Mineral Oil Submerged Computer

[Bluvertigo]

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

[Quicksilver]

Whooaa!!
Wouldn't have thought it possible!!
Thanks for the link BV.

[BillD]

The whole problem for that system, is the use of minerl oil, and no external cooling. Mineral oil wouldn't extract heat as well as water, and the tank would hold all the heat in. Note the 8 hours to return to idle baseline temp.

[Mouse]

True enough.

Without outside influences, it just becomes a big heat sink, with a finite saturation point.

[Ken_ver_1_5]

thats just strange.

[Thaiwoo]

Just imagine sending in the MB under warranty and have oil dripping off it when they company receives it. Ahhmmm... Don't know what happened here.

[Mouse]

I wonder if anyone has tried mounting the PC's parts into the bottom of an old-fashioned ice box.

Dry ice up above would keep that puppy cold!!!

[Aristera]

Dry ice, liquid nitrogen, it has been tried

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IVSgtskg5sE&mode=related&search=

[mreda]

The whole problem for that system, is the use of minerl oil, and no external cooling. Mineral oil wouldn't extract heat as well as water, and the tank would hold all the heat in. Note the 8 hours to return to idle baseline temp.

A while back I saw some tests showing mineral oil as a great cooling method. IIRC it took 24 hours of intense processing to raise the temp of the oil high enough to be a concern.
Most people do not put that much load on their processor.

If you did want to you could add a small radiator, fan and an electric pump to the system to ensure proper cooling under intense load.

To help keep temps lower I'd suggest keeping the power supply out of the oil as they tend to run a bit warm.

[Steven]

So if you've got the PS out of the tank, put the radiator behind the PS exhaust fan... Bam 2 solutions.

[mreda]

The fan on the P/S wouldn't produce enough CFM to cool down the rad.

Having worked at car dealerships I've seen a lot of simple and readily available parts for water/oil cooling.
If you require a small radiator for water cooling you could easily use a "heater core" from almost any vehicle. Most looks like small radiators (5" x 7").

And as a pump many vehicles have a secondary/electric water pump that helps the car cool down after shutting it off. That could easily work in a water cooling application.

[Mouse]

Mount the rad horizontal, and let convection work for you.

Might not need a fan, or have it come on with demand.

[Steven]

Would be better than no fan at all. And would certainly make it usable far past 12 hours. Who says you need to use the stock PS fan anyway?

[batkinson001]

regardless, bare pc parts running in a vat of liquid is just cool. they should come up with water-proof components, and make those standard. expensive it may be but cost effective in the event of a disaster (fire sprinklers going off at work or a flood or something), would be good for water cooled systems that go bad or spring a leak. kindof a bit of a rambling but still this is cool.

[mreda]

Mount the rad horizontal, and let convection work for you.

Might not need a fan, or have it come on with demand.

Why go fan-less when you can buy a cheap 120mm fan for a few dollars at any computer shop. If you feel like it you can potentiometer to control the fans speed.