plexiglas, that is not good either. Plexiglas is a insulator and will not give up heat very well. A glass fish tank would be a lot better. You are lucky you did not burn your motherboard or power supply up yet, because of running your fans in oil. More drag or resistance on fan's= higher amps, higher amps = bad for motherboard or power supply. Keep all wires above fish tank, I have seen fluids run inside along wires between copper and insulation and making a big mess. Oil have different effect on wires and it depends of the material the wires are made of. I have seen insulation of wires swell up and also I have seen it harden up and crack..... Don't call me crazy...but, have you tried to use '' real '' distilled water instead of oil? Not the one you buy at the grocery store which by the way is just filtered water and still has traces of minerals and metal. Real distilled water will not conduct electricity .

[Ghost Wolf]

Your carzy

[trn2la]

not yet saying I agree, but higher amps = more temp too. Also I had no idea (i should have) that 'Real" distilled water does not conduct electricity. I assume that's coz salts and electrolytes and such are removed and they were the conductors in the water? I guess the question is, what is it in water that makes it conduct? :P Still great for getting the idea off the ground. I'm not so sure these fellas where looking for a method of cooling, but rather just the visual effect of a computer submersed in a liquid that looks like water. Id sure love to see this done again with distilled water, perhaps I will give it a go. Soooo..... Does this mean, if I spill conductive liquid (like coffee) onto my keyboard, I can flush it out with distilled water and reduce my chances of a short? I tell ya what, ill try that over the next couple of days (I have maybe 20 old keyboards) then again, keyboards are made in a way that gives them a little protection from conductive liquids. hmmm, anyway, ill try a few different devices, ill see how a hair dryer copes with 'real distilled water"

[Nyxius]

Pure water doesn't conduct electricity. In nuclear subs they uses the conductivity of the water in the cooling loops as a measure of how pure the water is.

[theawesomeninja]

Yes, pure distilled (and deionized) water doesn't conduct electricity very well. Note "deionized". Also, pouring in distilled water into your keyboard filled with coffee is a bad idea because the ions in the coffee would then dissolve in the distilled water, so then you ended up with a lot more ionized liquid and a fried keyboard

[Nyxius]

If you unplug your keyboard, you can wash it in a dishwasher w/o soap. Just make sure it is very dry before plugging back in.

[shortw]

I take my keyboard, printer and even my cell phone to the kitchen sink and use the sprayer. I have done it many times without any problems.
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.

[pfred2]

Pfft, when I worked assembling printed circuit boards we'd run all the boards we made through a dishwasher to get the water soluble flux left by our wave soldering machine off of the boards. Maytag!

[theawesomeninja]

I still don't recommend it....repeated washing with tap water may build deposits from salts in tap water. Unless your tap water is desalinated/deionized, I still wound't recommend using this for your high-end gaming keyboard.

[joshka89]

Mineral oil gets warm. That's because it absorbs heat well.
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.

[omnibot]

I just submerged my home server in oil (rapeseed oil) and I read somewhere that some people had to replace burnt out fans. My solution was to break off about half the fanblades, the fan spins nicely, the oil is circulating well and any vibrations from the unbalanced fans seem to be absorbed by the oils. Works well so far.

[StickStoneBone]

His computer has been running for 3+ years with no issues. Oil dispenses heat easier than water, simple science, and Distilled Water would quickly become ionized, then microscopic metallic bits would integrate, then your computer would fry. This has been discussed many times already on this Instructable.

[luposays]

mineral oil is the same substance used to insulate as well as disapate heat in high voltage electrical transformers as well.

[hippyrob]

Is this useful to protect against dust accumulation? Would this system usually have an external radiator and/or heat sink? Do HDD's really have holes in them?
(Am I being ignorant in asking these questions?)

[joshka89]

A really good mod for this is to create a small reservoir outside the case and attach it with 2 80mm hoses to the main case.
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.

[1badgt]

just wandaring how does the motherboard work when its submerged? wouldnt it short cercuit????

[alhowell13]

No actually the mineral oil would the bus of the motherboard tranport data quicker

[glj12]

Read about mineral oil, and you will see why it does not. It is a lubricant, and does not conduct electricity.

[pbates123]

Oil has been used as an insulator and heat transfer solution by transformer manufactures that make Mega Transformers the size of a small houses down to smaller units, those seen on power poles for years. Unfortunately older transformers used oils that contained PCB's to improve the transfer and isolation characteristics. PCB's are known to cause cancer. Often after transformers have been hit by lightening the oil is simply filtered to reconstitute its ability to insulate. Filtering removes metal and carbon particles.

[jf78]

Awesome instructable. I have a Xbox 360 Elite console that RROD'ed on me due to over heating. I'm going to try this and see how it works... I will post back on the results.

[laef92]

This is brilliant, I will definitely be making my own now. Thanks for the instructable, it's set my imagination running and I've got some killer ideas for improvements and fun stuff. You guys rock!

[quantumkittty]

i might not know much, but i think this may help. thought of it when someguy posted his idea. as far as i know, by my pyromaniacal ways, copper works pretty well. especially a hollow tube. he could use aluminum for the lid (great heat-sink when working with copper), but put a copper tube with a sealed end (the sealed end into the water) so that the air when heated up inside the tube is let out and colder air is pulled in due the the vacuum left behind. this may maintain a cooler environment inside because the copper REALLY likes to steal heat.

[ntrider1991]

i am wondering if you ever considered lighting strike and than the computer starting on fire  because mineral oil is

Combustible

so there could be a possible fire if that should happen
best to keep out side
it should work fine outside until -10F

[JamesRPatrick]

Um, oil has to be vaporized to ignite.

[darkknight671]

Huh? Really? If lightning strikes my house, the last thing I am going to be worried about is the stupid computer...

[jakerox43]

Mineral oil is combustible in the sense that you can make an oil lamp out of it. But it's not gasoline: if you drop a match in it, the match will go out. 

[glj12]

 What? No.

[theawesomeninja]

What? yeah! you can't ignite (liquid) gasoline by dropping a match in it either.

[Ahmedqatar]

I think there will be a problem when the temperature go very high!!

[darkknight671]

The idea with the oil is to disperse the heat so that the temperature does not get very high... If the temperature inside the oil is a problem, then don't even try to run a PC in the open air - POOF! Talk about a problem...

[paulpropst]

I have an idea that might make this even better to look at while helping cooling.  Put a large aquarium air pump next to this thing and use that to drive several submerged airstones, or maybe...one of those aquarium decorations that has an old fashioned deep sea diver and a pirate chest with the lid bouncing up and down with the bubbles.  Also a small (laptop) format harddrive would be nice and quiet and couls be concealed in a sign on the top that says "Caution...diver below!"

[darkknight671]

Also, introducing air into the tank (via an airstone) would also add some degree of water (from humidity in the air) - that's why the tank is sealed to begin with.

[Vadimk]

Air stones have bean tried and they made almost no difference, and caused some of the oil to escape as a mist.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php

[some_guy89]

To keep the oil cooler, you may want to instead make the lid out of some sort of metal and some how attach some fins to it that reach down into the oil. This will help conduct some of the heat out of the oil as the glass or plexi-glass works as an insulator to keep the heat in.

[jacob5680]

Some day, when I have some cash to spare, an empty tank, and if Wal-Mart sells oil, I shall do this. :] I love the second last picture. A very crystalline look.

[DartTHX1138]

I have a few small questions. 1. Do the CD and/or DVD drives work? 2. If you could somehow put an air tube going to the hard drive, could you put it inside?

[Vadimk]

You can seal off the HDD if you like, the hole is there to equalize pressure so as long as you don't change altitude (It would take a 1000ft or more to be a problem) it will work just fine.

CD/DVD drives won't work in the oil because of the drag (they wouldn't be able to get the disk up to speed) and besids wy would you whant your disk coverd in oil.


It would probably be worth wile to get a smaller power supply and a thinner tank so that it is a bit lighter, then maby a small oil cooler, if you mount the cooler above the tank you won't even need a pump, hot (less dense) liquids rise  (thermosiphon).

[fredricksburgthethird]

in off roading vehicles use a snorkel to prevent the engine from flooding with water, I'm sure this is possible!

[ntrider1991]

also the tank could break being outside in temperature like -10 but most places dont get that cold anymore

[muberblob]

i used an 2 year old dell since the casing was crap, i figured why not

[roystonlodge]

 How about replacing the hard drive with a Compact Flash - to - IDE adapter and a CF Card?  That would eliminate the hard drive noise.

[jj.inc]

 I am definatly going to do this now all I need is a computer I can lose. 
 I wonder if you could use it as a heater or set up some kind of cooling thing.

[nicobot]

pero dejate de joder boludo, como le vas a hechar aceite mineral ahi, dios, no tenes nada ke hacer , ademas hacete esta pregunta: si le tenes ke poner un hardrware como haces? jajajjaj, dedicate a otra cosa flaco

[sparten]

i will build one my self i love this thing. perhaps not heat sinks not fans smaller power supply add some led effects, use a separate water pump to circulate the oil to a cooler or radiator and return it to the solution. also i will build a purpose built enclosure custom fit to the unit and reduce overall amount of oil. this has some potential. wounder how hot i can run the cpu? overclock the sucker. hmm many ideas flowing now. thanks for this instruction able. warren

[superbogus]

Hi. I have soo many questions: Are the fans connected in the PSU and the CPU cooler? Can they spin in that oil? Why you didn't get rid of them? Does the PC still work? The PCB's didn't get softened and deformed? Thank you for your answers!

[Hycro]

Some PSU's require a fan just to run whether or not it's actually cooling the PSU.

[glj12]

The fans are connected, yes. One fan has died over time, but they were merely for show/fun - they serve zero purpose. The PC (server, rather) still works to this day, and has been on for 24/7 since, ummm... the beginning of 07. Nothing softened or deformed - they're made to withstand this type of material. And no problem :D

[superbogus]

Man, this is a way underrated instructable.

[glj12]

Aww, thanks!

[dodo91]

what would I need a lot of minutes for?

[w0ot!]

No offense man, but your video left a lot to be desired. Aside from not being able to see what was supposedly going on on the screen, that loud music was annoying. 17 (0u|d 83 7h47 1'm 0|d 7h0u6h...

[glj12]

Yeah, the video wasn't that good. I expected that one could read the tutorial and comprehend it, though. ;)