Mineral oil submerged pc?

[DukeOvilla]

I recently heard of this, and did some google-ing. Apparently, Mineral oil absorbs heat 10 time better than air, and is non conductive so you can operate most electronics inside of it. Furthermore, it does not evaporate, and it does not suffer from weird growths and bacteria like an open loop water cooled system eventually would. You just drop your mobo, psu, and GPU inside an aquarium filled with mineral oil. You'd have to do some custom work and hook up a radiator to circulate the oil, because it would get hot eventually. But it's so quiet, and requires no cleaning. It's just a mess to upgrade. As I understand, it's highly recommended to use higher quality parts, like the "military quality" type of stuff. Cheaper mobos may have some issues with the capacitors. All the testimonies I've read are very positive. Everything goes in except your HDD & DVD drive.

Has anyone dabbled in this before?

 

[christop]

Imagine trying to move it ever. I have seen a few vids of pc in oil. I would not go that route.

 

[DukeOvilla]

Yeah, thing must weigh a tun. But according to Puget Systems, a company that made a computer like this, the temps on an I7 overclocked to 4.9 was MAX 50c. But the thing is it takes an hour to heat up, and about half that to cool down.

Pretty good temps.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, people have done it. There are several build descriptions online.
But it is not as simple as "You just drop your mobo, psu, and GPU inside an aquarium filled with mineral oil."

Because mineral oil is far more viscous than air, some people have reported experiencing localized hotspots, where the oil isn't circulating. For instance under the CPU.
Also, you still need to remove the heat. A couple hours into operation, the entire tank will be at the same high temp.
With a regular system, you are literally using the whole room (or house) as a heat sink. With the aquarium, you need to remove the heat from that.

Further, there have been issues with the oil creeping, via capillary action, up any cables that lead out of the oil pool.

There are other issues as well.

Is it worth the hassle? For me...not a chance.
It might be a fun hobby project, though.

 

[Buzz247]

Done it - a couple times actually. It was a fun "let's see what happens and if it works" venture - but impractical for everyday use. I also did this many years ago before I had the advantage of geek community access on forums - so very trial n error.

The first one I did was inside of any aquarium. Actually used ehiem aquarium pumps to eliminate dead spots (the whole idea for me was born off of my 125g saltwater, 75g salt, and 55g freshwater tanks lol) Discovered the operational equilibirum issue, and hooked up to a small industrial grade heat exchanger. Worked well - messy as hell

Next attempt - Built inside of a dorm fridge fully sealed. Cool as hell but dorm fridge compressor failed - not designed to take constant load.

Next attempt - combo of heat exchanger, tore apart a dorm fridge and just dropped coils into the oil, inside a coleman cooler. Discovered heat exchanger was working against coils. compressor failed - again

Next attempt - TEC fridge - the kind made for cars - worked great until the power unit and wires burned up from the load LMAO

Next attempt - said screw it and went watercooling LMAO

Oil is great for short term use of the PC. Oil is better than air for thermal capacity, yes. Water is FAR better than oil though. Cool project - impractical though. taught me some great lessons

 

[DukeOvilla]

Yeah, I figured it was impractical. It only provides temps a couple degrees C lower than a nice open loop system. Costs about the same as well.

I think, that in the future I'll try something along these lines, I'll come up with a super case for it.

 

[Buzz247]

BTW - your mention of growth in an open loop - easily avoided - drop a silver kill coil in the res, tube something - problem solved - no growth - and use distilled water. It's not nearly as vile as you think

 

[DukeOvilla]

I'll defiantly try that!