Mineral Oil submerged pc?

michaelp · 20 May 2012 at 20:30

Soo.... I figured this goes into water cooling if not I am sorry.

So somehow I ended up in the strange parts of youtube and came across this creation

a computer submerged in mineral oil... Now it looks extremely cool but looks ridiculously stupid.

Anyone come across this before?

RJC · 20 May 2012 at 20:32

michaelp said:
Anyone come across this before?

Yep, I think it was Toms hardware done one a few years ago.

Cleeecooo · 20 May 2012 at 20:36

RJC said:
Yep, I think it was Toms hardware done one a few years ago.

same. It's a waste of time and money...

michaelp · 20 May 2012 at 20:52

I think I would only get one of these if i did have the money to burn and wanted to be a show off haha

scrlk · 20 May 2012 at 20:59

michaelp said:
I think I would only get one of these if i did have the money to burn and wanted to be a show off haha

In that case I'd cool it with Fluorinert or Novtec.

Orcvader · 20 May 2012 at 21:03

A friend of mine also did it as a school project based off another oil submerged PC, and what he found was the oil was building up heat over time. So if you don't have a way to cool off the oil, it's a waste of time.

I also remember reading an article a few years back of a professional company doing it, where they redesigned the entire motherboard layout to take advantage of the oil. Can't remember the company though...

michaelp · 20 May 2012 at 21:12

what he found was the oil was building up heat over time. So if you don't have a way to cool off the oil, it's a waste of time.

But how quickly does heat build up? since turning it off would surely solve that problem. Also doesn't it depend on the oil you use?

Either way I thought it was cool just wanted to know more about it

jamesfreddie · 20 May 2012 at 22:06

michaelp · 20 May 2012 at 22:09

I was just watching a case review by that guy he kinda annoys me a little not sure why

opstrat · 20 May 2012 at 22:22

this was a better attempt by intel on the amari system

Tattysnuc · 21 May 2012 at 16:44

There are lots of problems with the mineral oil PC - one of which is that the oil causes the capacitors on the motherboard to ultimately degrade (I think it was to do with there being rubber seals on the caps). It looked like a great proof of concept, to show that it could be done, but other than that it wasn't particularly practical.

This was one version that I'm aware of:

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=163649

Orcvader · 21 May 2012 at 17:00

opstrat said:
this was a better attempt by intel on the amari system

Oh god I forgot about that one! Yet I was there taking pictures of it :rolleyes:

.

As for the heat building up, it takes quite a few hours to build up, so no problem under normal usage. And it cools off over night. But he loves leaving his PCs on 24/7... He chucked it away after the project was marked anyway, it was mostly using second hand parts.

EDIT: Found the company I was talking about, looks like they've updated the system, seems the original was back in 2008. The site looks so plain compared to back then... http://www.hardcorecomputer.com/desktops/rx/index.html. Review here: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/hardcorepc_reactor?page=0,0

Tattysnuc · 21 May 2012 at 18:05

That's a lovely looking design. Really appreciate the craftmanship that's gone into that case

Orcvader said:
Oh god I forgot about that one! Yet I was there taking pictures of it .

As for the heat building up, it takes quite a few hours to build up, so no problem under normal usage. And it cools off over night. But he loves leaving his PCs on 24/7... He chucked it away after the project was marked anyway, it was mostly using second hand parts.

EDIT: Found the company I was talking about, looks like they've updated the system, seems the original was back in 2008. The site looks so plain compared to back then... http://www.hardcorecomputer.com/desktops/rx/index.html. Review here: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/hardcorepc_reactor?page=0,0