Oil cooled PC?

Gnome

Gnome

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K so I know there was a thread about this a while ago, PC that's cooled by oil.

Related to this website: http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php

My question is has anyone actually done it yet because I'm in the planning stages now, and I'm definitely going for it...

My mom's a vet so I can get the oil for cost price and my friend used to be into fishes and stuff so he's gonna help me build the fish tank (we're building it out of glass, thicker than usual just in case).

The reason I ask is I'm not entirely sure about a few details, I'd love for the CPU and GPU to run without a heatsink (so you can look at the chip through the glass) but not sure exactly how quickly heat moves in oil.

So anyone else done it or going for it?

Input appreciated...
 
I'm thinking of doing it with my old Athlon 2400, but time and cash not on my side right now. Something that also worries me about the concept is that after a couple of hours of continues operating the oil temperature is going to becoming higher and higher and I think the surface air alone is not going to be enough to cool down the oil as oil keeps it heat well. Then maybe one could add an oil cooler but then you need a pump and fans.

Don't take my word for it but i think one would get away by not using the heatsinks in the oil.

found this on wikipedia: mineral oil
Mineral oil is used in a variety of industrial/mechanical capacities as a non-conductive lubricant. Refined mineral oil is used as transformer oil. Electric space heaters sometimes use it as a heat-transfer oil, and it can be used generically as a coolant in electric components as it does not conduct electricity.

Because it does not absorb water from the air, mineral oil can be used as an automotive, aviation, and bicycle brake fluid.

Light mineral oil is also used in textile industries and used as a jute batching oil.
Click to expand...
 
mineral oil works really well for heat transfer (as stated above) so for normal use the pc should be ok, though i'd recommend using the heat sinks anyway initially, check your temps and then remove them and compare your temps... just so you dont end up busting your cpu/gpu.

if you checked the graphs on the link and read on a bit you'd see that they had very high temps after a while and they wouldnt come down, which is why they started using a water cooling system for the oil. also, i think there should be a fair difference between using a perspex/plastic tank and a glass tank. dont know which would be more effective though.

what would affect heat dispersion the most would be how much the oil is circulated around the tank. initially that would keep your system running cooler but after a while it would be the same as it would've if you had not circulated the oil. so the best idea here would be to buy a cheap oil cooler. i've thought about just the idea of using an old water cooling system' pump and radiator but then realised that you need the cooling fluid and the mineral oil wont work nearly as well... and i also dont think adding a tiny cpu waterblock would make much of a difference.
 
The heat will transfer fast enough afaik.

The type of oil also matters...some kinds have metal impurities in them which will be a problem.

This is not a long-term solution....you'll run into various kinds of trouble after a while. (Oil gets rancid, Oil absorbs metal particles etc).

You won't be able to replace anything in the PC easily.
 
how would you go about transporting your pc, say to a friends house or lan?

seems messy...
 
There is a few big problems with this concept and that is probably why people do not do it. Why else would such an old idea not be popular.
 
maybe one could use the thing for deep frying fish & chips while you are benchmarking?
 
To make this worth it you should get radiators and oc the **** out of it
 
HavocXphere said:
The heat will transfer fast enough afaik.

The type of oil also matters...some kinds have metal impurities in them which will be a problem.

This is not a long-term solution....you'll run into various kinds of trouble after a while. (Oil gets rancid, Oil absorbs metal particles etc).

You won't be able to replace anything in the PC easily.
Click to expand...

Well my mom can get me some Mineral Oil (used a laxative for animals) which is what I'll be using so it going rancid I don't think is a issue (the website I linked to used that for more than a year with no problems) and I'll be sealing it when it's all ready and good to go, but I'll likely incorporate a radiator and maybe for fun I'll try make a type of oil filter to use.

Was considering using automotive oil but it's quite thick, even 5w30 which I use on my car is still very heavy and it's expensive, I won't even mention how thick 20W50 is (cheapo stuff).

Keeper said:
how would you go about transporting your pc, say to a friends house or lan?

seems messy...
Click to expand...

Hmm, I'm using my current PC for the oil PC and will be building a new PC but I don't much move my PC save for LAN's.

devlin said:
There is a few big problems with this concept and that is probably why people do not do it. Why else would such an old idea not be popular.
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Hmm, because it's more complicated than your average setup but apart from that I don't see the problem, this method is used with transformers (which coincidentally use Mineral Oil). But if you know of a potential problem please mention it!

HavocXphere said:
It doesn't work. Some site tried that and it shorted out after a few seconds. They ended up using that 3M liquid used for watercooling.
Click to expand...

Tomshardware used it, didn't work, they used water 99.9% pure H2O still caused problems, their explanation (or theory really) was that even though it doesn't conduct it changes the capacitive properties of the circuit.

Ghost02 said:
To make this worth it you should get radiators and oc the **** out of it
Click to expand...

My goal is silent or near silent operation, it's goal I've been trying to accomplish for quite a while using different methods but this is the first time I'll be trying this method, so yeah clockspeed is not my goal but I'll definitely be trying radiators.

On that topic, I'm not sure if I'll be making a completely custom setup as in use radiators that came of cars or just buy a computer kit used for water cooling when the time comes I'll see what is cheapest (home made probably) and how well it works.

Also the hardware I'll be using on the system is:

AMD 6000+ AM2
Asus M2N32 Sli-Deluxe Wireless Edition
Super Talent 1GB CL4-4-3-8 DDRII-800 RAM x2
AOpen Prima Power 700W PSU.
Geforce 8800GTS 320MB

These are the components that will actually be submerged.

I'll initially test the setup using a Intel Pentuim 3 1Ghz lying around so if that goes well I'll put the above system in.

My only concern is that all the people so far that have used Mineral Oil complain that the cables go all hard on them (doesn't seem like a good sign).

And nay sayers say that it might damage certain types of caps although the setups I've seen online don't seem to have any problem after running for more than a year. If anyone has input on that topic (that's actually helpful) please share ;)
 
I did mine using transformer oil, you can get it at any place that sells oil cooled welding machines. Had to fit a cooling block in order to circulate the oil, the block gets mounted outside with a copper heat sink attached. Would not recommend this for your “normal” pc, as changing parts gets messy. Also remember not to mount your HDD in the oil as it covers the hole that says DO NOT COVER…LOL.
 
DDV TECH said:
I did mine using transformer oil, you can get it at any place that sells oil cooled welding machines. Had to fit a cooling block in order to circulate the oil, the block gets mounted outside with a copper heat sink attached. Would not recommend this for your “normal” pc, as changing parts gets messy. Also remember not to mount your HDD in the oil as it covers the hole that says DO NOT COVER…LOL.
Click to expand...

Cool thanks for the info! I was going to try and phone a transformer wholesales (like the huge type not the standard ones) to get some of that oil.

And yeah I know about the hard-drives, got some pics of a guy who put a WD Raptor in oil, end result: HD go bye bye. Had scrape marks on the platter caused by the reading head.
 
Also remember to fit a breather, you can get them from the welding shops also, as the heated oil builds up pressure in the enclosure, also try and get some all silicone cables it helps with the heat of the oil. I used bare copper, with spreaders for insulation on my power connections, but silicone should also work.
 
DDV TECH said:
Also remember to fit a breather, you can get them from the welding shops also, as the heated oil builds up pressure in the enclosure, also try and get some all silicone cables it helps with the heat of the oil. I used bare copper, with spreaders for insulation on my power connections, but silicone should also work.
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks for the info!
 
Well when you do use the radiator just check how far you can push the clock speed for interest sake and post pics
 
Ghost02 said:
Well when you do use the radiator just check how far you can push the clock speed for interest sake and post pics
Click to expand...

Yeah I'll definitely try but I doubt I'll be getting great results, my CPU doesn't really seem to want to go much higher (which is pretty much expected with the 6000+ I hear).

And yeah I'll be taking lots of pics of everything, from construction right till the end :D
 
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