Too cool to be True, Mineral Oil Submerged PC!

[IcY18]

The guys over at Puget Custom Computers thought it would be cool to do a good looking oil submerged computer. Needless to say the thing looks damn cool. They even show how well, or bad, it cools the hardware. Just imagine the look on someone's face to see bubbles floating by your motherboard graphics card in an Aquarium!

Run a simple loop to a radiator and you could keep temps at a much more respectable number.

Talk about an HTPC that could sit in your living room.
Run a simple loop to a radiator and you could keep temps at good level.

Mineral Oil Submerged Computer

 

[picho]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/09/strip_out_the_fans/

edit: I see they gave the same link. The aquarium is a nice touch as is the submerged power supply. eSata is a nice way to handle the HDD issue, although I think a SSD approach would have been even cooler.

 

[IcY18]

Many projects used vegetable oil, which would go rancid after a short time. The mineral oil does not have this problem, and is completely clear. We also wanted to use an appropriate enclosure -- the Toms Hardware system used a clear acrylic case, and they had to painstakingly seal each rear connector to keep the oil from leaking. We wanted to put the ports on top to solve that problem the simple way. Other people have built systems in aquariums before, but they were always oversized and square.

Did you even read it, because its pretty obvious how much cooler and simpler and cheaper this system would be. Also the Tom's one doesn't have the psu submerged, Puget's does!

edit: You edited yours after i said this!

 

[tool_462]

The should put the bubble bar under the Freezer 7 Pro and let it go up through the fins, or below the GPU and the Freezer 7.

 

[bobloadmire]

i have been thinking about this for a while. what would be nice is to take off the backside of the tank, and put in a copper sheet with fins on both sides to dissipate heat. i have been wanting to do this, but i need that copper sheet.

 

[apt403]

Well, if mineral oil is good enough for cooling high power transformers I guess it's good enough for PCs. Mineral oil seems much more appropriate for cooling a pc then vegetable oil.

The oil makes such a freakin' mess of everything though, once a component if in there, it's in there. I would hate to have to clean that psu for use in different, non-submerged, computer. The only way I can think of doing it would be to unplug it, make sure all the caps are discharged, take the cover off, and submerge it in a bath tub full a water to get all the oil out. Drying it would be a nightmare, even a little leftover moisture could kill it.

 

[Dade_0182]

the cleaning bit as basically why I wouldn't do it to start with. It looks real cool and is a great idea but the effort of cleaning those when the time comes really would annoy me. Trading out parts to look for a problem would be a b!tch...

 

[tool_462]

Besides that, the temps sucked

 

[Dade_0182]

I'd rather take normal watercooling or hows about putting an element in there to cool the oil off. It's not like the cold air will cause moisture coz the thing is submerged anyhow...

 

[IcY18]

Yeah obviously because the water was not circulating at all. Like bobloadmire said you could do some copper heatsink on the backside or like i said earlier and like it was said in the article you could run a simple loop in a radiator to keep the temps down.

The point is not for performance but for the look, you could if you wanted to submerged an your old computer that you don't mind cause you already have your new one for games. So when it came time to replace the parts in the tank you would just want to throw the old ones away cause they would be so outdated. An HTPC doesn't take much to run and could easily run off some old parts and just think of all the looks and questions you'll get when people ask if thats a PC in an Aquarium.

 

[Littlius]

Besides that, the temps sucked

hey, you tried oil submerged and the temps were bad?