You Monitor - Computer Setup

Specs? Yours is the first mineral oil computer that looks like it could have half decent hardware.

It died a few months ago. Specs were i7 860, 8gb ram, 2x HD5850, 120gb SSD, 2x1Tb Raid O, 3x Dell 2408WFP.

How did it die, if you don't mind me asking?

It actually works with kitchen oil as well, I think, though not as effectively. Don't quote me on this though.

The deal with kitchen oil is that it goes bad after a while. Mineral oil doesn't end up stinking.

I see. It does seem to get inside your cables in horror story-like fashion though. Guess kitchen oil would do the same but stinking

Yeah... for me, in theory mineral oil cooled PC's are awesome! In reality though it is such a hassle.

Yeah, they look really cool, but damn what a mess if say you have 4 sticks of RAM and a single one dies. Plus the whole thing with reacting to PVC, etc.

Oh I guess that would make sense because it isn't conductive. I was just joking about how he fried his computer by mistakenly deep-frying it :P

I know, I found it funny, just decided to woosh myself :V

Power supply took a crap. Caps on GPUs failed too I think.

Unlucky, how long did it work for?

Mobo, ram, cpu lasted about a 1.5 years. PSU lasted about 2.5 (plus it was used before submersion for about 1.5 years). GPU's were only about 9 months old.

Wow, that sucks man. I'm sorry for your loss.

What is it, a family member?

I tried to take my PS3 into the office for bring your daughter to work day once.

Judging by the nature of oil PC's, and by the "don't ever do this at home," my money is on catastrophic leakage.

Original seals on bulkhead unions to radiators were PVC. They failed. Original mobo had PVC beneath the mobo and the bottom of the caps. They swelled and started popping caps off the mobo. The fans on the GPU had PVC in them, it swelled and killed the fans. The tubing was PVC, it got hard and brittle. Oil wicked through the DVI cables and started dripping out of my monitors. One of the corners of the tank had a small leak.

Capillary effect can do some weird shit.

Yep. I walked by my desk one day and noticed a reflective spot on the a monitor stand. It was oil. I ended up putting a little container there to catch it.

About as bad as the Volkswagen cars where the coolant would wick down the coolant tank sensor wiring and make it all the way to the tail light bulb wiring! Thankfully, never happened to me and it was a problem quite a while back but...

I've heard from other people who've tried this that it would mess with PVC but damn. That's pretty nuts.

Yep. I recall someone on bit-tech forums who put copper pipes in his floor when the foundation was being poured at his new home. It was for the purpose of water cooling.

Whoa, where can i read this?

When my cousin was building his first house he had an entire network of tubing behind the house for hvac. In the winter the fluid was heated with electricity. In the summer the depth of the tubing under ground (maybe 6ft?) kept the fluid cool, taking the place of an A/C compressor. The are they dug up was maybe 15'x30'.

Ignoring the obvious "catastrophic leakage" joke, if I ever decide to try this I'm going to have it sitting in a tub or something where the oil can drain away safely in case that occurred.

Oil + PVC tub = leak fest. PVC does not react well to oil.

Buying more parts are we? cheeky bugger

I'm sorry for your loss.

I wonder how much the oil dampens the sound coming off the computer.

I'm fairly certain that mineral oil rigs are completely silent.

Nope. The oil still needs to be cooled. I had 2 radiators with 3 fans each. They were nice quiet fans though.

Yo dawg I heard you like coolants so I added a coolant for your coolant so you can cool while you cool

This is sweet, if you have any sort of build log or anything of the sort showing how you put this all together and set it up I'd love to see it.

Mind blowing man, great job on this. I would be so afraid of leaks

It was a constant source of anxiety for almost 2 years. I'm normally a pretty relaxed person, not much worries me. But let me tell you, having a 7 gallon oil tank in your bedroom will make you worry.

Ruining carpet, furniture and the floor and whatever's beneath the floor.

I would have assumed the oil-out would be warmer than the oil-in. Why is yours the other way around?

It's probably measuring oil into and out of the radiator

Correct, I had temp sensors on the inlet and outlet for the rads.

Because that's for the rad box, most like.

Can someone explain this? Is the oil cooling the components then?

Depends completely on the architecture of the CPU and the ambient room temperature/climate of where the OP lives.

He's idling with ambient temp at 35ºC. That's a 2 degree difference mate.

37c may seem hot, but it probably doesn't change much at idle vs full load because there is a much larger thermal mass

Not for the heat output of a CPU, but the CPU is small. We're talking about the temp of the entire volume of the PC box minus the components.

Mineral oil doesn't conduct electricity. So you can pour it all over circuitry with causing problems. If you submerge a PC in it, and pump in cold oil, you can ridiculously low temps. The fans even still work, they move slower due to the added "wind" resistance, but the still push the heat around as designed.

Oil gets very viscous at low temps and can freeze (a la butter). If you want to do something like this, I recommend ethanol or kerosene. Keep sparks away though.

Lol. I think that would be a bit of a hazard to have a gallons of ethanol in a tank inside your home. That shit catches on fire really easy.

Extravagant way to avoid having to dust your fans.

There were still fans and they still collected dust. I still don't understand why people think it's fanless.

Could you have eliminated the radiator fans by using a tower radiator (ie, pump to top, let flow down 3-5ft pipes exposed to room temp)?

It takes a large setup to remove 200-500W of heat passively.

Looks very nice. What are you load temps?

Yeah, I really want to know about a million things. Fucking awesome.

Who is your supplier? I've had a machine sitting in an aquarium for more than a year but have not found a supplier of mineral oil without impurities.

I worked at Duke Energy when I made it; as a perk I was allowed to take home 10 gallons of Shell Diala AX oil. It's about 99.9% mineral oil with 0.1% added flame retardants. It smells awful. I would recommend just using 100% pure mineral oil to anyone so inclined.

So what happens when you need to replace something?

My room and hands smell for a week. Shit is impossible to wash out.

I didn't know people actually use .tif's

That is the most impressive piece of hardwarde I've ever seen.

Why is the oil going in warmer than the oil coming out?

No shit, haha now I feel dumb.

I remember watching you build this on the forums, Almost forgot about it, man what a beauty!

This looks like the messiest computer ever. Note to self: never get one, I will encounter catastrophic failure.

I wish I knew how to do cool things like this with my comp. I would pay someone to make it and teach me how to do it, but then I feel like it's not authentic. It'd be like owning a really nice car and not knowing how to change the oil.

So can u fry some pommes with that ?

Mineral oil is a laxative. Bad idea ;)

Nice build, what monitors do you use?

2 were 2408WFPs, the other was a 2407WFP (which looks identical, just had a different set of inputs.)

How heavy is that thing? I've considered doing this before but I tend to move my computer around sometimes and I wouldn't want to have to lift a 40-50 lb box whenever I do...

Wow, well be careful with that thing if you ever need to move it!

Is this essentially baby oil?

Yes. Baby oil usually has fragrances though.

You can find cleaner stuff if you go to your local pharmacy I believe (no additives). Unfortunately you have to buy it in small quantities, cooking stores will have it too since you use the same stuff to seal / maintain wooden cutting boards / tools.

I don't understand how oil works in cooling your computer and also how it doesn't destroy your computer. I'd love any information on this and why would you use oil instead of a fan?

It doesn't conduct electricity so it won't destroy the computer. The oil works to cool the computer the same way air does, there is a pump to carry warm oil out of the case to a radiator (which has fans to cool it), then circulate the cooled oil back into the case.

Okay thanks, yeah I had a quick search online to see what I could find. Seems a little excessive and dangerous to me but I don't really have the money to risk a gaming setup turning into a fishtank.

Yeah, it's not really worth the effort and money for the most part.

I can confirm that. Don't ever do this.

I hear this every time. I'd only ever do it if I had a completely separate computer and it was just a side project for fun.

This is how to do a mineral oil submersion RIGHT.

All your posters are awesome, sir. the computer is looking like a sexy devil as well.

Question: When really overclocking it, can you cook fries in your computer?

Aah, I guess this is why.

What model Eheim pump is that?

Good pump, did you have any problems with vibration in the system?

I had it mounted to a piece of neoprene.

Up-vote for the V for Vendetta poster!!!

Can you briefly tell me the differences, possible advantages/disadvantages of an Oil Cooled pc? I'm guessing it's also more costly.

Nice rig man. I noticed you monitor its V/Watts...how many does it pull?

In a mineral oil cooled PC, you should not put the fans in the solution, as they will only create heat.

Goopy mess or....spend $50 on a cpu cooler and some fans...lols

It's a novelty, dammit. Let the man enjoy his things!

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